forbidden to come near the mines, and trespassers were arrested in droves, although the union's lawyers managed to get arrested pickets set free rather fast.

Meanwhile, as soon as the strike had started, the employers began to use workers brought in from the outside, most of them from outside the mining area. According to Sulkanen, "All the way from cities in the East they brought in Serbs, Greeks, Bulgarians and Montenegrians, who were astonished that the Finns were quibbling when they were receiving almost $2.00 a day in the mines, and were given more bread and meat than they had even been able to dream of in the mountains of Montenegro." 13 One Finn who had arrived at Eveleth in 1902 and had moved to Sparta in 1904 has stated in a WPA interview that during the few weeks of the strike as many Montenegrians came to the mines as had come previously in as many years. To guarantee these new laborers the right to work, the mines recruited hundreds of temporary guards. At Bovey alone there were said to be 500 of them, and in the area as a whole the regular police were augmented by more than 3,000 guards. Since they were armed, their presence led to several serious incidents. The strike, meanwhile, continued its course, and the workers out on strike spent their time in frequent, long drawn-out meetings, where the proceedings were translated into four or five different languages - or they played horseshoes.

When work stopped, so did the workers' wages. Since most laborers had found it almost impossible to build any reserve of savings, the threat of hunger soon faced many families. It was impossible to find any other jobs, because their possibilities as immigrants who knew no English excluded them, and also because for the most part these Finns were living in communities where the mines offered the only employment. The relief funds of the union were also limited, for much of the money that was available to the union was being kept in reserve for a court trial in Idaho, where three officials of the union were being tried for the murder of the governor of that state; in addition to that, the strike had started prematurely, and finally, the number requiring aid was very great. Attempts were made, however, to use the limited funds as effectively as possible, and so Petriella, for example, who was directing the strike activities in Hibbing from an office on Pine Avenue, arrived one day early in August to Mt. Iron, where, it had been announced, relief money was to be

13. Sulkanen, op. cit.

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