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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday September 18, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for August 1910, Part II:
-Found Speaking to Mine Workers at Shenandoah, Pennsylvania
From the Shenandoah Evening Herald of August 27, 1910:
MOTHER JONES WAS IN SCOLDING MOOD
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“Mother” Jones was the big noise at the open air mass meeting of mine workers at Main and Centre streets last night, and despite her seventy-five years of terrestrial pilgrimage she was in excellent physical trim.
“Never felt better In my life,” she said to a friend who commented upon her fine appearance, and added,
You know I’m good for seventy-five more years. I don’t think I’ll ever die, so long as I want to live.
“Mother” Jones was in fine voice and the verbal lambasting she administered to John Mitchell, former head of the United Mine Workers of America, ex-President Roosevelt and President Taft caused her hearers “to sit up and take notice,” as the phrase goes when something surprising and unexpected is sprung on an unsuspecting audience. There were other speakers, but “Mother” Jones was the attraction, and she certainly furnished the necessary entertainment, but her denunciation of John Mitchell as a traitor to the cause of labor did not gain her many sympathizers. She excoriated Mitchell for hobnobbing with Roosevelt and declared that both Mitchell and Roosevelt were the “two biggest bluffs at large.” She found fault with Bishop Hobin, of Scranton, for a humorous reference of the Bishop’s at a dinner to Roosevelt and Mitchell that it was the first time he had the honor of sitting between two presidents. She was quite emphatic in utterance and her oratory was attended by the usual gesticulations so familiar during the troublous times of some years ago.
She was more rabid of utterance last night than on any former occasion in this region, and she waved red-flag sentiments with defiance.
Speaking of the State Police she declared they were patterned after the Irish Constabulary.
[She fairly shrieked:]
I was six years old when I was driven from home at the bayonet point by the constabulary in Ireland, and I have never forgot it, and never shall.
I’d sooner go to heaven with a union card as a passport than as a pious Christian of the employer class who have accumulated their millions by grinding the lives out of the down trodden women and children.
Turning her verbal batteries on President Taft she said he wasn’t the head of the nation, but the slave of the plutocratic power of Wall street.
“Mother” Jones will remain in Shenandoah for several days as the guest of National Organizer Alex Kupstas and wife at their home at 25 North Emerick street.
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[Photograph added.]
From the Wilkes-Barre Evening News of August 29, 1910:
LABOR MEN READY FOR BIG HOLIDAY
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Central Body Delegates Yesterday Completed
Arrangements for Labor Day.
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[…..]Arrangements were about completed for the Labor Day picnic, yesterday morning at a meeting of the Central Labor Union committee in charge. “Mother Jones” as well as many other local celebrities will deliver addresses appropriate to the day…..
The committee will meet again on Thursday night after the regular meeting of the Central Labor Union.
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From the Shenandoah Evening Herald of August 30, 1910:
Tour of “Mother” Jones.
Charles P. Gildea, of the United Mine Workers said today:
“Mother” Jones arrived here in Hazleton six weeks ago. Her object in coming here was for the purpose of resting and recuperating from a severe illness which almost cost her her life. She is not employed by either the Mine workers or any branch of the Socialist party. She is free to do as she pleases in the matter of addressing meetings, etc. Statements that she has been sent here by any particular person are without foundation. The article which appeared in the Philadelphia Press and was reprinted this morning which states that she has been sent here by President [Thomas] Lewis is incorrect and without foundation.
-Hazleton Plain Speaker.
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Note: Emphasis added throughout.
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SOURCES
Evening Herald
(Shenandoah, Pennsylvania)
-Aug 27, 1910
https://www.newspapers.com/image/448065149/
-Aug 30, 1910
https://www.newspapers.com/image/448065327/
The Evening News
(Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania)
-Aug 29, 1910
https://www.newspapers.com/image/174971014/
IMAGE
Mother Jones, WDC Tx p5, June 18, 1910
https://www.genealogybank.com/
See also:
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for August 1910,
Part I: Found Speaking to Miners of Hazleton District, Pennsylvania
Mother’s bitterness towards John Mitchell
continued to the end of her life, see:
The Autobiography of Mother Jones
CH Kerr, 1925
https://archive.iww.org/history/library/MotherJones/autobiography/
Chapter 8 – Roosevelt Sent for John Mitchell
https://archive.iww.org/history/library/MotherJones/autobiography/8/
Chapter 13 – The Cripple Creek Strike
https://archive.iww.org/history/library/MotherJones/autobiography/13/
Chapter 27 – Progress in Spite of Leaders
https://archive.iww.org/history/library/MotherJones/autobiography/27/
The Correspondence of Mother Jones
-ed by Edward M. Steel
U of Pittsburgh Press, 1985
https://books.google.com/books?id=EZ2xAAAAIAAJ
https://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt%3A31735057897435
Aug 1, 1910
– from Mother Jones at Hazleton Pa to Thomas J. Morgan at Chicago
page 77 (128 of 416)
https://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt%3A31735057897435/viewer#page/128/mode/2up
Attorney Morgan represented Mother in her dispute with J. Mahlon Barnes, national secretary of the Socialist Party America. In this letter she complained to Morgan about the middle-class and upper-class leadership of the SPA. She charged that the SPA did very little to assist in bringing the cause of the imprisoned Mexican Revolutionaries before the U. S. Congress. Of her sojourn in Hazleton PA, she stated: “I am holding big meetings here.”
For more on dispute with Barnes
-scroll down to July 1909 Correspondence:
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday August 11, 1909
Mother Jones News Round-Up for July 1909, Part IV
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The Spirit of Mother Jones – Andy Irvine