Globe, our copper town--very much a Union town in its early history. We should remember that. In 1917, two Globe men played important roles in its union story: George W.P. Hunt, Arizonas Territorial Governor. And Frank Little, labor organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World, the IWW. Hunt came to Globe as a young man looking for work, riding into the copper camp on a donkey. He found work as a mucker at the Old Dominion mine. He also worked on a cattle ranch, historians say. Not glamorous work for the old walrus, as he called himself. He became a store clerk, then worked with the Old Dominion Commercial store. Became a mans man, meeting important and rich political leaders who saw him as someone who was ambitious, aggressive, eager to learn, someone who knew how to wheel and deal too. He rose to become our Territorial Governor. ..always called Globe his home, and returned to Globe while away from state duties in Phoenix. At the state capitol and at home: defending the union men, the copper miner. Frank Little, labor organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World, the IWW. Always a man surrounded by controversy, suspicion, full of labor talk & new ways of looking at free speech & always questioned political decisions that favored the rich and not the workers. He lived in Globe in 1916-17, bringing his IWW rhetoric with him, trying to convince miners to join the IWW, and to think of new ways to look at what was looming ahead for America: World War I & whether it was good for America, this war. Copper was needed for the war effort. There was talk of a labor strike at the Old Dominion mine in 1917, and it was believed that the IWW was behind the labor unrest in Globe...Frank Little was already in Butte, Montana in the summer of 1917, speaking out against the war. Governor Hunt was called upon by President Woodrow Wilson to act as his personal representative to consider preventing a strike at the Old Dominion, to act as a labor mediator. And Hunt did just that. Frank Little, however, was considered too much of a labor agitator, an un-American, an unwanted agitator. Anti IWW men found him in Butte, beat him, and lynched him. Would that have happened in Globe? Its a possibility. --labor historians continue to write and study the history of labor unionism in Globes early history and about this copper strike of 1917 at the Old Dominion mine. And songs and legends continue to be heard and repeated and written about Frank Little and the IWW. And Globes place in that labor history remains front and center. --something to think about...........
Posted on: Sun, 12 Oct 2014 03:02:39 +0000
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