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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday July 11, 1900
Mother Jones News Round-Up for June 1900, Part II
Fondly Remembered in Birmingham as “Labor’s Joan of Arc”
From the Birmingham Labor Advocate of June 16, 1900:
MOTHER JONES
—–
“I Have Devoted Myself to Humanity.”
—–LABOR’S JOAN OF ARC
—–
Comforts the Wife and Child,
Touches as With a Mother’s Hand
the Brow of the Sick,
and Leads the Strikers.
—–
Mother Jones, who is distinguishing herself and honoring her dear old gray head by her efforts in labor’s cause in Pennsylvania and Maryland, is well and affectionately known in Birmingham, where she labored a few years ago, largely in the interest of cotton mill serfs. God bless her. No truer, braver or more devoted champion of the right ever graced the earth.
We are making history, and she will live in its pages. Her life will be held up as an example to emulate in that better day when right shall rule.
The following article is clipped from the editorial page of the Philadelphia North American, illustrated by a double column likeness of our well-beloved sister:
“Mother” Mary Jones comes to the front again, as is evidenced from the reports from the George’s Creek coal mining region of Maryland. By talking to the miners and their families there she has persuaded them to remain on strike. The scenes attending the speech-making of Mother Jones are intensely dramatic, as, indeed, they well might have been, judging by the Meyersdale situation and the character of the woman labor leader.
Mrs. Mary Jones is better known among the workmen of the United States and especially among the miners, as “Mother.” She has earned the title by the truly motherly manner in which she cares for the families of those men who happen to be on strike in her neighborhood. As she says, “the women are great factors in a strike.” By controlling the women and children, Mother Jones is able to win many strikes for the men.
“A man can face the devil.” says Mother Jones, “but he can’t stand out against capitalism and its servants when the wife points to the little children and says there is no bread.”
People wonder, when they look at Mother Jones, what it is that gives to her the influence over rough miners and other laboring men. She is of medium height, and not a strong woman physically, but for a woman of 56 years she is well preserved. Her appearance does not betray the many hard experiences and heart-rending adventures through which she has passed. Midnight rides through snow and sleet, ten mile walks alone through strange forests, threat of imprisonment from the high and powerful, ingratitude of the people for whom she often has been defeated, hunger and want, heat and cold, fire and water-these and many things that women are not supposed to suffer have been endured by Mother Jones. And yet she is cheerful and jolly.
Snow-white hair, light blue eyes and a white face, all accentuated by an extremely plain, sparse dress of black, impress the ordinary observer as the marks patent by which to distinguish this strike leader from the average woman. Not even a cheap jewel or ornament adorns her person. Perhaps her mouth is just a trifle more determined than the average mouth of women, but beyond a certain appearance of shrewdness, which comes to some persons with advancing years, Mrs. Jones does not look to be remarkably clever or intelligent. Even when she begins to speak there is a sense of disappointment to those who are looking for the unusual. The voice is not pleasant, as many persons would say who are not used to the every-day language of the laboring classes. For this reason that voice cannot appeal to the hypercritically refined. But the men who earn their bread by the sweat of their brows, and the women and children who are dependent upon them, they do not notice the occasionally strident tones of that voice. They see only an earnest woman, begging men to wage a real fight for vital rights.
With all her cruel experiences, Mother Jones has a woman’s heart, and it bleeds for the suffering of her class, and the sympathy is not lost upon her clientele. She goes to the homes of her “people” and cheers the faint-hearted, nurses the sick and helps the overworked housewife. She knows them, and they know her in a way that is rarely given to a philanthropist to know the working classes.
It is after thus knowing her “people” that Mother Jones can get up in a packed, smoke-clouded, beer-smelling room and say, “Boys, you have been getting drunk again, and you are a pack of sniveling cowards,” or “Well done, sisters; we’ll show the men how not to be women.” No matter what the remark Mrs. Jones hurls at her audience, contemptuous, laudatory, or what not, she is invariably treated with respect if the audience is made up of workmen and their families. Some look sheepish, others smile indulgently, but all listen attentively to her plain, homely, conversation like speeches. At all times, as has been said of her, “she commands attention, compels confidence and distributes sympathy.”
Mrs. Jones is a Socialist and believes in the union of the Socialist forces for the more effective battling against the present system of production and distribution. She believes, however, that workpeople should first unite according to trade lines, where interests are oftener in common, and then the trades can unite for the establishment of the co-operative commonwealth. One of her oft-repeated statements is. “The labor movement can stand on its own legs, strong in the knowledge that it is based on truth and justice.”
Mother worked in the factories of the South for Wayland’s Appeal to Reason during the investigation which exposed th shameful system of poorly-paid labor. She came originally from Chicago, and when she was young taught school in Canada. Since then she has lost her husband and four children. “I have devoted myself to humanity,” is her usual declaration of principles.
During the coal strikes in Tioga county, Pa., last winter, Mrs. Jones had the clergy and physicians of the region against her. Several times the men came near breaking, but the women, headed by their energetic leader, finally carried the day for the miners.
Since then she has been working in the Central Pennsylvania district, to help the soft coal miners maintain the improved conditions they have already gained. Now she is in the Meyersdale (Md) district. Socialists and trade unionists all over the country are appealing to her for help.
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[Drawing added from Atlanta Constitution of June 8th.]
From the Baltimore Sun of June 20, 1900:
STRAIN OF THE STRIKE
—–
Anxiety In Lonaconing Over
The George’s Creek Situation.(Special Dispatch to the Baltimore Sun.)
CUMBERLAND, Md., June 19.-Organizers Warner and Haggerty held a demonstration at Lonaconing today against resumption. The meeting was to counteract the effect of the anti-strike meeting there last night. The organizers headed a procession in a carriage draped in national colors. Two brass bands furnished music. A number of banners were carried in the procession. On the banners were inscribed:
Sixty Cents and All Men Reinstated
Eight Hours Only
We Are In to Win
The marchers numbered 227 and 97 more joined at Lonaconing. They repaired to Knapp’s Meadow, where “Mother” Jone and Organizer Haggerty delivered addresses. The meeting voted to continue the strike. Things, it is alleged, are becoming serious at Lonaconing and vicinity. Serious trouble is feared. The sale of firearms yesterday and Saturday was almost unprecedented in the history of the town. The nervous strain of the strike is reported to be telling very much on the officers of the union and also on the men generally. The business men are anxious, and it is said that the strike leaders spend almost sleepless nights over the unfortunate situation. Fully fifty men left yesterday for points in Pennsylvania and West Virginia to hunt work.
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From the Baltimore Sun of June 21, 1900:
From page nine:
COAL MINERS’ STRIKE
—–
Conference To Settle George’s Creek Trouble.
—–SETTLEMENT NOW IN SIGHT
—–
Frostburg Business Men As Mediators Between Strikers
And The Consolidation Company.(Special Dispatch to the Baltimore Sun.)
CUMBERLAND, Md., June 20.- The long-looked for conference between miners of the Consolidation Coal Company and Mr. C. K. Lord, the president, is in sight, and will probably be held in Cumberland on Friday of this week. The conference is being arranged by the business men’s committee at Frostburg, John Chambers, chairman, who have been frequently importuned by the miners to take up the matter, as they are almost desperate because of idleness…..
A message from Lonaconing tonight states that a delegation of miners from Barton called on Organizers Warner and Haggerty today and stated in no uncertain way that some definite action would have to be taken soon by the organization or the strike will be ordered off by the men. The organizers at once left for Barton to act against the threatened break.
Meetings in favor of resumption will be held this week at Barton, Lonaconing, Frostburg and other points in the region. It is thought Mother Jones has quit the region. She left Lonaconing today, coming to Cumberland, buying a one-way ticket, saying she did not want a round trip. The miners describe the feeling as one of general desperation and a crisis must come soon. The proposed conference will hasten it, it seems assured.
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From page 12:
On the evening of June 20th, Mother Jones Attended a
Meeting of Federation of Labor in Baltimore.
“Mother” Jones, the labor leader of the coal regions, made an address, giving the reasons for and status of the coal miners’ strike in the George’s Creek region. She is here trying to arrange for the holding of mass-meetings in the interest of the miners.
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Note: Emphasis added throughout.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SOURCES
Labor Advocate
(Birmingham, Alabama)
-June 16, 1900, page 1
https://www.genealogybank.com/
The Sun
(Baltimore, Maryland)
-June 20, 1900
https://www.newspapers.com/image/365281976/
-June 21, 1900
https://www.newspapers.com/image/365282284/
https://www.newspapers.com/image/365282332/
IMAGE
Mother Jones, Atlanta Constitution p9, June 8, 1900
https://www.newspapers.com/image/34091818
See also:
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday July 10, 1900
Mother Jones News Round-Up for June 1900, Part I
Found Marching with Striking Miners of Georges Creek Coal District
June 8, 1900-Atlanta Constitution:
Mrs. Mary Jones, Woman Strike Leader, Known as “Mother”
-for more re Life of Mother Jones:
The Autobiography of Mother Jones
CH Kerr, 1925
https://archive.iww.org/history/library/MotherJones/autobiography/
Tag: Arnot Miners Strike of 1899
https://weneverforget.org/tag/arnot-miners-strike-of-1899/
Tag: Georges Creek MD Coal Strike of 1900
https://weneverforget.org/tag/georges-creek-md-coal-strike-of-1900/
Georges Creek Coalfield -with map
http://www.coalcampusa.com/westmd/george/george.htm
Ninth Annual Report of the Bureau of
Industrial Statistics of Maryland, 1900
Baltimore, 1901
https://books.google.com/books?id=yg8oAAAAYAAJ
Pages 17-55: The George’s Creek Coal Strike of 1900
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=yg8oAAAAYAAJ&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA17
Pages 37-39: A Woman Organizer Appears
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=yg8oAAAAYAAJ&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA37
Page 45: re Mother Returns to Baltimore on July 25th:
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=yg8oAAAAYAAJ&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA45
On July 25 “Mother Jones” came to Baltimore to make collections for the miners. She started by securing twenty-five dollars from the Federation of Labor. In her address to the Federation she said:
When Roosevelt was up in these mining towns the operators shut down the mines and shops and turned the men out to cheer Teddy. I don’t suppose they were “docked” for that day, but ordinarily if one of them was a minute late for work he lost a whole day.
Children of Mother Jones – Pete Duffy