Portside

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 a 7-month-long stint of one of the most flagrantly and violently repressive union-busting episodes 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 in November 1903. The initial targets were striking 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 National Guard troops to protect strikebreaking scabs. The martial-law like occupation of the mining district prevented deadly strike-related 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 strikers had sabotaged the elevator set the stage for the Governor's decision to deport United Mine Worker organizers from the nearby coalfield two months later. After the deportations took place, the coal 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. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Labor_Wars. 
 

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. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_People%27s_Concerts     

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 [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 lasted more than 20 years.

The 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, 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. https://library.brown.edu/create/modernlatinamerica/chapters/chapter-11…           

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. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_New_York_(state)&nb…;
 

There's Big Money in Bananas

125 YEARS AGO, on March 30, 1899, the United Fruit Company was formed from the merger of two large 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 taking advantage of 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, the company achieved enormous success, chalking up hundred of millions of dollars profit over the following seven decades. From the point of view of anyone who did not share in its profits, United Fruit was  a thoroughly corrupt, racketeer-influenced enterprise. And a viscious one at that.

United Fruit -- which at one time operated in 13 countries (many of which were described as "banana republics"), where it employed hundreds of thousands of workers -- 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 an 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 its will 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. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company

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 the New York City Opera at City Center.  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. https://www.colorado.edu/amrc/sites/default/files/attached-files/0506-2…

Agrarian Communism, 'Way Back When

275 YEARS AGO, on April 1, 1649, when England had already been in a state of political and social turmoil for seven years, The Levellers, one of several recently  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 ownership of all agricultural land, a concept that was a radical then as it is today.

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. https://elmbridgemuseum.org.uk/network/blog-3-seventeenth-century-squat…