"Copper Collar"
The term copper collar, coined in the late 1800s, was a metaphor used to describe a person or company directly controlled by the Anaconda Company.
"From the 1920s until 1959, journalists working at the newspapers could write nothing that clashed with the company's business enterprises. Journalists were thus not allowed to develop and exercise their professional skills through their news judgment - lawyers and accountants made news judgments, not journalists — and were frozen for decades in this pre-professional model.[16]"
By 1920, the Anaconda Company owned several Montana newspapers including the Butte Post, Butte Miner, Anaconda Standard, Daily Missoulian, Helena Independent, and Billings Gazette.[17] The Anaconda Company controlled the economic and political dealings throughout Montana well into the mid-1900s.[18]
As the state's largest employer, Anaconda dominated Montana politics. In the political arena the "copper collar" symbolized influence, wealth, and power. In 1894, Montana held an election to decide which city would be its capital. Marcus Daly, an Anaconda supporter, used his power over the papers to further his cause.[19] While campaigning, "Anaconda's supporters portrayed Helena as a center of avarice and elitism while promoting their choice as the pick of the working man. In return, Helena's backers claimed that if the victory should go to their opponent the entire state would be strangled by the "copper collar" of Daly's Anaconda Copper Mining Company."[20] Daly's campaign was unsuccessful and Helena became the state's capital. Flexing its political muscle again in 1903, the Anaconda Company closed down operations within all of Montana, putting 15,000 men out of work until the legislature enacted the regulations it demanded. Montanans were angered by this decision and from that point forward, to suggest a politician "wore a copper collar", could cost him the election.[21]
The copper collar symbolized oppression and control to the people of Butte. In the early 20th century, Butte's culture with its
"perverse pride in its wide open character was a response to the people's belief in the all-encompassing power of the company. Butte's bars, gambling dens, dance halls, and brothels were among the few public institutions not owned or controlled by Anaconda. It was not only the hazards of mining and the grim environment of Butte that propelled men and women to frenzied gaiety, but also the thought that here were arenas of self-expression denied them elsewhere in a city ringed by the copper collar.[22]"
Choosing sides in this battle was unavoidable. According to Author Fisher's article, "Montana: Land of the Copper Collar," "Six months is the longest one may live in Montana without making the decision whether one is 'for the Company' or 'against the Company.' The all-pervading and unrelenting nature of the struggle admits of no neutrals. Since the territory's admission to statehood in 1889 the struggle has continued."[23]
The term "copper collar" was used in historical novels set in that period. In The Old Copper Collar (1957), a tale of the course of a senatorial election in Helena in the early 20th century, Dan Cushman refers to the "copper collar": "At this point the galleries packed with Bennett sympathizers commenced heckling him with suggestions he wore the Copper Collar, but these hoots and catcalls he contemptuously ignored, reiterated his freedom from all cliques, factions, and corporations and that his purpose had been purely and simply to prove or disprove unlawful practices, and sat down." Even the suggestion that a person wore the "copper collar" created pandemonium from the crowd.[24]
Ivan Doig refers to the "copper collar" in his novel Work Song (2010). In 1919, Gracie resists the powerful Anaconda Company as they try to force her to sell her property. She says, "Leave this house at once, Whoever-You-Are Morgan. I'll not have under my roof a man who wears the copper collar." The workers who are under the "copper collar" are referred to as "snakes" and the Anaconda Company is referred to as an "ogre".[25]
The "copper collar" symbolized different things to different people but "the Anaconda Company used the tactics of an authoritarian state to quash a legitimate labor movement within its corporate fiefdom. That the press, an elemental part of democracy, was used in the assault marks a black period in the history of American journalism."[26] In Homelands: A Geography of Culture and Place across America, John B. Wright writes that for decades, the Anaconda Company:
"mined and smelted metal, leveled forests, owned the newspapers, bribed the legislature, set the wages, murdered union organizers, exported the earnings, and finally shut down, leaving Butte and Anaconda the poorest cities in the states and the largest EPA Superfund site in the country.[27]"
The phrase "copper collar" is also an example of metonymy when it is substituted for the act of the Anaconda Company controlling a person. It is closely related to the company because it is made of copper, which is what the company mined. A collar is a device used to control, which is what the company used the copper collar for.
In the Semiotic Square for the "copper collar" (see illustration), Marcus Daly is considered the assertion and Miners is the negation in the first binary pair. The second binary relationship is created on the "control" axis. Union, the not Marcus Daly element, is considered to be the complex term, and "copper collar", the Miner element, is the neutral term. Both a union and the "copper collar" are things that are used to gain control. The Anaconda Company used the copper collar to gain control of the papers and legislature, and the miners wanted to establish a union to gain some control over their working conditions.
