Page 28 By Gregory Reynolds That a general strike occurred in 1912 in the Porcupine Gold Camp is a his - torical fact. As happens in all strikes, there are sev - eral sides to the issues that happened in the new but booming gold mining camp. As most of the historical comments were about the T own of T immins it is easy to believe the rest of the camp was peaceful. It was not. Rather than att empt to sift through the various viewpoints contained in com - pany reports and books, written from several points of view , to determine right and wrong, this article will quote the exact words. As a smart man once said: History be - long to he who writes it. From “Harvest From the Rock - A his - tory of mining in Ontario” by Philip Smith published in 1986: “At this time, quite apart from (Al - bert) Freeman’ s personal troubles, the McIntyre Mine was still a struggling venture whose future seeme d by no means certain. On Nov . 15, 1912, only six months af - ter it had gone into productio n, 1,200 miners walked of f their job at the Por - cupine, cutting of f the McIntyre’ s pro - duction, and thus its fow of earnings. The strike was called by the Porcu - pine Miners Union, which, like its counterpoint in Cobalt, was a local of the U.S.-based W estern Federation of Miners. And, as at Cobalt, it was provoked by a move to reduce wages. In the earlier years, some of the smaller Porcupine mines paid higher wages than the Hollinger and Dome to attract labour , partly to speed their development work, and partly to compensate the workers for the poor living condi - tions. In the summer of 1912, with the mines operating, and thus generating revenue, and living conditions much improved, the smaller mines attempt - ed to lower their wages to bring them into line with those paid by Hollinger and Dome. The union called for a conciliation board under the Industrial Disputes Investigation Act and when the board’ s majority report favoured the employers, it called a general strike In addition, it demanded the intro - duction of the eight-hour day and a 25 cent to a 50 cent increase in the hourly wage. The strike was a bloody af fair , with pitched battles between strikers and men who wanted to work. - some of them undoubtly scabs brought in by companies but others existing em - ployees of the mines who did not want to strike. Strikers paraded the streets with ban - ners reading ’W orkers of the W orld Unite’ - several years before the Rus - sian revolution. On one occasion the mayor of T im - mins read the Riot Act to disperse the battling crowd, and four guards em - ployed by the Thiel Detective Agen - cy , hired by the mines to maintain or - der , were fned $300 each for fring on the crowd, wounding three of them. The Porcupine local of the union twice appealed to its WFM counter - parts in Cobalt to call a sympathy strike but is brother unionists did not respond to the call, and gradually the men drifted back to work on the com - panies” terms. The strike was not offciall y called of f until June 14, 1913, but the McIn - tyre Mine was back in production by March.” From “The Book of T immins and the Porcupine” by the T immins Lions Club published in 1937 (the town’ s 50 anniversary) “T rouble came from an unexpected quarter . The miners struck. The ‘One Big Union’ was the or ganization be - hind the move and under revolution - ary banners man of the Hollinger , Dome, McIntyre and V ipond of the producing mines paraded through the streets. In those days, governments paid little attention to strikes. The mines brought in trainloads of strike breakers and armed guards to protect the newcomers on their way to work. Pitched battles ensued between these ‘Thiel constables’ and the union men; several shots were fred but no one was killed. In a melee at South Porcupine, some - one put a revolver to a municipal off - Many versions exist of ugly 1912 miners’ general strike Cont’d on pg. 28 “The Porcupine Camp” 100 Y ears of Mining Page 26