Just Because: I forgot!

Yesterday was May Day! My mother would be so disappointed. I was too busy working (see??) at helping Emily move that I completely forgot about May Day.

Who wants a history lesson?

Too bad. You're getting one.

Because my mom is some kind of "dirty commie" we listened to a lot of Woody Guthrie when I was a kid. I remember the first time I heard the song "1913 massacre." Heart wrenching. I grew up in a pro (PRO PRO PRO) union household. My husband and I can't talk about it. He works management for a union company. I will be honest, the people at his work really take advantage of the system. I feel bad for the red tape he has to overcome. But I am still very much pro union. Anyway, he told me if I ever joined a union he would divorce me. I said "well at least I have a way out."

1913 Massacre--Woody Guthrie

Take a trip with me in 1913,
To Calumet, Michigan, in the copper country.
I will take you to a place called Italian Hall,
Where the miners are having their big Christmas ball.

I will take you in a door and up a high stairs,
Singing and dancing is heard everywhere,
I will let you shake hands with the people you see,
And watch the kids dance around the big Christmas tree.

You ask about work and you ask about pay,
They'll tell you they make less than a dollar a day,
Working the copper claims, risking their lives,
So it's fun to spend Christmas with children and wives.

There's talking and laughing and songs in the air,
And the spirit of Christmas is there everywhere,
Before you know it you're friends with us all,
And you're dancing around and around in the hall.

Well a little girl sits down by the Christmas tree lights,
To play the piano so you gotta keep quiet,
To hear all this fun you would not realize,
That the copper boss' thug men are milling outside.

The copper boss' thugs stuck their heads in the door,
One of them yelled and he screamed, "there's a fire,"
A lady she hollered, "there's no such a thing.
Keep on with your party, there's no such thing."

A few people rushed and it was only a few,
"It's just the thugs and the scabs fooling you,"
A man grabbed his daughter and carried her down,
But the thugs held the door and he could not get out.

And then others followed, a hundred or more,
But most everybody remained on the floor,
The gun thugs they laughed at their murderous joke,
While the children were smothered on the stairs by the door.

Such a terrible sight I never did see,
We carried our children back up to their tree,
The scabs outside still laughed at their spree,
And the children that died there were seventy-three.

The piano played a slow funeral tune,
And the town was lit up by a cold Christmas moon,
The parents they cried and the miners they moaned,
"See what your greed for money has done."

I know. True story.

Just to iterate that this is a global phenomenon, one more story.

Santa Maria Massacre

1907, Chilean nitrate miners begin to descend on the town of Inquique in protest. By the end of the week, there are 5000 miners and their families camped out. They are housed in the Santa Maria Inquique school. Bowing to pressure from mining companies and monetary interest, the Chilean government tells their general to disperse the strikers by any means necessary.December 21, soldiers begin firing indiscriminately on the crowd. Officially, only a few hundred died (only?). In 2007 nearly 2500 bodies were found in a mass grave near the site. Some estimates put the death toll as high as 3600.

Nitrate is used for explosives and ammunition. They were killed with their own product.

What is it with killing people at Christmas??

Anyway, please please be thankful that you do not have to go through that. The struggle of laborers, particularly miners, should never have to be repeated.

Chilean miners in the town of Inquique, the same day of the massacre.