Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday July 20, 1910
“The Beginning of Life” by M. Helen Schloss
From The Black Hills Daily Register of July 15, 1910
-Official Organ of Western Federation of Miners, District 2:
I sat looking out in the cold, dark, dreary night listening to the roaring winds and the gruesome sounds of the elements. Everything seemed to whisper mournful tales and all different sounds were telling me of the life that is to come when the soul awakens.
Lost in these thoughts, I suddenly came upon a large tract of land. On this tract of land stood two huge scales with iron chains. At one scale stood men, and at the other women and children. The men were pulling leisurely; they would look up now and then and pause to rest, while the women and children never stopped to look up or rest. Their bodies were bent to the ground, and their faces were old and haggard. The children would drop like flies from exhaustion, but there were others to take their places, while the women would never take the time to look after them.
I walked up to a woman and asked why they were living in such darkness, and why they were pulling so hard, and she gave me a vacant stare. I walked up to a man and asked him the same question, and he said: “They were pulling for life.” I asked why the women were pulling so hard, while they were pulling so easy. He answered: “When we were called out of our houses to pull the women became frightened of these men on the top and they have never dared to look up. If they would stop and look up they would not have to pull so hard, but they fear.”
Sometimes the men would shake their fists at the men on top, and then the chains would grow lighter and the scale would lower a few inches. But the scale of the women would never lower. Some fell to the ground with blood on their hands and faces. The groans from the people below and the sneering laughter from those above filled the air with unearthly sounds.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday July 19, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for June 1910, Part III:
-Interviewed by Selene Armstrong in Washington, D. C.
From The Washington Times of June 18, 1910:
Thus spoke Mother Jones, the plucky little white-haired woman, whose home, to use her own words, is “wherever there’s a labor war, and the President of the United States, when she had journeyed across half a continent to lay before him for the first time the cases of a number of political refugees in prison in Arizona, Kansas, and other Western States.
Today and on other days this week, Mother Jones has been busy at the Capitol, where it said that members of certain committees before which she has appeared have gasped for breath and begged for mercy before she had finished outlining to them their duties in regard to the Mexicans whose freedom she seeks from the Government.
Meets Old Friends.
She has hobnobbed with her old friends Representatives Wilson and Nicholls of Pennsylvania, and has made new friends of many other statesmen, who, however little they sympathize with her decided views on this or that public question, cannot harden their hearts against the cheery good humor and keen wit which radiate from her.
When asked by Chairman Dalzell of the Rules Committee of the House, before which she has appeared this week, to state her place of residence, Mother Jones replied:
My home is wherever there a labor war, sir.
The life story of this little woman with the snow white hair, the childlike blue eyes, and the look of perennial youthfulness on her face, would, if it were written, be the history of the of cause of organized labor. For thirty years she has traveled throughout the length and breath of the land in order to stand by the workers in time of stress. In the roughest mining camps of the West, and in the crowded tenement districts of eastern cities, she has brought to the women of the working class a woman’s gentle counsel, and to the men sagacity and keen judgement the equal of a man’s.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday July 18, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for June 1910, Part II:
-Found in Washington, D. C., Testifying Before House Committee
From the San Francisco Call of June 15, 1910:
“MOTHER” JONES DENOUNCES DIAZ
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Mexican Refugees Persecuted by American Officers,
She Tells House Committee
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Writer Declares Los Angeles Detectives Open
Private Letters in Postoffice
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WASHINGTON, June 14.—”Mother” Jones addressed the rules committee of the house today in behalf of the Mexican refugees, who, it is alleged, are being persecuted in the United States through the agencies of American officers and Mexican government “spies.”
Mrs. Jones related that while she was in Douglas, Ariz., addressing a meeting, of “the unorganized slaves who work in the smelters,” she witnessed the kidnaping of a Mexican refugee, who, she said, was seized, strangled, thrown into an automobile and carried across the line into Mexico.
“Mother” Jones” denounced President Diaz of Mexico for sending “his hirelings across the border to crush the constitution of our country.”
John Kenneth Turner, a magazine writer, and John Murray, a newspaper writer, continued their testimony. The offering of evidence was finished today and the committee will decide within a few days whether an investigation by congress shall be recommended.
Murray testified to the opening of his own mail and that of a large number of other persons by the American authorities.
Turner said he had discovered city detectives in the Los Angeles postoffice examining the mail of Mexican residents there. He also told of the suppression by the authorities of many small newspapers published by Mexican refugees in various cities in Texas, California and Arizona.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday July 17, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for June 1910, Part I:
-Found Recovering from Illness at Grand Hotel in Cincinnati, Ohio
From The Cincinnati Post of June 2, 1910:
MOTHER JONES IS GROWING WORSE,
LONGS FOR “BOYS”
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Mother Jones, “Angel of the Mines,” who is ill at the Grand Hotel, is worse, according to Attorney Nicholas Klein, who has been in attendance at her bedside. From her bedside Thursday came word that what was considered a slight nervous breakdown had developed into a serious illness.
From the sick woman came a pathetic wish characteristic of her life devoted to the workers in the mines.
“I want to get well,” she said. “I want to be able to get back among the boys.”
When stricken a few days ago, after she had filled an engagement at an outing given by Cincinnati Socialists, she refused to believe she was seriously endangered. She continued with her plans for brightening the lives of the toilers and preaching a gospel of optimism.
“It is nothing.” she said, and Dr. S. J. D. Meade, who is attending her, sought to encourage that belief. Dr. Meade says she will recover as soon as she gets a good rest.
For years the little woman has been the light-hearted ally of the miners throughout the nation.
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[Newsclip added from Coshocton Daily Tribune of June 1st.]
Hellraisers Journal – Friday July 16, 1920
Southern West Virginia – Union Organizing Campaign Continues Despite Gunthugs
From United Mine Workers Journal of July 15, 1920:
Organization Campaign in West Virginia Continues
to Spread in Spite of Gunmen and Other Obstacles
(Special to the Journal)
Charleston, W. Va., July 8—The situation in Mingo county is firm. The county is tied up tight. Before Fred L. Feick, of Indiana, and L. R. Thomas, of Pittsburgh, mediators for the Department of Labor, came to Williamson a letter arrived from Joseph P. Tumulty, secretary to President Wilson, conveying news of a conference between the President and Secretary Wilson and conveying the hope of the President for a peaceful and harmonious settlement of the differences.
The operators of the Williamson coalfields refused to recognize the union or have anything to do with the United Mine Workers of America. The strike is continuing peacefully.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday July 15, 1920
Edwin Newdick of Federated Press Tells Inside Story of Great Steel Strike
From The Butte Daily Bulletin of July 14, 1920:
(Editorial Note-Mr. Newdick was in charge of publicity for the National Committee for organizing iron and steel workers throughout the great steel strike. He was attached to the headquarters of William Z. Foster at Pittsburgh and in intimate touch with every phase of the situation. After the strike was called off he remained for sometime in Pittsburgh to check up on every fact herein presented. The Newdick series will comprise five installments.)
FIRST ARTICLE.
Pittsburgh, Pa.-The great steel strike of 1919-20 stands as a tribute to the American labor movement; but it also stands as a tremendous and inescapable problem confronting American labor; and, finally, it constitutes an indictment of labor in that labor failed to achieve the full measure of success which was within its reach.
The purpose of these articles is to show how and why labor failed. It will be assumed that every will-informed and fair-minded reader recognizes the epoch-making successes signalized by the steel strike and the organizing campaign which preceded it; but, before proceeding to expand upon the failures with which these articles will more particularly deal, the encouraging aspects will be summarized. In this case, as in various others in the course of these articles, the words of one of the leaders who was its most active executive official will be used. This is possible by arrangement with B. W. Huebsch, the publishers of “The Great Steel Strike and Its Lessons,” by William Z. Foster, secretary-treasurer of the National Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel Workers during the entire strike and the campaign which preceded it. By this arrangement the Federated Press is also to present extracts from this remarkable book before, or simultaneously with, its appearance before the public……
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday July 14, 1920
Atlanta Penitentiary – Kate Richards O’Hare Visits Eugene Debs
From The Butte Daily Bulletin of July 12, 1920:
DRAMATIC VISIT PAID ‘GENE BY KATE O’HARE
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Two Comrades Meet in Atlanta Prison
After Long Separation;
Think of Others’ Suffering.
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(By the Federated Press.)
Atlanta, Ga., July 12.-In a visit full of dramatic incidents, Kate Richards O’Hare visited Eugene V. Debs in the federal penitentiary July 3.
Mrs. O’Hare, recently freed from the penitentiary, was ushered into the prison. The two comrades embraced.
“How glad I am to see you free, Kate,” Debs said.
“I’m not used to being free yet,” she answered. They sat down, facing each other across the table. It was a fair afternoon and the rays of the sun filtered through the steel bars of the visitors’ cell, and lighted up the features of Debs, who smiled a smile of joy to see his old friend.
“Your coming here is like a ray of sunlight to me,” said Debs. “Tell me of your prison experiences.”
“I am not thinking of myself,” Mrs. O’Hare answered, “but of little Mollie Steimer, who now occupies my cell at Jefferson City, and of her appalling sentence of fifteen years. She is a little 19-year-old girl, smaller than my Kathleen, and her sole crime is her love for the oppressed.” At Debs’ questions, Mrs. O’Hare related the story of the girl. Debs’ lashes damped and his eyes were tear-stained, his face showed the emotion in his heart.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday July 13, 1910
2805 Miners Killed in the United States During 1909
From The Labor Argus of July 7, 1910:
SLAUGHTER OF MINERS
—–
Nearly 3000 Wafted into Eternity in
the “Model” Mines in 1909
-Thousands Crippled.
—–
The Cherry Ill. Mine Disaster of November 13, 1909 killed 259 miners. —–
Washington, July 1-The statistics of coal mining casualties in the United States, compiled by the geological survey for the calendar year 1900, show an apparent falling off in fatalities during the year, but since the special bulletin on the subject states that no account is taken of the year’s greatest disaster, that, at Cherry, Ill., in November last, the facts are that 1909 was exceeded only by 1907 as one of heavy catastrophe years.
The report explains that the toll of the Cherry mine disaster is not counted in with the year’s figures because it will not be reported by the Illinois officials until the close of the fiscal year in June.
The government depends for its information in all but four states on the reports of the local officials, and although last year four more states-Georgia, Oregon, Texas and Virginia-were added to the figures through reports received from the operators, the returns are still far from complete, a situation which will be relieved, the report points out, when the newly established bureau of mines is completely organized.
Last year, leaving out the Cherry mine disaster, in which 393 miners and rescuers were burned to death or suffocated, there were 2,412 deaths from coal mine accidents, against 2,450 in 1908 and 3,125 in 1907, the most disastrous year in mining history in this country.
This disaster brings the total of fatalities in 1909 up to 2,805.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday July 12, 1900
Mother Jones News Round-Up for June 1900, Part III
Found Returning to Georges Creek Coal District to Assist Striking Miners
From the Washington Times of June 28, 1900:
WARRANTS FOR STRIKERS.
—–
The Lonaconing Editor’s Assailants
to be Arrested.
CUMBERLAND, June 27.-Warrants have been issued for the arrest of Lonaconing rioters. Joseph J. Robinson, editor of the Lonaconing Star, Robert A. L. Dick, who addressed tho anti-strike meeting; Mayor Thompson and others have made information. It is expected that another batch will be sworn out in the case of the brutal assault on James Stapleton, the roadsman yesterday. The region is being patrolled by union miners and a fresh outbreak is expected at any time. “Mother” Jones, the famous woman agitator, has returned to the region and is lending to the excitement.
Hugh Muir, a prominent resident of Lonaconing and a member of the United Mine Workers, was here yesterday to obtain advice regarding entering a libel suit against one of the strike leaders. The charge grows out of a publication by a strike organization. The organization seems to be divided and is believed by many to be disintegrating.
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———-Thus spoke Mother Jones, the plucky little white-haired woman, whose home, to use her own words, is “wherever there’s a labor war, and the President of the United States, when she had journeyed across half a continent to lay before him for the first time the cases of a number of political refugees in prison in Arizona, Kansas, and other Western States.
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———-CUMBERLAND, June 27.-Warrants have been issued for the arrest of Lonaconing rioters. Joseph J. Robinson, editor of the Lonaconing Star, Robert A. L. Dick, who addressed tho anti-strike meeting; Mayor Thompson and others have made information. It is expected that another batch will be sworn out in the case of the brutal assault on James Stapleton, the roadsman yesterday. The region is being patrolled by union miners and a fresh outbreak is expected at any time. “Mother” Jones, the famous woman agitator, has returned to the region and is lending to the excitement.