August 5 - Funeral March for Frank Little

On this day in labor history, the year was 1917.

That was the day IWW leader Frank Little was buried in Butte, Montana.

Little had been lynched on August 1, by police agents thought to be working for the despised Anaconda Copper Company.

He had arrived in town to help organize 14,000 striking copper miners.

Devastated by the deaths of 168 miners in the June fire at Granite Mountain & Speculator Mines, mine workers formed the Metal Mine Workers’ Union and walked off the job.

Frank Little had previously worked as a hard rock miner and organizer for the Western Federation of Miners. He also took part in the free speech campaigns on the West Coast.

Little was involved in early drives to industrially organize oil workers and lumberjacks.

He voiced his opposition to the First World War and sought to stop workers from enlisting. 

When Little arrived in Butte in July, he worked to build strike support, picket lines and spread the strike to other trades across the city.

Early on August 1, six masked men broke into the boardinghouse where he was staying. He was beaten and taken from his room.

His assailants tied him to the bumper of their car and dragged him through the granite streets of Butte to Milwaukee Bridge, where he was hanged.

An ominous note was pinned to his bullet-ridden body, with the words “Others Take Notice.

First and Last Warning.” It included the numbers 3-7-77 as well as the initials of other union organizers in the area.

As many as 10,000 marched in the funeral procession.

Days after his lynching, martial law was declared.

Labor radicals were rounded up and charged with espionage. The miners strike and union were crushed.