Jan 25 2010
As a people we like to mark the anniversaries of important events in our lives. This is true for nations, individuals, corporations, and political groups.
The labor movement has been mostly left out of this tradition. This is my effort to change that. For instance, this Wednesday is the 160th Birthday of Samuel Gompers, founder of the AFL.
For this essay I would like to concentrate of events, such as this Tuesday is the anniversary of the very first worker’s compensation agreement.
Nov 14 2009
By any standard measure the suicide of Wesley Everest should be considered unusual.
Everest had only recently returned from the front lines of WWI France, so a suicide isn’t all that shocking. However, the circumstances of his death on Veterans Day 1919, should have raised questions with the coroner. That is, if the coroner had bothered to examine the body before declaring it a suicide.
Everest’s teeth had been knocked out with a rifle butt. He was then tossed over the side of a bridge several times until his neck was broken from the noose tied around it. Afterward his lifeless body had been shot full of bullets, which is very difficult for a dead man to inflict upon himself.
Perhaps the coroner was just stating that Everest’s suicidal action happened long before his death. It happened when he decided to become a member of the Industrial Workers of the World.