As the article says, Haywood was a keen observer. On his way to Europe, he stops by the Call offices to report on stirrings among the previously servile miners of Michigan’s copper region, singing the praises of the work of Finnish Socialists in the change. Three years after this, one of U.S. labor’s most dramatic strikes sweep the Keweenaw mines.

‘Big Bill Talks of Mine Life’ from The New York Call. Vol. 3 No. 234. August 18, 1910.

“Undesirable Citizen” Gives Some of His Impressions of Copper and Iron Miners in Michigan.

Big Bill Haywood, the original “undesirable citizen” dropped into the office of The Call Tuesday night to say good-bye, prior to sailing for Copenhagen as a delegate to the international Socialist congress.

Big Bill, Lena Morrow Lewis, and May Wood Simons sailed at 9 o’clock yesterday morning on the Lusitania.

Big Bill dropped into a chair, and in his off-hand, easy-going way talked of some of his experiences and observations on his recent trip, which I carried him from one end of this country to the other and up into Canada.

Haywood looked his best yesterday. As he sprawled in his chair he seemed to typify the men who delve the bowels of the earth. He is ponderous of physique. His mind was keen; his wit was sparkling. His eye grasps everything within range of his vision. Big Bill Haywood is one of the keenest observers in the American labor movement. Of the many vital things with which he came in contact he spoke most freely about three or four.

“The Socialist organization,” Haywood said, “is not keeping abreast with the growth of Socialist sentiment in any part of the country, that is my observation.”

“On my trip I visited the copper and iron regions in Michigan. A remarkable condition prevails in the copper country. The miners are, as a general rule, servile in spirit. The company is everything–a sort of a stepfather to them. For years they have known nothing except to look to the company for everything. Large numbers of them have never drawn any pay for their labor, their wages having been eaten up by charges at the company’s store. The company owns their homes, the schools, the churches. libraries–everything. A sort of industrial feudalism in midst of capitalism prevails on the upper peninsula of Michigan.

“But the men are awakening to the need of industrial organization. This awakening is largely due to the Finns among them, the majority of whom are Socialists. They conduct a paper, Tyomis, which is very influential. They own their own meeting halls and carry on a constant campaign of propaganda, the results of which are being felt among the other nationalities, as the Finnish Socialists devote much time and money to the distribution of literature in English, Italian and several languages other than their own. And they likewise take an active interest in the industrial organization of the workers, which in that locality is represented by the Western Federation of Miners.”

Speaking of the mines located in Houghton and Kewanee counties, he said that they have been worked since 1843. The Calumet and Hecla is the greatest dividend paying mine in all the world.

“In these mines,” he continued, “are to be found a cosmopolitan people representing more than thirty nationalities, speaking as many different tongues and having as many different racial prejudices. The difficulty of organizing them can be readily understood. The concrete signs of awakening among them are at present confined to the tireless work of the Finns. They co-operate. They work in harmony. Their plans are well thought out.”

“What of the conditions in the iron belt in Michigan?” he was asked. “Practically the same conditions prevail in the lower part of the upper peninsula, where the greatest deposits of iron on the continent have been discovered and are being exploited by the United States Steel Corporation. The Steel Trust practically owns the iron belt. The work of organizing the iron miners is greatly handicapped by the opposition of this great corporation. The avowed intention of the steel trust is to prevent organization in any line of this great industry, as is shown by the means they resort to disrupt the Amalgamated Sheet Iron and Tin Workers in Pennsylvania, the lake seamen and all other branches of labor that come in opposition to the trust.

Discussing the strike of coal miners in Illinois, Haywood said that in all his experiences he had never seen a more distressing sight than these helpless men wasting the days waiting for a settlement. “They seem to have no other purpose,” he said, “than to try to starve the companies into submission, while the operators are laughing up their sleeves, knowing that they have the whip hand whenever the workers refuse or neglect to use their political power.

“The miners themselves,” Haywood concluded, “are of a progressive spirit, but they are tangled up in a mass of red tape.”

Big Bill just came up from Texas, where he spoke at a number of Socialist encampments, which he declared were rousing successes and great inspiration. Many persons drove and tramped great distances to spend two or three days at these encampments, combining quest for pleasure with search for knowledge.

The New York Call was the first English-language Socialist daily paper in New York City and the second in the US after the Chicago Daily Socialist. The paper was the center of the Socialist Party and under the influence of Morris Hillquit, Charles Ervin, Julius Gerber, and William Butscher. The paper was opposed to World War One, and, unsurprising given the era’s fluidity, ambivalent on the Russian Revolution even after the expulsion of the SP’s Left Wing. The paper is an invaluable resource for information on the city’s workers movement and history and one of the most important papers in the history of US socialism. The paper ran from 1908 until 1923.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/the-new-york-call/1910/100818-newyorkcall-v03n230.pdf