meeting. Tomorrow morning at 8 there will be a six-mile march to the Biwabik mine, to try to get the miners there to join the strike.

"At the end of this first meeting Jaakkola proposed that the Finns remain to meet among themselves. To this smaller group Jaakkola explained the urgency of sending out a speaker to visit all the mines of Minnesota and Michigan to urge the men to join the Aurora strikers. It was also proposed that they should appeal to the local socialist units for help. When both proposals were approved Jaakkola asked the Finns if they needed a leader of their own nationality; he himself could not remain with them, but he proposed the names of Risto, Tanner, Heino and, particularly, F. Westerlund. It was voted to request the latter to lead this group of strikers."

10 June: "Today 12 striking Aurora miners plus Arthur Boose, of Duluth, the IWW strike leader and organizer, were arrested. The men arrested were: William Halmi, Louis Palmer, Martin Cacic, Gust Micala, Joseph Grun, Mike Arwy, Charles Seppänen, Arvi Lahtinen, Jack Byra, August Palmer, Sam Parkowitch and R. B. Calokar. They had participated in an organized, orderly march to Biwablk to get the miners there to join the strike. Those arrested are being held at the local jail and will be brought to trial."

11 June: "It has cost $2 heretofore to join the IWW, but as of today the cost has been reduced to $1 so that everyone can join. The managers of local mines have proclaimed that strikers must not step foot on their properties as long as they are on strike. Note, workers of other communities: stay away from Aurora until matters here are settled and the workers' demands fulfilled. Don't come here to destroy your fellow workers' homes, lest your own be destroyed."

12 June: "The 400 miners of Biwabik have joined the strike. It is only a question of time before the strike spreads further."

And, in fact, the strike did spread, from one end of the iron mining region to the other and finally beyond that to other Minnesota mines as well. After it was over, The Literary Digest (23 September 1916) reviewed this as a strike in the most important mining area at a time of greatest production demand, marked by shooting, murder and arrests; a strike with thousands out of work, with IWW fighting a bitter battle without public opinion re-acting to these events; a strike which the local northern Minnesota newspapers had tried to dismiss as a typical example of unorganized workers quitting their jobs and leaving their employers and their communities to fend for themselves; a strike which management, on the other hand, claimed would have been of briefest duration if it had not been directed by expert firebrands from the outside.

The New Republic, attempting to survey the strike impartially, pointed out that it had begun in a small mine but had spread rapidly to cover the whole region, to include a participation which the IWW claimed to be 20,000 men, which responsible town officials stated to be 15,000, and which mine management claimed included but a few thousand men; while the big trade unions were steering clear of the strike, immigrant workers were being drawn into the IWW, and management was counter-attacking by recruiting a temporary police force, wherever possible, which amounted, according to Sheriff Meining, to about 1,000 men.

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