VIRGINIA, Minn. The miners of the Mesaba and Iron Ranges are now fighting for their very lives, and the hovels they calls homes.

Already the Steel Trust has had fifteen workers imprisoned and one has been murdered. This territory is no longer under the laws of the United States. It is under the rule of the Steel Trust., Gunmen–men who would sell their mother for a drink of whiskey–are the virtual judges, juries and executioners. Private detectives are common as lice. All the mining companies have regiments of them warring against the workers, and given every governmental protection, under laws that deem property of far more value than human life.

Fifteen members of the I.W.W. have been arrested for unlawful assemblage, while the Steel Trust can have all the gunmen it wants, armed with guns.

Fellow Worker John Allar was shot and killed by a gunman employed by the Oliver Mining Company, a part of the Steel Trust. Fellow Worker Allar was standing on the road that leads to the mines, when a number of the gunmen came along and ordered the men to move on. They did not move fast enough to suit these paid assassins, and they shot at the strikers. At the first volley the Fellow Worker fell, shot through the body once, and twice through the head.

John Allar, murdered needlessly and ruthlessly, cooly as no beast of the jungle, infinitely superior to gunmen, kills, died saying: “My goodness, my poor wife and children.”

Paul Allar, an uncle, gives the following statement:

“John did not shoot at all when the gunmen came after him. He hollered: ‘Don’t shoot me’; and right after that he received the shots that caused his death. I ran away, and on hearing the third shot, I turned around and saw that the policeman had shot three times more at John, while he was laying on the ground.”

Frank Cornjeck, who was standing near the Fellow Worker, when he was shot said that he saw one of the gumen shoot at John. I was fifty feet away when the murder was committed. I saw a gunman jump out of an auto, and as he went up the street, he drew his gun and immediately began to shoot, firing into the boys standing on the street.

A woman, living near there said, that she saw the gunman start the shooting and murder of John Allar.

Winset Elias, a small shop-keeper, near where the shooting occurred, who was also shot, but not fatally, said he saw some men going up the street, very peacably. When they came to Third St., gunmen came and shouted to the strikers, I heard shots fired, and then I saw Allar shot, and felt a pain in my stomach, and fell on the ground.

A large number of the members of the I.W.W. have been over to the home of the widow of our murdered fellow worker. We found there three of the loveliest children made fatherless by the grasping, murderous greed of capitalism. The children are: one six years, one three years, and one three months old.

The miners are more determined than ever that they will show the fellow worker did not die in vain. They are mourning and organizing to make the conditions that caused the fellow worker’s death forever impossible.

All mines in this district are now tied up, and Organizers Sam Scarlett, Carlo Tresca, Joe Schmitt, James Gilday, Arthur Boose, H.C. Walton, Frank Russell, Veno Wessman, Leonard Allgren, G.E. Andreytechine and others are busy night and day.

Secretaries are working continually, making out cards and filing records, and even on this there is a long line of miners waiting. Over four thousand miners have joined outside of those at Hibbing and Chisholm. These two came out Saturday and most of the seven thousand miners have also joined, but the reports are not fully in yet. There are about 16,000 miners involved.

The following fellow workers have been found guilty of unlawful assemblage: Arthur Boose, Joe Green, Arvi Lehtotonen, Eleia Seppanen, and R.B. Clocker.

Funds are very badly needed; the very life of the One Big Union is in a great measure dependent on the response.

The funeral of Fellow Worker Allar, the latest martyr to the cause of the working class, was held here, Sunday, at 10 a.m., and attended by miners from the entire strike area.

No compromise and no retreat is the motto of every striker. There is a splendid spirit of solidarity among the strikers. They are mourning and organizing with an invincible determination to win.

Press Committee

Transcribed by Revolution's Newsstand