Hellraisers Journal – Thursday January 18, 1900
Arnot, Pennsylvania – Mother Jones Ready to Go to Jail with Striking Miners
From The Wellsboro Agitator of January 17, 1900:
STRIKE SCENES
[…..]
Arrests Made of Those Who Took Part in the Parades
-Mother Jones Again on the Scene.
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The Pittsburg Post December 31, 1899 —–
There was a new phase of the strike at Arnot last week. Some 21 of those who participated in the daily parades were arrested on the charge of “unlawful and tumultuous assembling, and making use then and there of opprobrious epithets, shouts, exclamations and other means calculated to inspire the people with terror, and to intimidate the workmen employed by the Blossburg Coal company and to prevent them from continuing work for same Company.”
The persons arrested appeared before Justice Cambers, being represented by Frank S. Hughes, Esq., of Blossburg, and the attorneys for the prosecution were H. F. Marsh and Major G. W. Merrick, of this borough. All were finally allowed to go on their own recognizance for appearance at court.
Early in the week Mrs. Mary Jones, or “Mother Jones,” as she is called at Arnot, returned to the scene and there was a great demonstration among the strikers who look upon her as their leader. Mrs. Jones blustered a good deal about the breaking up of the parades and stoutly asserted that they would be renewed and kept up. Mr. Thomas Haggerty, another leader, and Mrs. Jones decided to call a meeting of the U. M. W. at Blossburg.
On Tuesday evening a large crowd followed the band from Arnot to Blossburg. Halting on Main street “Mother” Jones, dauntless as Joan of Arc,” gray-haired and loquacious, as she is described, mounted a box and talked about maintaining the parades, and threatened that if one of the paraders was jailed they would have to take all of them, including herself. There were a great many women in the crowd, so an open meeting was held. But later the men who belonged to the order [United Mine Workers of America] held a secret session.
On Monday there were 156 men at work in the mines at Arnot and Landrus and 280 tons of coal were taken out. Yesterday about the same number were employed. There are many other miners who are ready to go to work as soon as the Company will give them places and they can be assured of freedom from being called “scabs and blacklegs” and followed to and from the mouth of mines daily by the strikers and their families. There is much bitterness over the strikes. The Churches and societies have been racked over the matter and neighbors who have been friends for years are now at swords point on account of the strike. The parades are still being held daily. The situation is a deplorable one all round.
Note: The UMWA Convention of January 1900 would eventually lead to the Great Anthracite Strike of 1900 which began the following September, see:
“The Anthracite Miners’ Strike of 1900”
-by George O. Virtue
From Journal of Political Economy of Dec 1900 https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1817691.pdf
For more on National UMW Organizer Thomas Haggerty and the Arnot strike, see: Fueling the Gilded Age
Railroads, Miners, and Disorder
in Pennsylvania Coal Country
-by Andrew B. Arnold
NYU Press, Apr 11, 2014
(search: mother jones thomas haggerty arnot) https://books.google.com/books?id=-A8UCgAAQBAJ
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