Strikes and activity across the state as Frank Little helps in organizing the metal miners of Arizona with the bosses responding the success of the I.W.W. with the Bisbee Deportation that summer.

‘I.W.W. Spreading Rapidly in Arizona’ by A Miner from Solidarity. Vol. 8 No. 373. March 3, 1917.

Mining Camps Everywhere Lining Up Members in Metal Miners Industrial Union No. 800.

(Special to Solidarity) Miami, Ariz, Feb, 20. I am using this means to let the membership know that the metal mining industry has made great progress in organizing the miners of Arizona during the past few months.

Bisbee is moving right along and the branch is taking in about 75 every week, besides the membership transferred from the recruiting local. Delegates have been at work and meeting with unheard of success, so it can readily be seen that Bisbee branch of 800 is getting into fine shape. Local 106, I.W.M.M. (formerly known as the Western Federation of Miners) is a thing of the past, and the I.W.W. meets in their hall as it is the best location at present,

Headquarters for the Metal Miners’ Industrial Union 800, have been established at Phoenix, with Grover H. Perry as sec’y- treas. pro tem. We have been loading him up with work so heavily since he was installed, that he has had no time to write the facts regarding the organization work throughout the state. He is being kept busy all day and a greater part of the night with the work of the union.

The Globe-Miami district has been moving along faster and better than any of us ever dreamed was possible. Executive Board Member F.H. Little is acting as organizer with the help of Pedro Coria, who is signing up the Latin-speaking races. There are also numerous delegates working throughout the district and they are all calling for more dues books and stamps. Meetings have been the talk of the district for the past month and we find that our hall is not large enough to hold all who wish to be present. As usual the old-time conservatives (members of the former W.F. of M.) are raising the cry that we are breaking down their god (the old, worthless union). As a matter of fact their “pie cards” are failing rapidly.

Jerome is building up a strong and substantial union and once more the W.F. of M. local is clearly seeing a fast finish there. H.S. McCluskey, an organizer of the W.F. of M. from Denver, is finding that he has come up against a stone wall. He does not see why he cannot get the fellow workers to fall for his line of bunk and sign up with the old concern. “Believe me, there is a reason.” The workers have awakened down here and want to forge ahead, and they know that their only salvation lies in joining the I.W.W. John L. Donnelly has been “gum-shoeing” throughout the state posing as an I.W.W. so that he could get facts regarding what the I.W.W. is doing. Another of his pastimes has been trying to stop the I.W.W. from getting meeting places in the various camps of the state. Good luck to John L. and good-bye “your strongest contributors, the miners, who are rapidly leaving anything connected with the Arizona State Federation of Labor.

In all camps throughout the state we have delegates working who are signing up members daily and forwarding records to headquarters at Phoenix. Ray, Superior, Hayden, Winkleman, Johnson, Tombstone, Christmas, and others are lining up rapidly.

The “Radicals Groupe” of Miami met with the I.W.W. and “the Wage Workers Defense League” was formed. Officers were elected and a collection taken up for present needs. Meetings of protest will be held from time to time as the need demands and boys, let me tell you that these fellow workers are “live ones.” All of the several speaking nationalities of this camp were represented and welded together for mutual protection and progressive work.

The most widely read of I.W.W. newspapers, Solidarity was published by the Industrial Workers of the World from 1909 until 1917. First produced in New Castle, Pennsylvania, and born during the McKees Rocks strike, Solidarity later moved to Cleveland, Ohio until 1917 then spent its last months in Chicago. With a circulation of around 12,000 and a readership many times that, Solidarity was instrumental in defining the Wobbly world-view at the height of their influence in the working class. It was edited over its life by A.M. Stirton, H.A. Goff, Ben H. Williams, Ralph Chaplin who also provided much of the paper’s color, and others. Like nearly all the left press it fell victim to federal repression in 1917.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/solidarity-iww/1917/v8-w373-mar-03-1917-solidarity.pdf