Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday August 7, 1912 Charleston, West Virginia – Mother Jones Speaks to Striking Miners
Thursday, August 1, 1912, Charleston Levee -Mother Jones speaks to striking miners from the back of a dray wagon.
The Wheeling Intelligencer August 2, 1912
Now, you have gathered here today for a purpose. Every movement made in civilization has had an underlying purpose. You have reached the century in human civilization when the charge of human slavery must forever disappear. (Applause.)
You, my friends, in my estimation, have stood this insult too long. You have borne the master’s venom, his oppression, you have allowed him to oppress you. When we said, “a little more bread” he set out to get the human blood-hounds to murder you. Your Governor [Glasscock] has stood for it. He went off to Chicago [Republican convention] and left two Gatling guns with the blood-hounds to blow your brains out.
Then you elected a sheriff, that began to shake like a poodle dog the night of the trouble on Paint Creek. He began to tremble and ran into a store to be sheltered. I have never in all my life—in all the battles I have had—taken back water, and why should a public officer do it—elected by the people. The best thing you can do is to apply to some scientist to give you some chemicals and put into a nursing bottle, give it to them fellows and tell them to go away back and sit down. (Applause.)
This industrial warfare is on. It can’t be stopped, it can’t be put back, it is breaking out over all the nation from the city of Mexico clean through to the border of Canada, from the Atlantic Ocean clean across the oceans of the world; it is the throbbing of the human heart in the industrial field for relief. They are preaching appeal to the Legislature, they appeal to Congress—and I must give this Congress credit—I always want to give credit where credit is due—you have had more labor bills passed in the last session than in all the days of your Congress.
I was in Washington not many weeks ago. I sat up in the gallery watching the voters. I was watching the fellows who would vote against your bill. One fellow, when they asked for roll call, he got up among those who didn’t want it, but when the vote came he had to be registered on the Congressional Record, he took mighty good care that his vote was in your favor Why? Because the whole machine of capitalism realize for the first time in history that there is an intellectual awakening of the dog below, and he is barking. Have you been barking on Paint Creek?
I want to say, without apology, without fear of the courts, without fear of jails, you have done what ought to have been done a long time ago. When-when a corporation which is bleeding you to death, would go and hire,-send over the nation and hire human blood-hounds to abuse your wife, your child, it is time every man in the State should rise.
I saw an inscription on your statehouse, and looked at it,-because I know Virginia. I know the whole machine of capitalism; they locked me up and put me out of the State and shook their fists at me and told me not to come back again. I told them to go to hell, I will be back tomorrow.
You know the trouble with you fellows is that you get weak-kneed, and get a pain in your back, and then go home and are sick for a week.
Now, this fight, the governor can’t stop it, the State militia can’t stop it, and I want to say something to you-Don’t get into conflict with the boys in the State militia. (Cries of “Amen! Amen!”)
I don’t want one single man in the State militia hurt. I know what the militia is for. It is organized to shoot down the workers when they protest, in every nation of the world. But there are many workingmen in the militia, and I always deal with them—they are mine, anyhow. I am going to change them from the capitalists’ interest over to my interest.
You know the “two-by-four” governor-(Applause)-I am not talking about your governor. He has the Gatling guns. I am talking about the “two-by-four” corporation tool in the State of Pennsylvania.
(A voice: “How about West Virginia?”)
I am not talking about West Virginia. When we had a fight in 1900, the governor was going to clean us up, and four thousand women went down at three o’clock in the morning—They weren’t ladies, they were women. A lady, you know was created by the parasitical class; women, God Almighty made them. The crack thirteenth were sent down by that governor to meet those four thousand women. Their sleeves were rolled up on their arms, they walked fifteen miles over mountains. What did those women do? They licked the crack thirteenth of Pennsylvania. The “two- by-four” lawyers, the back crooks and corporation rats-they don’t know how to fight. So the militia begged for mercy. The Colonel says, “Move back, we are going forward in civilization. I will charge bayonets on you people.” “Not on your life, you don’t charge bayonets on us, because if you do-I will tell you now, we are fighting the robbers who take our bread and butter; if you go to shoot us we will clean up the highway with the whole bunch of you.” You ought to have seen them run! Their moustache wasn’t curled that day. They went up and hit the pike and didn’t bother us any more. The sheriff said to me, “Take these people away.” “No, I didn’t come here to take them away, ‘I came to meet them.” He said, “I will have you arrested, I will call on the governor for the militia.” I said, “We will lick the militia.” It is the fighting of the classes. You have today in this country two warring forces, the one the lying oligarchy, the other the crush pin, the breath is taken from them.
Go into the mines—I want to say to you, don’t let me hear that you have ever injured a single mine in the whole State of Virginia. These mines belong to you. The outside belongs to the operators, the inside is where your property is, your job is inside, that is your property, you go inside and dig down the wealth, and you are generous enough to give three-fourths of it to the other fellows. You give up three-fourths to the other fellows, then if you say you need a little more bread for your children he sends out after the blood-hounds.
I want to say, my friends, in this age of ours, in this modern conflict we are going to prepare you to stop it. I am eighty years old I have passed the eightieth mile stone in human history. I will be eighty more, for I have got a contract with God Almighty to stay with you until your chains are broken. (Loud applause.)
We have broken the chains of chattel slavery, we changed his condition from a chattel slave to a wage slave. But you say we didn’t make it any better. Oh, yes, we did, we made it better for the chattel slave. Then we entered into industrial slavery. That was one step in advance. We forever wiped out chattel slavery and came into industrial slavery. Now, industrial slavery is the battle you are in.
Let me say to you, I don’t want a single officer of the militia molested in any way. I am not going to say to you don’t molest the operators. It is they who hire the dogs to shoot you. (Applause.) I am not asking you to do it, but if he is going to oppress you, deal with him. I am not going to take any back water because I am here in the capital. No back water for me. No man lives on the face of God’s earth that is oppressing my class that I am afraid of. (Loud applause.)
I want to say, my friends, here,-(Here the speaker took time to get up on top of a box which was in the bed of the wagon.) I want to see if the guards are here.
You have inscribed on the steps of your Capitol, “MOUNTAINEERS ARE FREE.” God Almighty, men, go down through this nation and see the damnable, infamous condition that is there. In no nation of the world will you find such a condition. I look with horror when I see these conditions.
You gather up money to send to China to learn them to know more about Jesus. Jesus don’t know any more about you than a dog does about his father. (Loud applause.)
I was in church one day when they raked in $1600.00, and at the same time they were robbing the representatives of Jesus to feed them who robbed them. You build churches and give to the Salvation Army and all the auxiliaries of capitalism and support them, to hoodwink you.
But I want to say they will not be able to get an army in the United States big enough to crush us.
I was speaking to the manager in the ticket office in the Far West, and I said “I am going in to West Virginia.” I had been in fourteen states with the strikers in each state. I said, “I am going into West Virginia, and there will probably be hell.” He said, “Be quiet, a great many of us will be with you. Get all you can out of these thieves.” I say to the policemen, “Get all the ammunition you can, get all the ammunition and lie quiet, for one of these days you will come over with us and we are going to give the other fellows hell.”
Now my friends, my brothers, this is a new day for me. I can write a new message to the boys in the Far West. I can write a new message even to my boys in Mexico.
I went into Mexico last October. I want to give you a little incident of how things happened over night. I fought Diaz until I had to leave the country. I made it so blamed hot for the tyrant that I had to get up and get away to be safe. I saw the whole administration in Mexico. I had a talk with them. I walked up into that palace where that tyrant had robbed and murdered millions of human beings—I walked up into that palace that he left, and I said “My God! this is making history fast.” He went to Santa Cruz and took a steamer to go into exile; the prison doors were opened the same day and four or five of my brothers that he had incarcerated there went free.
Oh, friends, even castles cannot protect tyranny. Every member of the Mexican administration gave me an audience, and they said to me, “Mother Jones, you can come into Mexico-we want you-and organize the men.”
Someone said yesterday in my presence, that when the Panama Canal was finished, their goods would get a tremendous market. Let me say the Panama Canal was not started for your benefit. The gang on Wall Street started the Panama Canal because they said “We will capture Nicaragua and Mexico and get thirty million peons.” When the Wall Street oligarchy move, it don’t fool me. (Applause.)
You held a convention here the other day, to elect him president again. May God Almighty grant that he may die before election comes. He [President Roosevelt] sent two thousand guns in to blow my brains out in Colorado [1903], and I have got it in for him.
(A voice: “Call his name.”)
I did call his name, it is Teddy the monkey chaser. I can give you more.
(From the crowd: “Tell it, tell it.”)
I can’t tell it from hearing, I can tell it from experience. The Mayor of New York [Seth Low] didn’t want to let me in, but I got in. A man is a fool to try and play the game on a woman. The Mayor let me in and then I went on to Oyster Bay. He [Roosevelt] had a secretary, who died since in Washington—I was glad when I heard it-he was afraid I would dynamite him. That fellow Roosevelt had secret service men from his palace down at Oyster Bay, all the way to New York, to watch an old gray-headed woman [March of Mill Children, 1903].
I don’t care whether it is Taft or him, the fight is the same. Mr. Policeman, we will give them hell anyhow.
Now boys, you are in this fight. I want to say to you the governor is sick, poor fellow. I feel sorry for him.
(From the crowd: “I hope he is dead. I do.”)
Let the governor alone today. We have arranged a mass meeting in Montgomery, also the citizens, merchants, lawyers, doctors and all—in Montgomery for four o’clock Sunday afternoon. Come down there and then we will do business with the governor. You must have a system, you must have a force behind you. When you are going to do business with those big fellows you have got to have ammunition. (Loud applause.)
One day I went to see President Taft, spent nearly forty minutes with him. Teddy was scared of me, but I will give Taft credit, he wasn’t, he gave me an audience of forty minutes. I know Taft belongs to the Wall Street crowd, but he shows his hand, but the other fellow will talk about referendum and recall but he will recall you with the militia and bayonets.
And don’t trust those judges today. I know them. I went down to see a judge in Colorado [Greeley W. Whitford]. He had fifteen of my boys in jail. I first tackled the sheriff and then went to see the governor. I gave him some taffy and then he let all my boys out. He said, “Mother, if you would get them to come down and apologize.” I said, “I have been trying to get them to stand up off their knees for many years, and there is no apology to make.” I wouldn’t have them to apologize under any circumstances. Seven years ago we went to the governor and put the whole matter before him, and he said, “I can’t do anything, I am helpless.” Then we went to the sheriff, and he said, “I can’t do anything, I am helpless.” But the governor wasn’t helpless when the operators asked him for two Gatling guns to murder the miners. (Loud applause.) He wasn’t helpless then. The sheriff wasn’t helpless then, my friends. Are we going to stand for the insults of the governors and the public officers and see our children and wives thrown out and insulted by the corporation blood-hounds? I say, no, fight daily until the last minute. (Prolonged applause.)
We are not going to surrender. We are not going to destroy property, but we are going to do business with your blood-hounds (Applause.)
“Mountaineers are always free!” Take that inscription off your Statehouse steps until we have made you free, and then you will be free.
I want to say, boys, take this advice from Mother—I have stood with you in all the years. No Gatling guns, no militia, no courts, have ever intimidated me. There isn’t a policeman in any city in America has ever molested me or arrested me. Never! They are every one my friends. When I spoke at the Navy Yard at Brooklyn—when I quit talking I went up to four policemen—I said, “Officers, will you kindly tell me where I will get a car to such a place.” They said, “We will go with you, Mother.” They said, “Come back next week, and give them fellows hell.” (Applause.)
So, you see we have been educating, we are converting the police, and you [coal operators] haven’t got everything with you. I know the Baldwin guards are here, maybe Baldwin is here, but I want to say, you take back water, or by the Eternal God we will make you do it. (Loud applause.) We won’t down further. There will be no guards to shoot us down. We will watch the property, it is ours, and in a few years we will take it over. And we will say to Taft and Teddy, “You have had a devil of a good time, go in and dig coal.”
Boys, go home peacefully and I will go with you. Yes, I will go with you.
(A voice from the audience. “Lord help.”)
No, we will help ourselves.
I am like a fellow in Pennsylvania. The Salvation Army was whooping for Jesus. Along came a fellow and one lassie went out and said to him, “Say, brother, did you ever work for Jesus?” “Oh, no, I don’t know him.” “You don’t know Jesus?” “No.”
She got horrified, she thought everybody ought to know Jesus. She said, “Well, come in and work for him.” “How much will you give me a day?” “He will give you a bed in heaven.” He said, “Give me a bed here.”
So we want the bed here, not when we die. There it too much preaching to wait until you die in peace. We don’t have any peace, there is an industrial war. It isn’t politics, it isn’t parties, it is industrial war, my friends. There will be no peace until that question is settled and settled right, and until man gets justice.
Look, you operators! You are here. God Almighty, come with me and see the wrecks of women, of babies, then ask yourself “How can I sleep at night?” How can your wife sleep at night? I saw one of them coming down the street the other day in an automobile. She had a poodle dog sitting beside her; I looked at her and then looked at the poodle. I watched the poodle—every now and again the poodle would squint its eye at her and turn up its nose when it got a look at her. (Laughter and applause.) He seemed to say: “You corrupt, rotten, decayed piece of humanity, my royal dogship is degraded sitting beside you.” She had lived off the blood of women and children, she decorated her neck and hands with the blood of innocent children, and I am here to prove it to the world.
Do you want any more? If you do I will give it to you. I have got the goods, and I will deliver it, and I have no fear of the courts, no fear of the militia, no fear of the mine owners, no fear of Taft, or of Teddy the monkey chaser.
It takes six billion dollars to take care of the criminals which the system makes. When Mr. Taft, the president of the United States, said to me, “Mother Jones,” said he, “I am afraid if I put the pardoning power in your hands, there wouldn’t be anybody left in the prisons!” (A voice from the audience: “Great God Almighty.’’) I said this: “Mr. President, if this nation spent half the money, half the energy to give her people a chance that she does to force them into the prisons, I don’t think we would need many prisons.”
My friends, I stood in the federal prison at Leavenworth, and saw eight hundred men march before me in the corridors. I looked at those men, and said to the warden—the chaplain, who stood with me —I said, “Chaplain, we are not civilized yet, we are not two degrees away from the savages.” A pen like that, in a nation which can create more wealth than the world can consume! There wasn’t twenty-five men among the eight hundred that I couldn’t take and open wide the Bastille doors, and say to those men, “Go free, I will break your chains, trust yourselves, and then you will trust me.” They wouldn’t violate the confidence I placed in them because if a man can’t live without being robbed he is going to rob and murder to do it. (Applause.)
You are today with the guard system. I will say, Mr. Operators, the day is going to come when you will say you wished you had never seen the face of a guard. We are law-abiding citizens, we will destroy no property, we will take no life, but if a fellow comes to my home and outrages my wife, by the Eternal he will pay the penalty. I will send him to his God in the repair shop. (Loud applause.) The man who doesn’t do it hasn’t got a drop of revolutionary blood in his veins.
Now, boys, we are approaching the day, we are going on until every man and woman that works, that produces, in this life, he becomes aflame with the same spirit that brought from the brain of England’s greatest orator, “Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.”
Now, I want you to be good boys. Don’t drink. You haven’t got anything to drink on. A good many women will say, “Don’t drink, then you will have money in the bank.”
I would rather drink than let the banker drink. These women howl Temperance! Temperance! The government says for $12.00 a year for drink—that wouldn’t get a jag on a good black cat—Don’t drink! No, save it—and the operators will have that much more. You rob them everywhere and then you murder them. Then you think they are going to stand for it? No, by the Eternal God, we are not.
That old fellow Taylor, from Paint Creek, with a couple of guards and a sheriff-if I was that fellow’s wife I would lick him every day and on Sunday-he ran into a store and said, “Hide me!” Don’t touch the sheriff, there isn’t enough in him to touch. Let him go, only when he comes up again tell him to take a walk.
I will tell you something. If the Adjutant General had come and said “Mother, will you come with me, we are going to Peytona, the sheriff can’t handle the trouble.” I would have said, “All right.” We would have settled that thing in twenty-five minutes.
I will give you an instance. We had a fight with the Erie Company. The company said “Bring the militia, hurry up, they are going to eat us up.” We were not going to touch them; their flesh is too rotten to eat. The sheriff met me and wanted us to get off their property. I said, “They want to take our jobs and we are not going to let them. That is our bread and butter, sheriff. We dig down the wealth and the other fellow isn’t satisfied. We want to make a day 8 hours instead of 10. We want to spend a little time with our wives and children, we want to study our affairs. Sheriff, come with me and swear the boys in and it will end in twenty minutes.”
And the sheriff came, and inside of one hour it was settled. Out in Colorado, the officers were gambling, and one of them lost seven hundred dollars that night. While they had a corporation jag on them they telephoned for the militia. Some one telephoned to me that they were mobilizing the troops. I said, “Let them mobilize the troops.” They had a colonel with them. They always had a title, “Colonel,” “Major,” or some- thing of that sort, to make you fellows believe they are bigger than you. The boys said to me, “You had better go to Utah.” I said, “No, I am going to stay and fight it out.” Saturday night they pulled me out of bed and landed me out of the state with five cents in my pocket to get a bed and something to eat. Next day the Santa Fe train came along, and I said, “Will you take me into Denver?” When I got there I said, “I am here in the capital, what in the hell are you going to do about it?” When I know I am right fighting for these children of mine, there is no governor, no court, no president will terrify or muzzle me. I see the babies, the children with their hands taken off for profit; I see the profit mongers with their flashing diamonds bought by the blood of children they have wrecked. Then you ask us to be quiet! Men, if you have a bit of human blood, revolutionary blood in your veins and a heart in your breasts, you will rise and protest against it. (Applause.)
I went up where you murder these baby children, and you will see those little boys gather around me in the dead of night and say “Mother, do come back to be with us.”
Oh, men of America! Oh, men of human instinct! Oh, men of descendants of the great Patrick Henry‘and Lincoln, will you stand for it?
(Cries from the audience: “No, No, No, No.”)
The only thing in life is at stake. Put a stop to it. Don’t go near the governor today, he might have a nervous collapse.
Now, like good boys, go back home. I will go with you. We won’t hurt anybody, we will have a good time, and when we get home, if the operators want to come and have a good time with us, we will be good to him—if he settles with us.
Now, boys, you came up here to the capital. It was the proper place to come to. This is the chief executive. So you haven’t retired, if the chief executive don’t do something, if the sheriff don’t do something, then the people must do something.
I am not going to talk any more today. I am going to talk Sunday at Paint Creek. They said that if I went up there last Sunday they were going to riddle me with bullets. Now, I went, and there wasn’t a bullet struck me. I am going next Sunday. I am going with you wherever you are.
I have been in the mines twenty-five years ago on the Monongahela River. I went in on the night shift and the day shift. I went to study the conditions and to get posted. You were working long hours then. I talked with you in the mines and got you together, told you what you were facing. I worked on the night shift and the day shift, I put the literature in your hands. I lay on the floor with your baby children. Today we are four hundred thousand strong, marching on to liberty, marching on to freedom. We are the United Mine Workers of America today numbering four hundred thousand. Then you worked 12 or 14 hours. We brought it down to 10, then to 8. Your stores ran and worked their help until 10 o’clock at night. The merchants said if you closed up they couldn’t make any money. We brought it down, and you haven’t got a merchant who will give up the business on account of making no money. You are now working 10 hours.
(From the crowd: “Nine hours.”)
This is 4 hours too much. We are going to keep on and are going to make it 6 hours. When I came in you were working 11 hours and 15 sometimes. I fought those fellows. They gave you 9 hours. You are as much to blame as the mine owners because you didn’t stick to your organization. If you were true to your organization, true to your manhood, you would not have to bother with the guards.
A fellow said the other day—Saturday—We are going to have a convention in Charleston, to talk politics. I want to say that the man who is not true to the economical part of his life is not true to the political. The labor movement has two wings. She has the economic wing and the political wing. When you are organized thoroughly on the economic you can march on and make demands of the other fellows what you want.
(At this point “Mother” quoted a poem written by Rudyard Kipling addressed to the crowned heads of Europe.)
I want to say to you mine owners, if you are here, I know you will go home and say we have been false to our homes, to our country, let us shake hands with these miners. Let us have no strike. You will have as much when you die, you will have as much rotten meat on your carcass for the rats to eat. (Loud applause.)
Now, boys, be good and come to the meeting Sunday at Montgomery, there will be no mines to be closed up that day. I want to say to you that these mine owners have contracts, and don’t close the mines every day. Let us get together and have concerted action.
(At this point “Mother” began to shake hands with the audience.)
I will always be with you, no court, no judge or deputy can scare me, and if any judge pulls me into court I will tell him what is business.
Good bye, boys. Don’t bring them down, because the corporation is here and you will lose your jobs tomorrow.
When the strike is won I will [send?] for you, and then you can get a jag on. I will get something better than beer for you.
I want to say—I forgot—I intended to pay a tribute to Major Elliott. Of course he has got to take orders. It is the sheriffs and the governor that I am opposed to. I want to say that never in my life did I meet a more perfect gentleman than Major Elliott. He arrested me in Clarksburg, but he was a gentleman in every sense of the word. He didn’t want to put me in jail, but he wanted me to go to the hotel and stay until my trial came up. But I prefer boarding with Uncle Sam when he wants me to.
I want to say to you that you need not be afraid of Major Elliott. I know that he will do the best he can with you, and I know, I believe in my own heart that he will tell these troops not to fire on you, and I want to tell you, Mr. Operator, you can’t buy him to do it. Of course he is a public officer. As such he has got to obey orders from above, but he won’t obey the mine owners. (Appease.) .
Before I leave you, I want to say to you there isn’t a nation on earth but what brings out the troops when capitalism wants them to murder you.
In France, the government is supposed to be atheistic, when the telegraphers went on a strike the government brought the troops out to shoot the workers back.
In Germany, which is a Protestant nation, they called on the troops to shoot the workers down when they struck.
In Spain, which is a Catholic country, they called out the troops to shoot your back.
Then in Italy, the home of Catholicism, they brought out the troops to shoot you back.
Then here in America out comes the troops.
Don’t you believe it is time to stop it? Don’t you know you have the same government as when the immortal Lincoln was in Washington? He didn’t bring out the troops to shoot you. With machinery you have changed the whole industrial world, you have changed literature, the pulpit in the teaching of religion. Your public press today is run in the interest of the ruling classes. These editors have got to do it. Don’t blame the editor. I blame the pirates behind. The poor editors are like you, slaves, and you are slaves.
Nobody can change this but you. The other class will never change it. The ministers will never change it. They will tell you to go up to Jesus, and Jesus will tell you to get back and fight. That is what He will do with you.
Now wait until I read this:
The miners and workmen in mass-meeting assembled, believing in law and order and peace should reign in every civilized community, call the attention of honest citizens of the State of West Virginia to the fact that a force of armed guards of men belonging to the reckless class, the criminal and lawless class, have no respect for the rights of their fellow man, who have been employed in the coal fields of Kanawha and the New River valley. These lawless men and criminals beat up her citizens on the public highways, a menace to the traveling public.
If you are molested you have a right to sue the railroad.
They insult our wives, our daughters, arrest honest citizens in lawful discharge of their duties, without process of law; they carry on a course of conduct which is calculated to bring about warfare and disturb the peace. We earnestly insist that the recent trouble on Paint Creek Valley was brought about by the armed criminals against whose depredations we could get no relief from the courts.
I will explain the courts to you directly, and I hope the judge is here. He belongs to the corporations if he is here.
(From the audience: “You bet your life he does.”)
We earnestly and sincerely call upon the State administration, men in public life throughout the State, all good citizens, to cooperate with us, to use their influence by enforcing the law, by forcing such guards to disarm themselves and leave the territory where they are now stationed. We believe their presence there will lead to further riot and bloodshed and murder and general disturbing of the peace, a condition to be deplored by all law-abiding citizens.
We hereby promise and pledge our support and cooperation with Major C. D. Elliott, who is in charge of the State militia, in the interest of law and order, at the same time insist that law and order cannot be restored until the armed guards are discharged.
We pledge ourselves to abide by the law, doing everything within our power to cause our sympathizers to do likewise, upon the condition that said guards and bloodhounds are disarmed and removed from the State.
We condemn the action of the Circuit Judge of this county for leaving the bench at the time of the threatened impending danger, at a time when there existed a condition that brought fear and unrest to the members of our families, to our neighbors and friends. We submitted our cause to said court in which the action of said armed guards was clearly set forth, through and by our attorneys, and an injunction and restraining order was asked for, and said restraining order was denied by the judge. We hold that the recent outbreak and riot was due to the fact that said judge refused to grant a proper restraining order against said guards under the condition set forth in the bill and proof filed in support thereof.
Resolved that a copy of this resolution be forwarded and transmitted to the Honorable William E. Glasscock.
What on God’s earth did you give him this title for? Did he have any honor when he sent Gatling guns to shoot you? Quit saying “Honor” to those fellows. When I was in the court you have to say “Your Honor.” I said, “Who is the court?” I said, “Is the old man on the bench with the long beard the court?” He said, “Yes.” I said, “How can I know he has any honor?” “—and a copy to Major C. D. Elliott.”
I will bet you if Major Elliott disarms those guards the miners will sit down. But I want to tell you operators that by the Gods you will have to settle with us. We are no slaves, no peons, and we are not going to submit to you. If you want peons, go down to Nicaragua and get them.
Be good, boys, don’t drink. I will be down tonight, and we will have a meeting Sunday evening [August 4th] at four o’clock. Then we will decide what steps we are going to take.
The governor is sick now; don’t bother with him, poor fellow.
(From the audience: “He is sick in. the head.”)
He was at the Republican convention in Chicago, and had a pain in his back.
There is a man in this audience [John W. Brown, Socialist Party organizer], he has a big hat on, and he will now speak to you.
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