Frank Little (1879-1917) was an American labor leader. He joined the radical union the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in 1906. He organized miners, lumberjacks and oil field workers. Uptown Butte 1942 view of the city Butte is a city in Silver Bow County, Montana and is the county seat. ... The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or the Wobblies) is an international union currently headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. At its peak in 1923 the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. ...

Frank Little was born in 1879. Little is known about his family background, but he told friends that he had "Indian blood". His mother, in fact, was part Native American. He was an organizer with the Western Federation of Miners before becoming active with the Industrial Workers of the World in 1906. He took part in the free speech campaigns in Missoula, Fresno and Spokane and was involved in organizing lumberjacks, metal miners and oil field workers into industrial unions. On one occasion, he was sentenced to 30 days imprisonment for reading the Declaration of Independence on a street corner. In 1910, Little successfully organized unskilled fruit workers in the San Joaquin Valley. By 1916, Little was a member of the IWW's General Executive Board. Western Federation of Miners famous flyer entitled Is Colorado in America? The Western Federation of Miners (WFM) was a radical labor union that gained a reputation for militancy in the mine fields of the western United States. ... The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or the Wobblies) is an international union currently headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. At its peak in 1923 the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. ... The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) engaged in free speech fights during the period from approximately 1907 to 1916. ...

Little was a strong opponent of World War I. While General Secretary-Treasurer William Haywood and members of the General Executive Board shared Little's opinions about the war, there was disagreement about whether to proceed directly with anti-war agitation. When the US joined the war, in April 1917, Ralph Chaplin, the editor of the IWW's newspaper Solidarity, claimed that opposing the draft would destroy the IWW, by visiting government repression upon the union the likes of which had not before been seen. Other Board members argued further that organized labor would not have the power to stop the war until more workers were organized, and the union should continue to focus on organizing workers at the point of production, even where it might incidentally impede the war effort. Little refused to back down on this issue and argued that: "...the IWW is opposed to all wars, and we must use all our power to prevent the workers from joining the army." “The Great War ” redirects here. ... William Dudley Big Bill Haywood (February 4, 1869–May 18, 1928) was a prominent figure in American radical unionism as a leader in the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) and later as a founding member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). ... Ralph Chaplin (1887—1961) became a labor activist, when at the age of seven, he saw a worker shot dead during the Pullman strike in Chicago, Illinois. ...

In the summer of 1917, Little was helping organize copper miners in Butte, Montana, which included leading a strike of miners working for the Anaconda Company. In the early hours of August 1, 1917, six masked men broke into Little's hotel room. He was beaten up, tied by rope to a car, and dragged out of town, where he was lynched from a railroad trestle. A note: "First and last warning" was pinned to his chest, along with the initials of other union leaders, and the dimensions of a grave. It was widely believed that Pinkerton agents were involved, but no serious attempt was made by the police to catch Little's murderers. Lynching is murder (mostly by hanging) conceived by its perpetrators as extra-legal execution. ... Pinkerton guards escort strikebreakers in Buchtel, Ohio, 1884 The Pinkerton National Detective Agency is a private U.S. security guard and detective agency established by Allan Pinkerton in 1850. ...

External links

• http://www.newhumanist.com/little.html

Biography from IWW.org:

• http://www.iww.org/culture/biography/FrankLittle1.shtml