Anaconda Road massacre
On April 21, 1920, during a miners strike in
Strike and massacre
On April 19, 1920, the
The day the strike was called, picketers began blocking roads to mines in the area, including the Anaconda Road. These picketers turned non-striking miners away from the mines. By the second day of the strike, the picketers had succeeded in shutting down nearly all mining in Butte. The same day, a local newspaper called the Butte Daily Bulletin reported that the head of the
That afternoon, a few hundred picketers gathered outside the Anaconda company's Neversweat Mine. The sheriff arrived and apparently attempted to mediate the dispute.[3] However, the Anaconda mine guards opened fire on the picketers, although the reason why the shooting began is unclear. Sixteen miners were hit, and one, Tom Manning, was killed. All were shot in the back as they tried to flee.[1]
Federal troops arrived on the 22nd, ostensibly to prevent further violence.[2] A labor newspaper that wrote about the strike was suppressed.[4] Three weeks later, the strike collapsed completely and the miners returned to work.[1] No one was found guilty as a result of the massacre, despite an inquest into the death of Tom Manning. During the inquest, Anaconda employees testified that a shot had been fired at them from a boarding house across the street, something which residents of the boarding house disputed. Cross-examination of witnesses by union attorneys suggested that the Anaconda employees had received coaching to make their stories align. Anaconda attorneys attempted to undermine their accusers by pointing out that some of the miners had recently immigrated to the United States.[3] In the end, the jury declared that Manning had been killed by a bullet but that the bullet had been fired by unknown persons,[1] and his death is still officially unsolved.[3]
The strike and massacre were the last major labor conflict in the area until the 1934 passage of the
Fictional accounts
See also
- Murder of workers in labor disputes in the United States
References
- ^ ISBN 978-0-252-06569-9.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-295-97129-2.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-56037-236-3.
- ISBN 978-0-252-06964-2.
- ^ Panek, LeRoy Lad (2004). Reading Early Hammett: A Critical Study of the Fiction Prior to 'The Maltese Falcon'. MacFarland & Company. pp. 122.
- ^ Hammett, Dashiell (October 1965). The Novels of Dashiell Hammet. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. p. 7.
- ^ Hammet (1965), p 101.