of that dispatch so will be the impression these 30,000,000 persons will receive and the opinion they will form and pass along to others. If you Here is the most tremendous engine for Power that ever existed in this world. can conceive all the Power ever wielded by the great autocrats of history, by the Alexanders, Cæsars, Tamburlaines, Kubla Khans and Napoleons, to be massed together into one vast unit of Power, even this would be less than the Power now wielded by the Associated Press. Because thought is the ultimate force in the world, and here you have an engine that causes 30,000,000 minds to have the same thought at the same moment, and nothing on earth can equal the force thus generated. Well-informed men know that the great Controlling Interests have secured most of the other sources and engines of Power. They own or control most of the newspapers, most of the magazines, most of the pulpits, all of the politicians and most of the public men. We are asked to believe that they do not own or control the Associated Press, by far the most desirable and potent of these engines. We are asked to believe that the character and wording of the dispatches upon which depends so much public opinion is never influenced in behalf of the Controlling Interests. We are asked to believe that Interests that have absorbed all other such agencies for their benefit have overlooked this, the most useful and valuable of all. We are even asked to believe that, although the Associated Press is a mutual concern, owned by the newspapers, and although these newspapers that own it are in turn owned by the Controlling Interests, the Controlling Interests do not own, control or influence the Associated Press, which goes its immaculate way, furnishing impartial and unbiased news to the partial and biased journals that own it. That is to say that when you buy a house you do not buy its foundations. You may like to bear these matters in mind as you peruse the following dispatches of the Associated Press concerning the strike at Calumet and compare them with the facts developed by investigation and in most cases substantiated by a mass of affidavits. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. CALUMET, Mich., July 24. -Disregarding orders of the Western Federation of Miners against violence, many of the 15,000 striking miners of the copper belt to-day created enough disturbances to result in THE FACTS. There had been no violence and no disturbance that in any degree justified the calling out of troops. At this time the strike was barely twentyfour hours old, and there had been no attempt to As printed in the Washington Post. the ordering out of troops. By to-morrow night there will be nearly 2,400 state soldiers, including cavalry and artillery, in the mining district of the Upper Peninsula. operate any mine; consequently nothing had happened of the nature that usually provokes violence at strikes. As a matter of fact, before the strike began the militia had been arranged for and was called out for the purposes of the copper companies. This is the first great strike in years to which soldiers have been called on the first day and before any need had been shown for their presence. The fact that they were so quickly mobilized in this instance is conclusive evidence that their coming was pre-arranged; it is even said that special trains for their conveyance were made ready by the railroad companies before the men had left the mines. No evidence existed that the sheriff was unable to control the situation with the means ordinarily at his command. A vast number of independent witnesses have sworn that the miners were perfectly quiet. Most of the strikers were Finns, who are known to be among the most peaceable and orderly of all peoples. Yet within twenty-four hours the region was overrun with soldiers and great guns had been planted commanding villages as placid as any in a valley of New England. The indecent haste of the governor thus caused the miners to believe that the state was in league with and the tool of the copper companies. But the news that the troops had been summoned, as conveyed in the dispatch quoted above, impressed the whole country with the idea at the very outset of the story that violence was rife and the miners were dangerous characters. When the mine managers contemptuously refused to make any answer to the miners' complaints they knew well enough that they were insuring a strike and began to prepare for it. They arranged in advance for detachments of so-called armed guards supplied by so-called detective agencies, the guards being in fact chiefly gunmen and gangsters from the slums of great cities. About 1,200 of these were hrought to the district and in utter defiance of the law of the state were sworn in as deputy sheriffs. From recruits in the neighborhood about 400 were added. All were armed with rifles, revolvers and clubs. There were now in the district 4,000 heavily armed men, supplied with artillery, to watch 13,000 men that had no weapons. · Many of the armed guards have since sworn that when it was found that the strikers were absolutely peaceable and quiet instructions were given to the guards to " start something.' They were told to break up processions, to keep strikers from using the highways and to shoot any person that spoke to them; all this with the manifest purpose of provoking disorder. Many times they were assured that they were expected to use the rifles that had been given to them, and if any trouble followed from such use the sheriff would protect them. CALUMET, Mich., July 29. No organized disorder took place to-day, but there were several complaints from non-union men that threats had been made against them, and at least two members of the local militia company were warned that reprisals would follow a continuance of their military activities. One received an anonymous letter, and the widowed mother of the other was called upon by several men, who told her that she might expect trouble for her son unless he deserted his company. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS.† CALUMET, Mich., Aug. 14. One striking copper miner was killed and two deputy sheriffs were wounded to-night in the THE FACTS. This despatch bears its own comment. The affidavits show that far worse threats were made to men to induce them to go back to work, but the Associated Press never reported any of these. THE AFFIDAVITS. These three despatches refer to the same incident, although the casual reader would never suspect this identity. * As printed in the Washington Post. |