[L-I] Mine-Mill "Conspiracy" case: expanded March 2, 2004

NOTE BY HUNTER BEAR:

Our Lair of Hunterbear website -- www.hunterbear.org -- is now vast.  It's a
little like the maze of mines at Butte.  If you follow directions you
probably won't get lost -- though it's even happened in our website to me a
time or two -- and I do suggest taking a lunch and a canteen of water just
in case.

The website contains a great deal of stuff on Native rights, radical labor,
civil rights and civil liberties, current issues.  My personal collections
involving the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers and the historic Industrial
Workers of the World are very substantial and contain some now extremely
rare material.

One of my greatest satisfactions at this point is seeing our website
material utilized by a wide variety of genuinely interested folk --
including Natives and civil righters and certainly workers and students and
professors.  For example, contemporary copper workers in the Arizona
setting -- primarily in United Steelworkers since Mine-Mill and USWA merged
in 1967 -- have found my Mine-Mill writings and material of great value in
understanding the roots of their own unionism in metal mining, milling,
smelting and refining.  There are many visitors from Sudbury, Ontario --
long a Mine-Mill citadel. Probably showing my age a little at this point, I
am always surprised at how relatively little many students of today -- and
their professors -- know about the history of American and Canadian Labor
[to say nothing of the labor movement of Mexico.]

The historic -- and infamous -- "Mine-Mill Conspiracy Case" was one a number
of legal attacks brought by the Federal government and the metal mining
bosses against the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers,
especially from the late 1940s deep into the 1960s.  The case should be
known and well studied -- especially in view of the fact that reactionary
elements in both major political parties can certainly be expected to
utilize every nefarious weapon at their command ["conspiracy" doctrines and
everything else] as the class war lines are ever more sharply drawn.

Although still quite young in those days, I knew a number of the Mine-Mill
"conspiracy"  victims. I  learned much from Maurice "Trav" Travis [there is
a substantial page on our website relating to his life and times.]  The last
time I saw Charles Wilson -- an extremely courageous White Southerner
[Alabama] over decades of struggle on behalf of militant labor and civil
rights -- he had set up a large-scale and impressive civil rights speaking
engagement for me under the aegis of the Arizona Mine-Mill Council. [A page
on that is also on our website.]  As I arrived and we shook hands warmly, he
asked "How's Jim?" -- a reference to our good mutual friend and that of Ella
Baker, James Anderson Dombrowski, who with two other officials of the
Southern Conference Educational Fund [for which I had become Field
Organizer] had just been arrested at New Orleans under "sedition" charges
initiated by the Louisiana Un-American Activities Committee, the Mississippi
State Sovereignty Commission, and Mississippi U.S. Senator James O. Eastland
of the U.S. Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. [The case was ultimately
won by Jim et al. in the major U.S. Supreme Court decision, Dombrowski v.
Pfister [1965.]

"Jim's pretty much OK," I replied.  "How are you doing in Tucson with the
Goddamned "conspiracy case?"

Charles Wilson grinned.  "Not bad," he said philosophically.  "Probably a
little better" he went on "than you all are doing in those Deep South
towns."

In another context, I knew Jim Durkin's daughter as a college student.

I  learned a lot from Maurice Travis.  One of the last things he taught a
number of us was how to die with grace and courage.  He passed away in 1985
of extremely debilitating cancer.  In my website page on him, I have this:

"Although the latter portion of his life was increasingly isolated and often
bitterly lonely, Maurice Travis consistently maintained his powerful
commitment to militant and democratic radical unionism and social justice in
general.  And he kept his good humour, high spirits, and great optimism all
the way through.  He died in 1985 at Fremont, California -- an area that he
and his wife Una had come to love deeply.  In one of his final
communications before he succumbed to painful and debilitating illness, he
wrote in conclusion:

"Perhaps [it's] the most beautiful spot in America, under the shadow of
Mount St. Helena and rich in the varied colors of the grape leaves and the
smell of burning grape cuttings.  There is no place like it on the face of
the earth.

Perhaps one day I will return there.  However like the greatest brains that
lived in this century, Albert Einstein, who was an Agnostic, I believe only
that there is a powerful force somewhere in the scramble of stars."

I am very fortunate to be one of a tiny number of people who has a
transcript of Maurice Travis' extensive oral history.  I also have in my
personal possession much other rare Travis material.  "

I am, of course, afflicted with a potentially lethal disease [the worst
variant of Systemic Lupus, or SLE.]  It can hit any time [and has] and it's
now complicated by diabetes.  A few weeks ago, I was beginning to quietly
sink into a kind of depression.  But I dug out that last letter Maurice
Travis had sent to his many friends.  Without an iota of self-pity, he
describes in graphic and specific detail the hideous effects of the ravaging
cancer that was to take him away only a few days later.  I read the letter
to Eldri and the older kids.  "I am fortunate," said I.  And I pulled out of
my completely counter-productive slump.

The "conspiracy doctrine" has been widely recognized by Federal and state
judges, and countless legal scholars, as downright dangerous to every decent
concept of justice. Legendary  Judge Learned Hand saw "great oppression" in
conspiracy indictments.  Here is U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H Jackson
in 1949:

The conspiracy law is . . . "elastic, sprawling and pervasive. . .As a
practical matter, the accused  often is confronted with a hodgepodge of
acts and statements by others which he may never have authorized or intended
or even known about, but which help to persuade the jury of the existence of
the conspiracy itself.  In other words, a conspiracy is often proved by
evidence that is admissible only upon the assumption  that the conspiracy
existed."

http://www.hunterbear.org/Mine-Millconspiracycase.htm
This will show you a now very rare 1948 Mine-Mill pamphlet attacking the
Taft-Hartley Act; and also the late 1960 Mine-Mill defense pamphlet, "The
Mine-Mill Conspiracy Case."

http://www.hunterbear.org/repression.htm
This is a page partly drawn from the long article by John R Salter, Jr
[Hunter Gray] in the October 1960 issue of MAINSTREAM: "IUMM&SW:  The Good,
Tough Fight."  This website page of mine contains notes into relatively
contemporary times.


THE MINE-MILL"CONSPIRACY" THAT WASN'T:
RELENTLESS ATTACKS ON A MILITANT,
DEMOCRATIC  UNION [HUNTER GRAY   2/2/02]  EXPANDED MARCH 2  2004


This now rare Mine-Mill pamphlet -- ca. 1948 -- attacks the viciously
anti-labor Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 as a trap which no bona fide labor
organization should have anything to do with.  The Act. among all of its
other nefarious provisions, required  union officers to sign and file
"non-Communist affidavits."

Although initially, leaders of many United States unions refused to sign --
including Mine-Mill -- their unions were then denied NLRB privileges. lf all
unions had maintained the boycott solidarity that many, including Mine-Mill
[and John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers], vigorously encouraged, the
Taft-Hartley Act would have been effectively undercut.  But, increasingly,
unions "signed"   -- putting those who didn't at an increasingly serious
disadvantage:  the bosses refused to negotiate with non-signing unions and
some unions who signed began vicious raids against those who had not.
Eventually, virtually all unions signed. Mine-Mill finally did so in 1949 in
order to defend the Union.

International Secretary-Treasurer Maurice E. Travis publicly resigned from
the Communist Party in order to sign. A Westerner who had worked in rough
and tumble settings since his teen years,  and son-in-law of the legendary
I.W.W. organizer, A.S. "Sam" Embree, Travis had just lost one eye as the
result of a brutal beating at Bessemer, Alabama by a gang of Klansmen who
were involved on behalf of the rival, right-wing United Steelworkers.
Maurice Travis, who was always very open about his political stance, was a
direct speaking man:

"Since the interest of the International Union is uppermost in my mind, I
have been confronted with the problem of resigning from the Communist Party,
of which I have been a member, in order to make it possible for me to sign
the Taft-Hartley affidavit.  I have decided, with the utmost reluctance and
with a great sense of indignation, to take such a step. . .This has not been
an easy step for me to take.  Membership in the Communist Party has always
meant to me, as a member and officer of the International Union, that I
could be a better trade unionist. . .a call to greater effort in behalf of
the union as a solemn pledge to my fellow members that I would fight for
their interests above all other interests."

Soon after this, in 1950, Mine-Mill was one of the several Left unions
forced out of the CIO -- of which it had been a founder.

And then the attacks upon Mine-Mill mounted with the greatest ferocity:
flowing from the mining bosses and their legions,  right-wing unions -- such
as the Steelworkers; and the Federal government. Mine-Mill fought back --
hard, on all fronts. These attacks -- and Mine-Mill's prolonged and
courageous struggle and its consistently democratic and egalitarian
thos  --   are discussed in the pages that follow.

A major battlefield for the Union was the infamous and blatantly
strike-breaking attack:  the Mine-Mill conspiracy case.

Published in late 1960 by the Mine-Mill Defense Committee, this detailed, 19
page labor defense pamphlet, written by noted American labor reporter and
writer, Sid Lens, carries an introduction by Socialist Party leader Norman
Thomas who wrote, "The issue is not communism but justice."  It also carries
endorsements and substantial statements by several leaders of major AFL-CIO
unions: O.A. Knight, President of Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers; Mike
Quill, President of Transport Workers Union; Frank Rosenblum,
Secretary-Treasurer of Amalgamated Clothing Workers.

A major leader of the American Quakers and the pacifist movement, Stewart
Meacham, also publicly and vigorously supported Mine-Mill.

A slightly earlier [Fall 1960],  much smaller Mine-Mill folded multi-page
defense brochure  -- Conspiracy Against a Union! -- on the same legal crisis
carried an even larger number of support endorsements and brief statements
by top officers of AFL-CIO unions, and the Teamsters.  In addition to the
aforementioned -- O.A. Knight, Mike Quill, Frank Rosenblum -- the smaller
brochure also carried photos and statements by Patrick Gorman [Amalgamated
Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of  North America]; John Burke
[International Brotherhood of Pulp, Sulphite and Paper Mill Workers]; James
Hoffa [International Brotherhood of Teamsters]; A. Phillip Randolph
[Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.]  It was published by the Mine-Mill
Defense Committee.

The smaller brochure listed the Mine-Mill defendants with their respective
years of service to the American labor movement.  The average was about 25
years.

[I personally distributed in various ways about 2,500 copies of Conspiracy
Against a Union! -- as well as many copies of The Mine Mill Conspiracy
Case.]

This big labor defense pamphlet [The Mine Mill Conspiracy Case] was
published as I've indicated in late 1960 by the Mine-Mill Defense Committee
and focuses on this -- one of the heaviest of the mounting Federal legal
attacks against the Union:  the so-called Mine-Mill "conspiracy" case which
began in late 1956.  Targeted were a number of   present and former Union
officials.  They were charged with "conspiracy to defraud the government" in
the matter of signing and filing the non-Communist Taft-Hartley affidavits.
Once brought, the indictments lay dormant for three years.  And then, in one
of the most blatantly strike-breaking U.S. Government moves in history, the
case was brought to trial at the same time the Big Five copper corporations
refused to bargain -- and the great copper strike of 1959-60 began.

With the far-flung copper strike swirling, the so-called Conspiracy Trial
began at Denver on November 2, 1959.  The defendants were Irving Dichter,
Secretary-Treasurer; Vice-President Asbury Howard; Jack Marcotti, Arizona
Regional Director; Executive Board Members Al Skinner and James Allen and
Chase Powers; staff members Harold Sanderson and Charles Wilson and Jesse
Van Camp; and former Secretary-Treasurer Maurice E. Travis and former staff
member James Durkin -- both of whom had  since left the Union.  Attorneys
for Mine-Mill were its general counsel, Nathan Witt -- and also General
Telford Taylor [who had prosecuted at Nuremberg] and George Francis of
Denver.  The men were convicted on December 17, 1959. The great copper
strike was won in January, 1960.  As with all of the other Mine-Mill cases,
the "conspiracy convictions" were appealed.

And, as in all of the other Federal legal attacks on the Union, this one was
eventually won.  In June, 1966, the U.S. Supreme Court threw the case out.

This historic 1960 pamphlet -- widely disseminated by Mine-Mill throughout
and beyond the United States -- was accompanied by a letter from
International President John Clark [who had once driven stage coach in
Arizona Territory in the very early 1900s.]  President Clark summed it up
very well:

"The enclosed pamphlet is the work of one of America's most distinguished
labor writers and reporters, Sidney Lens.  His examination of the Mine-Mill
conspiracy case and of the twelve year history of persecution of this Union
is a great contribution to our fight for justice.
Norman Thomas' introduction to Mr. Lens' pamphlet helps further to expose
the false charges of communism which obscure the real issues in the
unprecedented hounding of a democratic union and its officers by the
departments of government.

The International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers has, during its 67
years of existence, a dramatic record of grassroots, independent, militant
unionism.  Starting as the Western Federation of Miners in 1893, it has
brought decent wages and conditions to tens of thousands of metal miners and
smeltermen in hundreds of company towns in the United States and Canada. Our
officers are elected by secret ballot. Salaries are probably the most modest
in the American labor movement and our union is completely run by the rank
and file members.

The unprecedented legal attack these past years on our union has put a harsh
burden on our modest resources.  Only the generosity and understanding of
wide sections of American labor and liberal individuals has allowed us to
fight back with such determination for complete vindication. . ."  [John
Clark, President]

HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR]
www.hunterbear.org

When you cut to the bone  and cut away the college degrees, academic and
other titles, published books and articles, ours is essentially a working
class and Indian family.  We consistently join unions  -- and we always
support them with the greatest vigor.

It's critical to always keep fighting -- and to always remember that, if one
lives with grace, he/she should be prepared to die with grace.



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