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THIS WEEK IN PEOPLE’S HISTORY, MAR 26 – APR 1
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_ Unions Set Back by Troops (1904), A Century of Young People's
Concerts (1924), Brazilian Fascists Get the Nod (1964), Freedom on the
Slow Road (1799), Big Money in Bananas (1899), Good Trouble on Stage
(1949), Agrarian Communism 'Way Back When (1649) _
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_MINERS' UNIONS SET BACK BY MILITARY MIGHT_
120 YEARS AGO, on March 26, 1904, the Governor and the Attorney
General of Colorado announced they would deport all non-resident labor
organizers working in the state's southeastern coalfieLd. The
deportations, which were carried out over the following three weeks,
were part of one of the most flagrantly and violently repressive
union-busting periods, which lasted seven months, in U.S. history.
The plan to arrest and deport union organizers from Colorado's
southeastern coalfield came four months after an epic confrontation
between Colorado mineworkers and mine owners began. At first, November
1903, the center of action was among the Western Federation of Miners
members in Cripple Creek and Colorado City, about 100 miles north of
the coalfield, where Colorado's governor deployed a large body of
troops prevent the success of a strike by protecting scabs. The
martial-law like occupation of the mining district prevented the
strike from resulting in violence, until two managers were killed by a
bomb in a mine office. After the November bombing, the violence seemed
to escalate; two months later, 15 scabs were killed by the
never-explained malfunction of a mine elevator.
The widespread assumption that the strikers had sabotaged the elevator
set the stage for the Governor's decision to deport labor organizers
from the nearby coalfield two months later. After the deportations
took place the coal miners' strike fizzled out. Within three months,
the Governor and the mine owners throughout the state could enjoy the
feeling that the threat of union power had been put to rest for years.
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_A CENTURY OF YOUNG PEOPLE'S CONCERTS_
100 YEARS AGO, on March 27, 1924, the New York Philharmonic orchestra
performed the first of a regular series of Young People's Concerts,
beginning a tradition that still continues. The Philharmonic had done
concerts specifically aimed at young audiences previously, but this
day's concert was the first that was identified as being part of a
regular series. In the century since then, the orchestra has performed
more the 600 YPCs for a cumulative audience of more than 1.4 million.
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_BRAZILIAN FASCISTS GET THE NOD FROM WASHINGTON_
60 YEARS AGO, on March 28, 1964, three days before the Brazilian Army
overthrew João Goulart, the elected civilian President of Brazil,
the U.S. Ambassador to Brazil sent a detailed, top-secret description
of the forthcoming coup to the top brass in Washington. The recipients
included the Secretaries of State and Defense, the head of the CIA,
the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the head of the
National Security Council in the White House.
According to the Ambassador, "[president] Goulart is now definitely
engaged on campaign to seize dictatorial power, accepting the active
collaboration of the Brazilian Communist Party, and of other radical
left revolutionaries to this end. .... [But there is developing] a
military resistance group [to Goulart] under the leadership of Gen.
Humberto Castello Branco ....[who is] a highly competent, discreet,
honest, and deeply respected officer who has strong loyalty to legal
and constitutional principles .... Unlike the many previous
anti-Goulart coup groups who have approached us during the past two
and one half years, the Castello Branco movement shows prospects of
wide support and competent leadership. If [U.S.] influence is to be
brought to bear to help avert a major disaster here ,,, this is where
both I and all my senior advisors believe our support should be
placed."
The coup that the ambassador was advocating took place three days
later. Less than a day after that, U.S. President Johnson sent his
"warmest wishes" to the coup-makers, who established a military
dictatorship that last more than 20 years.
The new military junta presided over a 21-year reign of terror
directed at progressives, labor unions, and anyone who was brave
enough to publicly oppose violent repression. Uncounted people were
imprisoned and/or tortured by the junta as documented in Brasil: Nunca
Mais, published in English as Torture in Brazil, which documents more
than 17,000 victims of imprisonment, torture, and/or murder at the
hands of the military. The documented total is only a fraction of
the repression's true extent. In 1990 an unmarked mass grave of more
than a thousand victims was discovered in Sao Paulo.
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_TWO CHEERS (MAYBE) FOR THE NY STATE LEGISLATURE_
225 YEARS AGO, on March 29, 1799, New York State passed a law that
abolished slavery in the state, but only gradually. As of that day,
any person born to an enslaved mother was NOT enslaved, but WAS an
indentured servant until the age of 28 (for men) and 25 (for women),
at which time such a servant became entirely free. Hardly anyone
gained their freedom in that manner, because the state completely
abolished slavery (at last) in July 1827.
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_BIG MONEY IN BANANAS_
125 YEARS AGO, on March 30, 1899, the United Fruit Company was formed
from the merger of two giant U.S.-based banana trading companies. It
is no exaggeration to say that from Day One the company's business
model was to maximize profits by using every opportunity to utilize
racism, union-busting, financial chicanery, fraud, bribery and
violence. From the point of view of United Fruit's stockholders and
managers, it achieved enormous success, chalking up at least
hundreds of millions of dollars profit in its first five decades of
operation. From the point of view of anyone who did not share in its
profits, it was what would now be called a thoroughly corrupt,
racketeer-influenced enterprise. And a vicious one at that.
United Fruit, which at one time employed hundreds of thousands of
workers in 13 countries (many of which were described as "banana
republics), divided its workers along racial and linguistic lines in
order to pit one group of workers against another and thereby better
exploit them. It successfully fought every effort of its employees to
form honest, independent, labor organizations. It kept infamously
false business records. It bribed every government official it needed
to. It stole uncounted acres of land by fraud. It employed a small
army of thugs and murderers to enforce company policy. When necessary,
it enforced policy by enlisting the assistance of the U.S. armed
forces and the Central Intelligence Agency and/or the police and armed
forces of the countries it operated in.
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_MAKING GOOD TROUBLE ON STAGE_
75 YEARS AGO, on March 31, 1949, the opera "Troubled Island," by
William Grant Still was performed for the first time, by New York City
Opera. It was the first opera composed by a Black musician and
produced by a major U.S. opera company. The opera's libretto was
started by Langston Hughes and completed by Verna Arvey.
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_AGRARIAN COMMUNISM, 'WAY BACK WHEN_
275 YEARS AGO, on April 1, 1649, when England had already been in
political and social turmoil for seven years, The Levellers, one of
the newly emerged political tendencies, published a widely distributed
pamphlet titled "The True Levellers' Standard Advanced." The pamphlet
was a detailed description of the Levellers' program, which was to
promote democracy, equal rights and agrarian communism, that is, the
community's collective ownership of all agricultural land.
The pamphlet was the work of a community of Levellers who were
already communally farming a large tract of what had been unused land,
some 15 miles from central London. The Levellers' effort to both
demonstrate and publicize how agrarian communism worked received
widespread support among proletarian Londoners. Not to mention the
violent hostility of England's powerful land-owning nobility.
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