Business & Finance: War in Montana

Said the Butte (Mont.) Miner, editorially, last week:

“The history of journalism in Montana would read like the history of … the most ancient of professions. Its history of late years is a most sordid and ugly record of daily newspapers owned and controlled by The Big Company and prostituted to its dirty work of controlling public opinion. These are the scarlet creatures of Montana journalism. The circulation and advertising of the Butte Miner have increased surprisingly since it announced its independence and appealed to the people to make a stand against further inroads on their rights by—

—The Anaconda Company.”

Said the New York Times, in its news columns, last week:

“A contest that rocked the copper mining area of Montana a generation ago came to a formal close yesterday with the sale of the mineral, timber and banking properties of the late Senator W. A. Clark to the Anaconda Copper Mining Co. . . . The Butte Miner, a newspaper owned by the Clark interests which played a part in the past struggles, also was sold. . . .”

Amazed by the violence of the Butte Miner’s invective, and also amazed by the assumption of the Times that the contest was “closed,” U. S. coppermen reviewed 50 years of fierce warfare over the mines at Butte, Montana, greatest of the world’s copper camps.

Copper Camp. California roared in the ’40s, but Montana did its roaring while the East was enjoying the elegant ’80s. In 1870, only 241 men and women were staking their fortunes on the 6-foot pit in the earth which two prospectors had discovered six years earlier. They were tapping surface veins of gold and silver. They did not suspect that the real wealth of Montana’s barren hills lay deeper in the earth.

But two years later, a little man, almost buried in a great shock of hair and beard, came up from Colorado and began to deepen the Butte pits. William A. Clark learned his trade in a quartz mine and lost his savings in a gold mine. In Butte, he dug for copper. Gold miners, seeing his wagons start out on their 400-mile trek to the nearest railroad at Corinne, Utah, laughed aloud. “There go Clark’s rocks,” they jeered. And they were 98.37% right. Only 1.63% of the gray copper ore can be reduced to valuable metal. But it was enough to build the little man a $100,000,000 fortune.

Miner Clark was the first to discover the Butte copper veins. The first to develop them on a large scale was blatant, uncouth Marcus Daly. In 1879, a reduction plant was erected near Butte, saving the 400-mile overland haul. The next year, Irishman Daly began to make Butte roar. His men probed the earth night and day. Smoke poured out from 100 furnaces. Lumberjacks hacked down whole forests for timber to hold up excavations and tunnels.

Butte became certainly the ugliest town in the world, surrounded by mountains of gray-green refuse and black slag. Within the mines, men faced the imminent dangers of cave-ins and fires. When the timber supports once became ignited there was no hazarding when the fire might end. The St. Lawrence mine at Butte caught fire in 1899. Last week, it was still burning. And when miners were not meeting underground dangers, they kept one hand on their guns. Strangers in Butte spoke softly. Painted women learned it was safer to laugh than to talk.

Deeper and deeper went the shafts.

More and more intricate became the network of drifts (tunnels), branching off from the vertical shafts. If the two weary prospectors who first jumped into the abandoned 6-foot pit tried to duplicate the feat today, they would fall more than a mile into the bowels of the earth. If they started to walk through the maze of drifts owned by the Anaconda company alone, they would not see the sunlight for 32 days. They would have covered 800 miles.

Fiercely, Miner Clark fought with Miner Daly. They battled for land titles, for the tribal leadership of the outlaw camp. All through the ’90s, while Montana was becoming a state, the enemies sparred for position. Clark’s great triumph came in 1899. With $431,000, his lieutenants bought him a seat in the U. S. Senate. Their slogan: “Every man who votes for Clark is to be paid, and the men who vote for him without being paid are fools.” After he was elected, he poured $30,000 worth of champagne into Helena, the capital.

He could thumb his nose at Marcus Daly. Perhaps in triumph, he went to Manhattan and built himself a house, in the tradition of Butte ugliness. It cost $7,000,000. It held: 130 rooms, 21 bathrooms, a furnace burning 17 tons of coal daily, 5 organs, 1 Turkish bath, a hideous tower, dining rooms on all floors, 4 picture galleries including the best and worst art of all periods. Within this pretentious tomb, Miner Clark lived quietly with his wife and children. He became a familiar figure in Manhattan, strutting down Fifth Avenue, his white hair waving wildly in the wind, his face hidden by fluffy, square beard and flourishing moustache.

When he died, in 1925, 30 boy choristers sang at his funeral.

When his Manhattan plot was sold, in 1927, Buyer Anthony Campagna said: “I would have paid $100,000 more for the property if it had had no house on it.”

Anaconda. Miner Clark’s triumph over Miner Daly did not end the copper wars. Bitter and prolonged was the battle over titles between Miner Fritz Augustus Heinze, onetime friend of Miner Clark, and the Amalgamated Copper Co., predecessor of Anaconda. A great tactical advantage passed to Anaconda when it bought the Heinze properties. Gradually, Anaconda became master of Butte, a power in all Montana.

With Anaconda rose another mighty copperman, John D. Ryan. Copperman Ryan had been store clerk, drummer, oilman. He did business with Marcus Daly, and when Daly died, young Ryan took over his interests. Then Rockefeller-partner Henry H. Rogers invited him to take charge of Amalgamated Copper in Montana, then in the midst of the dispute with Heinze. In 1908, Rogers died and Ryan became president of Amalgamated. In 1910, it merged with Anaconda.

As Chairman of the Board of Anaconda, Copperman Ryan directs the affairs of the largest copper company in the world. Its assets total over $500,000,000, its working capital over $77,000,000. While Montana now yields first place to Arizona as a copper-producing state, the copper camp at Butte has disgorged one-sixth of all the copper mined in the world. And in 1922, Anaconda bought both the “biggest” American Brass Co. and, from the Guggenheim family, controlling interest in the Chile Copper Co.

Butte Miner. Against this immense company, the remnants of the Clark interests in Montana still wage war. Their spokesman, William A. Clark Jr., has fought Anaconda in the courts and in every election, county and state. In 1927, the courts decided an important title case in favor of Anaconda, but Son Clark continued the battle. Through the Butte Miner, he has charged Anaconda with: (1) defrauding the state of just tax payments; (2) subsidizing the press and suppressing news of murders; (3) throttling the school system; (4) dictating to the state government.

Anaconda, owning almost every Montana newspaper with an Associated Press membership, is easily able to reply that:

(1) it gives a livelihood to one out of every six men employed in Montana, and

(2) it owns 5% of the state’s taxable property but pays 12% of state taxes. Prospectors swear by Anaconda. Some prospectors swear at the Butte Miner.

But Son Clark is only one of five heirs of Miner Clark in control of the Miner. And, last week, his paper was sold to the enemy over his head. Word came from Arizona that the Miner had better lie low unless the Clark interests in Arizona were to suffer Anaconda’s ungentle retaliation. Butte remembered battle-loving Miner Clark. Butte looked at Clark’s youngest son, now in his early 50’s, saw the same crested dome, pigmy stature, ruddy face. Butte wondered what the second fighting Clark would do.

His answer was prompt and decisive.

He sent for a complete newspaper plant and for the United Press service. He talked to his staff. In a body, they swore undying enmity to Anaconda. Publisher Clark will take every man from the Miner to his new evening paper to pick up the fight where the Miner leaves it. His antagonists, Chairman Ryan and Lawyer-President Cornelius F. Kelley of Anaconda, do not underestimate his ability or his resources. The great Montana copper war goes on.