A defining day is Minneapolis history, Bloody Friday–July 20, 1934–saw police shoot into massed pickets during the epic strike of Teamsters Local 574 in which nearly seventy were shot and two workers, John Belor and Henry Ness, were murdered. 100,000 people would attend their funerals. A report from the strikers’ daily newspaper.

‘Workers’ Blood is Shed on Minneapolis Streets!’ from The Organizer. Vol. 1 No. 9. July 21, 1934.

The blood of workers ran freely in the streets of Minneapolis yesterday.

They were shot down and wounded by the uniformed thugs commanded by Police Chief Michael Johannes, by Johannes the Murderer, in the name of the city administration and at the behest of its master, the Citizens Alliance.

Forty-eight sons of the working class were mowed down by shot guns in the hands of police.

They were shot down though they were defenseless and unarmed, like animals in a trap.

They were shot in the back by base cowards who dared not look them in the face.

It was no battle that took place on Third Street North yesterday. It was a massacre. A cunningly conceived, diabolically planned and cold-bloodedly executed massacre.

A Cold Blooded Provocation

On Thursday, the Citizens Alliance met at the Radisson Hotel. The thorough manner in which the striking members of Local 574 had closed down the market, had driven the employers desperate. It was decided to lay a trap and provoke a blood-bath. It was from that source that Johannes received his orders.

On the same day, at 2 P.M., Johannes ordered a turnout of his police. That day’s Tribune reported him as saying: “We’re going to start moving goods. Don’t take a beating. You have shotguns and you know how to use them. When we are finished with this convoy there will be other goods to move.”

Twenty-four hours later the wholesale district echoed the clatter of shotguns, rifles and automatic pistols fired by dozens of police who had caught a group of workers in a trap.

A trap–that’s what it was! Look at the photographs reproduced in this morning’s edition of the Minneapolis Tribune. In the scab truck which was being escorted by the heavy police convoy, can be seen only a half-dozen small cartons. There was no serious effort being made to move large loads of goods. The truck was only a decoy to draw picketing workers into a murderers’ trap.

Look again at the photographs. In one of them, a handful of pickets is to be seen in their cruising truck. From all sides, the police are rushing down upon them. Police car doors are opening up to emit a devil’s spawn armed with shotguns. Their murderous weapons are aimed at the strikers from every angle, and the next moment the muzzles belch a fusillade of shot.

The workers are completely unarmed and helpless. They do not have a rifle among them; not a gun; not a club; not a stick.

But oh, these lions of men, these heroes of the working class! They do not falter for an instant. Not for a second do they hesitate, even in face of the overwhelmingly superior force that confronts them, that shoots into their ranks without a word of warning. Their stout hearts beating with a magnificent courage, they face the enemy unflinchingly and seek to stop the scab truck sent out to rob them, to rob their wives and children, of the miserable crusts of bread which are their lot.

Read the first reports in the press. Not the last reports, after the prostituted newspapers had had the opportunity to doctor them up, but the first fresh accounts of the massacre. Not the last reports, which apologetically invent the lies that the men were warned off, that the police first fired into the air, and then on to the sidewalk. Read the first reports which tell how the police savagely fired into the ranks of the men as soon as they appeared on the scene.

Yes, read the first reports. Read them though you turn sick and faint at the horrifying regularity with which the words. “Shot in the back” appear after the name of victim upon victim. Read, workingmen and workingwomen, until every word is burned into your memory, so that you may never forget the sadistic cruelty of the exploiters of labor, the abominable brutality of their mercenaries–and the deathless courage of labor’s sons.

Read–and bear in mind that workers were shot down like dogs in cold blood. That they were shot in the back when they sought to escape. That they were shot in the legs so that they could not escape. That as they lay face to the ground, they were kicked and shot at again by the Pride of Minneapolis, the Defenders of Law and Order, the Uniformed Protectors of Profit.

Look again at the photographs. See the crumpled, riddled bodies of two strikers on the floor of their truck, while all around them stand blue-coated monsters with shotguns. On the floor of their truck, from which they had never descended. They were shot down where they stood, before they could lift a finger in action.

They never had a chance.

But these are men! These are lion-hearted! The first detachment quivers and falls under the withering fire of the police. Then, to the aid of their fallen brothers, from the ranks of other strikers and workers sympathetic with their cause, comes a second wave rolling right into the jaws of the shotguns. But they too must give way before the murderous fire.

How proud the police must be of their triumph! And haven’t they cause to be? Was it not with ease that they mowed down the strikers–these dozens of police, armed with dozens of shotguns and pistols? Didn’t they do a better job than ever before in the history of Minneapolis? Haven’t they made the name of their chief ring throughout the land? Didn’t they crush the criminals who were armed only with bare fists?

The Crime of the Strikers

For criminals they are, these strikers. They have committed the greatest crime known to our modern society. They have stood up, these impudent slaves, and demanded wages that will enable them to live like human beings. They have demanded hours of labor that will permit them a little rest and recreation, a few more years of life. They have demanded recognition of their elementary organizations of defense against cruel exploitation: the workingman’s union.

Is this not a crime? And for this crime, which has already produced thousands of heroes and martyrs throughout the world, many famous and many nameless, the workers must be punished. They must be taught their lesson. The vipers’ nest of the Citizens Alliance, of the Law and Order League, has commanded it. The command has been obeyed with powder and shot.

Yes, butchers and assassins, the workers have learned a lesson, but not the one you thought to teach them. They have learned only to tighten their ranks, to link their powerful arms together more firmly, to clench their teeth and march more resolutely towards their goal.

The shot you fired into their defenseless bodies has not broken them, as you thought it would. It has only toughened them, steeled them–not for tomorrow’s massacres, but for tomorrow’s battles. They will not permit themselves to be massacred.

You thought you would shoot Local 574 into oblivion. But you only succeeded in making 574 a battlecry on the lips of every self-respecting working man and working-woman in Minneapolis.

You thought you would separate the rank and file from their leaders. You only succeeded in cementing the bond that holds them together in an efficient fighting army.

You thought you would alienate the labor movement from 574. You only succeeded in rallying every section of the labor movement to our cause, in bringing one Union endorsement of our fight after another, in having one Union after another put its men and resources at our disposal.

You thought you would create an antagonism between 574 and the rest of the workingmen of Minneapolis, that you would frighten them away with your despicable “red scare.” But last night 15,000 men and women roared their condemnation of your dastardly attack, roared their endorsement of 574’s militant fight. Their voices will echo and re-echo throughout the city.

You thought you would cut us to pieces with your shot- guns. But you only succeeded in having the whole labor movement forge an iron shield of protection around us.

You thought to intimidate us with your bullets. But you only aroused the anger and indignation of every honest workingman, you showed him more clearly than ever that this is not merely the fight of 574, but the fight of the whole labor movement.

Workers! Speak Out in Protest

And now the stalwart battalions of Minneapolis labor will speak out as they have never spoken before.

Every labor Union will speak in unmistakable terms of condemnation of the Bloody Friday provoked by Bloody Johannes and his masters. Every labor Union will express in unmistakable terms its solidarity and support of Fighting 574. Every labor Union will vote not only moral support, but also the sorely needed financial support which will help us to the victory which is a victory for every worker.

Today, they will respond to our appeal that every transportation trade worker stop the wheels from moving as a one-day protest against Friday’s slaughter.

Tomorrow, they will stand in readiness for extending the strike if it becomes necessary, in order that the bosses shall not succeed in crushing 574 as the first step towards crushing the whole labor movement of Minneapolis.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, and until our battle is won, every Union man, every unemployed worker, in the city of Minneapolis, will respond to the urgent call of 574 that EVERYBODY contribute his services on the picket line. Every worker in Minneapolis is expected to serve four hours of picket duty for 574 for the duration of the strike. Such a service is a badge of honor in Minneapolis today.

Every worker will take up the challenge of the Citizens Alliance, and support the fight of 574 which is now in the vanguard of the battle for Unionism.

Every unorganized worker will immediately join the Union of his craft, trade or industry, because–

Now is the time to make Minneapolis a 100 per cent Union town!

The workers will not let the Citizens Alliance smash 574.

Instead, they will smash the reactionary, open-shop conspiracy of the Alliance.

Bowing their heads in admiration for the bravery of the dozens who now lie on hospital cots, they will be inspired by the words of one hero who, fully aware that his death is at hand, has said: “Tell the boys not to give up, to stick it out till they’ve won.”

Local 574 has received its baptism in fire and blood. It emerges from it firmer and more resolute. And now–

It will man the picket lines with workers from every trade in Minneapolis.

It will permit no trucks to be moved–by nobody!

It will not capitulate and surrender. It will fight doggedly till it wins.

It will help make Minneapolis a Union town, a fitter place for workingmen to live in.

The blood of its heroes will only nourish the roots of 54 and make it a mighty oak.

Woe to him who tries to cut it down! Woe to the murderers and assassins! For the oak will grow and flourish and triumph over all obstacles!

Union men, fight on!

How Do You Like Having Our Minneapolis Streets in Control of Murderers?

Yesterday’s daily newspapers contained a big advertisement with the blood-and-thunder title:

“How Do You Like Having Our Minneapolis Streets in the Control of Communists?”

The advertisement was signed by the stalking horse of the Citizens Alliance, parading like a criminal under the alias of the “Employers Advisory Committee,” which has thousands of dollars to spend for newspaper attacks upon workers who have organized for better conditions, but which hasn’t a penny to offer these workers who demand a moderate increase in wages.

After the slaughter yesterday afternoon, where dozens of workers were the helpless targets for police shotguns, we have the right to demand of every inhabitant:

How do you like having our Minneapolis streets in the control of Murderers?

“Nobody killed yet; nobody hurt.” That is how the advertisement reads, written by the men who at that very moment were meeting in the Hotel Radisson to give Johannes the Murderer his instructions to shoot down the workers without mercy or provocation.

“Nobody killed yet; nobody hurt”–the Citizens Alliance and its thugs have remedied that. The hyenas have claimed their victims.

“A super-government has been set up in Minneapolis by the Communist leaders of the truck drivers”–continues the advertisement.

Yes, a super-government exists in Minneapolis, its REAL government: the Sinister Alliance of Big Business and Banking, which rules the destines of the city, which holds the life and limb of every workingman in its vicious grip, which does not recoil from murder if its sway, its sacred Profits, are endangered.

“Is this still a free country and a free city?” ask these arch-hypocrites.

If you want the answer, ask the men whose bodies you raked with bullet and shot, whom you wounded and crippled, whom you drove to death’s door, whom you jailed. Ask the men at whom you fired so callously for exercising their right to peaceful picketing, their right to live like human beings. They’ll tell you if this is a free city! “Will Minneapolis labor stand for this type of leadership and domination?”

No, you butchers, that is not the question. We want an answer instead to this question:

Will Minneapolis labor stand for the domination of the streets by armed murderers?

The Organizer was the paper of the Minneapolis. Teamsters’ Local 574 (General Drivers and Helpers Union during the 1934 strikes. Those strikes were among the most important of the 1930s and helped to bring about what would become the CIO. Published weekly and daily and edited by labor organizer and Trotskyist militant Farrell Dobbs, and sometimes by James P Cannon, the bulletin provides essential coverage of the strike and its aftermath. Succeeded by the Northwest Organizer in 1935.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/theorganizer/v1n09-a-jul-21-1934-the-org.pdf