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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday October 12, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for September 1901, Part I
Grants Interview in Cleveland, Speaks at Labor Day Celebration
From the Cleveland Plain Dealer of September 2, 1901:
“Mother” Mary Jones, who has been associated with the miners and silk workers in their strike, arrived in Cleveland on the Big Four yesterday afternoon [September 1st]. She is registered at the Forest City house. Mrs. Jones was met at the train by a committee of four and conducted to her apartments at the hotel. The committee consisted of two members of the Central Labor union and two of the Woman’s Labor union.
An address will be given by Mrs. Jones this afternoon at Scenic park to the members of the Central Labor union. The theme of her lecture will be “The Necessity for Organization in the Field of Labor.” A reception will be given her after the address.
Mrs. Jone came to Cleveland from the New river district in West Virginia, where she has been working among the miners for the past two months. In the evening she will leave for Carbondale, Pa., where she will give a lecture. From there she will return to West Virginia.
“Come right in!” called Mrs. Jones in a hearty, motherly voice, in response to a rap at the door, “I like to talk to newspaper men. They belong to the workers.”
What do I think of the present steel strike? I believe all strikes are good. They are bringing us nearer the goal we are striving for, that is, equalization of wealth.
I don’t believe that the Amalgamated association struck merely to show its power. The men had real grievances. If they weren’t dissatisfied they wouldn’t have quit work. Perhaps they won’t win, but whether they do or not a great deal will be accomplished.
[She continued:]
We are a nation of strikers. We inherited the disease from our revolutionary fathers, and have been striking ever since. We will continue to strike and strike until the laboring men are emancipated.
I don’t know when that time will be, but it won’t be as long as most people think. Something will have to change before long or we will have another French revolution. The poor people who are oppressed will not stand being trodden upon too long. “The worm will turn.”
In the West Virginia mines there are boys six years old who work ten hours a day, and this is in order that a few may live without work.
[She exclaimed, her eyes flashing:]
It’s a shame and an outrage. We call ourselves Christianized and civilized, and such things in our midst. It’s a mockery.
The whole system of labor is wrong and must be changed. I hope at the ballot box, but-well-it must be changed.
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From the Cleveland Plain Dealer of September 3, 1901:
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The labor day parade of the year 1901 will go down in history as one of the greatest Cleveland ever saw. It undoubtedly was the greatest ever held up to that time. Favored with a smiling sun and a cool, invigorating breeze a more ideal day could not have been desired and the anticipations of the committees in charge were more than realized. Nearly 12,00 men were in line, many of them uniformed, all well marshaled and not one who failed to uphold the standard of unionism by his good conduct. Never before had the members of the Central Labor Union and the Building Trades Council made such efforts in behalf of a labor day demonstration as this year…..
Promptly at 8:45 o’clock, Chief Marshal McKenna gave the command to move forward. The Fifth regiment band struck up “The Stars and Striped Forever” and the first division of the big parade started down Lake street toward Bond.
At the head rode Lieut. Johnson with a mounted squad of five policemen, who set their steeds well. Then, following the band came the carriage in which rode “Mother” Jones with Mrs. Barbara Bandlow. Anther carriage contained Miss Collins of the tobacco workers, Mrs. Palmer of the garment workers and President Conrad Beck of the Central Labor union. These were followed by district council of the International Longshoremen’s association. There were eighty of these, all clad in blue shirts, black trousers, and carrying canes. Then came the representatives of the Building Trades council who acted as escort to “Mother” Jones, followed by the local lodges fo the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, Sheet Metal & Tin workers. The rear of this division was brought up by carriages containing members of the Women’s Federal Labor union, represented by United Garment Makers, Tobacco Workers and other women’s organizations…..
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“ANGEL” HITS AT TRUSTS.
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“Mother” Jones Paints a Pathetic Picture
of the Condition of Laboring Classes.
———-“Mother” Mary Jones, the “angel” of the miners and the little silk workers, was the star attraction at the annal picnic of the Central Labor union at Scenic park yesterday. In the afternoon she spoke for nearly two hours to an audience of more than 1,000 people…..
“Mother” Jones is really motherly in her looks. She has a kindly face, and an intelligent one. She says that she is an agitator, but she agitates from a desire to have peace rather than to stir up strife. In a crowd of people she would never be taken for a labor agitator. Her modesty is unusual. She is, on the other hand, quite reserved. As a public speaker she exhibits all the powers of the most finished orator, and at times in her address she becomes almost dramatic. Her description of the condition of the mining classes in West Virginia was pathetic in the extreme, and she added much to the pathos by her manner of delivery. One could almost hear the pitiful wails of the sufferers as this gray haired woman almost chanted the story. Her audience was sympathetic and were unsparing in their applause whenever she gave the capitalist a rap.
“I see there are no billionaires present,” she remarked as she gazed over her well dressed audience. I wish that there might be so that they might hear what I shall tell you about them.”
[She continued:]
During all the years of the world’s history, down the stairway of time, we have heard that eternal wail, the groans of millions of laborers for bread. Away back 2,000 years ago a meeting was called in ancient Athens to discuss this selfsame question. Labor had its trouble then as well as it has now. They could decide no way out of the difficulty and called on a Greek philosopher. He, with all his boasted wisdom, could give no solution. He said as long as the world exists there must be freemen and there must be slaves. Never, until you can get an inanimate object to do the work of slaves, will we all be free. Today we have many machines that perform the work of slaves, yet there is slavery still.
I have just been laboring in that God-cursed monopolistic state of West Virginia, and I thank God that I was not born a man, as my conscience is not burdened with the thought that I voted for that thieving gang that administer our laws. Slavery just as horrible as were the slaves before the war exists in this so-called land of the free today in West Virginia. The poor miners are forced to work ten hours a day in the bowels of the earth for a mere pittance. I have seen them when they have come to the surface after their day’s work was done. Many of the poor fellows would drop from exhaustion as they stepped out. Forced to drudge all day, with two or three biscuits to keep up their strength, they are in worse bondage than were the colored men. They must live in the capitalistic dog kennels owned by the company; they must buy all their necessities of life from the company store, and contribute to the support of a company doctor. Every cent they earn finds its way back into the hands of the trust.
I saw a feeble old man struggling at his work one day. He said he had worked in that mine for thirty-two years, and he had no money ahead. He said that he never had taken a drink in his life, every cent that he earned the company got. This is a lesson for you temperance people. There are greater evils than the drink evil. The money evil. You men could change this system if you desired. You talk all the year round about the power of money, and pound some unfortunate fellow who takes a union man’s place during a strike.
The way to win your rights is by the ballot. If you don’t assert your rights by attacking the robbers with your ballots, the time is not far distant when you will have to fight with bullets or be crushed into the earth by the monopolistic villains. We fought to free men once, because we couldn’t do it with the ballot, but today when we have just as many slaves, you sit idly by and see many thousands of human beings enslaved by the money power. You don’t know your own strength. You don’t realize that if you would stand shoulder to shoulder on election day that you could free the slaves again. We are being furnished an example of government by injunction. President McKinley orders the judge to issue injunctions. In the old days in England judges were hanged that usurped the power of the people and enjoined individuals. It might work well today, but a new crop of rascals would take their places. I believe in voting. The more injunctions they order, the stronger the laboring classes will get. The courts may keep on in that sort of rascally work, but they should pause. They may think you laborers are powerless, but they forget that you still have the right to rebel. If we had a revolution once, we can have one again if injunctions get too frequent. The courts are owned by the money power.
“The courts of this city are owned by he steel trust,” interrupted a man, who said he was employed by the trust.
Well, such men as you put them in power by your votes, and they will rule you as long as you let them. Your man Hanna is in the clique composed of Carnegie, Morgan, Rockefeller and the others.
Tom Johnson is one of the non-producers. He is not earning anything. In 1870 the producers, such as the laboring men are, owned 32 per cent. of the total wealth of the country. In 1880 they held but 24 per cent., in 1890 they had but 16 per cent. and last year the statistics show that the laboring class held but 10 per cent. Just think of it; 90 percent. of the total wealth of the country is owned by men who never earned a bit of it. When Rome fell the producers had only 3 per cent. We are fast approaching a precipice. When wealth accumulates, men decay, and we are decaying fast. All the courts in this country cannot stamp out of our minds the idea of freedom, all of the injunctions in the universe cannot make us forget the word liberty. If the president and congress do not call a halt in the injunction matter, remember, men, that you still have the right to rebel!
Mother Jones believes that the steel strikers will win, as they are now in a good condition. She left for West Virginia [Carbondale, Penn.] last evening, where she will tak up her work of organizing the miners. She believes that three hours a day is enough for men to labor. The rest of the time they should be recreating or studying.
In the evening at the grounds there was a successful balloon ascension and a parachute drop, and a fine display of fire workers.
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From The Cleveland Leader of September 3, 1901:
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SOURCES & IMAGES
Cleveland Plain Dealer
(Cleveland, Ohio)
-Sept 2, 1901, pages 5 & 10
-Sept 3, 1901, pages 1 & 2
https://www.genealogybank.com/
The Cleveland Leader
(Cleveland, Ohio)
-Sept 3, 1901, page 1
Note: see page 2 for more on
speech by Mother Jones.
https://www.genealogybank.com/
See also:
Mother Jones News Round-Up for August 1901, Part I
Found Organizing for United Mine Workers in West Virginia
Mother Jones News Round-Up for August 1901, Part II
Found at United Mine Workers’ Headquarters in Indianapolis
Tag: U. S. Steel Strike of 1901
https://weneverforget.org/tag/u-s-steel-strike-of-1901/
Tag: UMW West Virginia Organizing Campaign of 1900-1902
https://weneverforget.org/tag/umw-west-virginia-organizing-campaign-of-1900-1902/
Tag: Pennsylvania Silk Mill Workers Strikes of 1901
https://weneverforget.org/tag/pennsylvania-silk-mill-workers-strikes-of-1901/
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Hold the Fort – British Transport Workers