Father Dietz, the Catholic Church and the 1913 Michigan Copper Strike

Labor Historian Marc Karson has singled out “labor priest” Peter E. Dietz as one of the strongest proponents for the active implementation of the Catholic Church’s 1890’s labor encyclical Rerum Novarum in the daily practice of American Catholics. Biographer Sister Mary Harrita Fox pointed out that in his work, Dietz “was particularly concerned over the role of the church in the copper strike in Upper Michigan.” This “particular concern” should be noted since the 1913 strike was one of the only disputes where Dietz went out of his way to visit and become actively involved. Why the keen interest? This presentation will review the impetus for the huge effort which brought Peter E. Dietz to the Copper Country and solely to that dispute alone, the resulting visit and report that he made concerning the strike, the important role he believed this visit and stance in the Copper Strike had in the future of the Church’s relationship to the US labor movement. The presentation will look at both what Dietz thought would occur as a result of his 1913 trip to the Keweenaw and what actually happened in this pivotal pre-World War One era event. The paper will put Father Peter E. Dietz and the Catholic Church into the larger frame of how religion has been viewed within the history of the Strike.

An Anarchist Foreign Minister?: The Ideological Background of Rudolf Holsti

Former Finnish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Rudolf Holsti, ended his professional career as a professor at Stanford University. In spring 1941, he encountered a news article on Alexandra Kropotkina and was encouraged to send her a letter. In this letter, Holsti revealed his admiration for her father, "anarchist prince" Pjotr Kropotkin. Holsti’s letter to Alexandra Kropotkina further related that as foreign minister he had even sent food from the Finnish embassy in Moscow to Kropotkin while he was being held in custody by the Soviet authorities. The notion of an anarchist foreign minister is profoundly paradoxical, but the aim of my research is to find Kropotkin’s influences in Holsti's work and publications. Before entering politics, Holsti defended his thesis for PhD at the University of Helsinki in 1913 with a rather anarchist theme, “The Relation of War to the Origin of the State.” My paper and presentation will attempt to answer: how are Kropotkin's ideas present in Holsti's academic work? In addition, Holsti and Kropotkin are case studies who guide my interests in the co-relation between the scientific revolution and social thinking in the 19th century.

Unions to Die For

The Copper County Strike of 1913 was heroic, tragic, and large in meaning, both for those who lived in it and for those haunted by it in the years that followed. Carl Ross was born in Hancock only hours before the strike erupted. His father was a printer for Työmies. I had the good fortune to meet Carl and work with him for some twenty years. Carl spoke often of the strike—of what it meant for him, his family, and the radical Finnish community in Superior, Wisconsin, where he grew up. I had never heard of the Copper Country strike before I met Carl, but what I heard about that strike resonated with some of my own experiences. I grew up in New Castle, Indiana, a town that left-wing journalist I.F. Stone called a “labor citadel” in the midst of hostile territory. I want to use these two recollections, Carl’s 1913 Strike reminiscences and my memories of New Castle, to talk about how some strikes carry a moral vision of enormous importance. The presentation will have three parts. In the first part I will relate a little of what Carl had to say about the Copper Country Strike. In the second part I will talk about strikes of my own experience. In the final part, I will talk about the differences in the structures of labor movements and the ethical implications of those differences.