course, put out strong propaganda for the cause it favored, and on the 29th an article in that paper stated:

"The cost of living has continued to rise, and the rise has been faster than the increase in wages. As a result, workers have felt the pangs of hunger, and their senses tell them that a strike is the only possible solution. This has

been the sequence in every instance, and the IWW is only out to help in the fight against the superior forces of management. That makes the chances for success greater, particularly when the workers join the unions. The owners have their union, too, their annual meetings and conferences. At regular intervals they meet to decide on the pay they will give workers, the length of the working day they want, the price to be set on their products in market. Not only are they organized on a local basis, but they have a big and strong national organization which is ready to help whenever the need arises. For the very same reasons labor ought to organize into big unions, to defend its own rights and to help others. Workers, all of you who are not yet members of a union: join one now. Sawmill and lumber camp workers: join immediately, for on that will depend our strength in the strike battle we

are fighting now."

Before the new year came, many other strikes broke out. In Virginia, six Finns - Peter Johnson, John Lumme, Toivo Mäki, Edward Rosmo, Victor Ruokki and Matti Tuovinen - were arrested on charges of handing out strike broadsides. They were brought to court promptly, and each man was found guilty and fined $7. On the 3rd of January the Päivälehti reported that the number of men on strike in Virginia alone had climbed to 700 and that during the previous night a large number of Finnish lumberjacks had arrived in town. The headline for the article proclaimed, "Forest Workers' Strike Grows Serious."

However, as in the case of the miners, the lumber workers' strike ended within a few weeks, in defeat for the workers. But this strike, so strongly Finnish-supported, had two important consequences. In the first place, membership in the IWW grew significantly, and in the second place, for the Finns involved it meant that many of them, who had already gotten their names on the blacklists at the mines and had then tried to earn their living in the forests, had now travelled to the very end of their possibilities as wage earners. Since no one wanted to return to Finland, there was but one possibility left: to go into the wilderness and to transform it into flourishing farm land, which did take place and which became the greatest contribution of the Finns to Minnesota.

The Anti-Socialist Movement: The involvement of Finnish workers in conflicts with their employers had resulted in a reaction among other Finnish circles. The first public meeting to voice this opposition had been held in February 1908 at Eveleth, Minnesota, with 237 persons present, and in March of the same year a meeting at Mountain Iron resulted in a resolution

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