Mother Jones, 83 Today, Thinks of “Her Boys”

Mother Jones in the Military Bastile
at Pratt, West Virginia, 1913

“I have spent one birthday in jail and missed spending the last one by only a few hours, but I’d be willing to spend all of them in prison if it would be of any help to my boys,” said Mrs. Mary Jones, known as Mother Jones to thousands of admiring union labor men everywhere in America, yesterday afternoon. Mrs Jones had been at the Hotel Severin for several days and she recalled, just before she started to the Union station to take a train for Washington that today is her eighty-third birthday anniversary.Mother Jones will spend a part of her birthday anniversary, after her arrival in Washington, with Terrance V. Powderly, former head of the Knights of Labor. Mrs. Jones said she and Powderly were “warriors together” at one time, and added that her eighty-first anniversary was spent in a military prison at Pratt. W. Va., and that she missed spending her eighty-second in a prison in Colorado only by a few hours. In both instances she had been placed under arrest for her efforts in behalf of striking miners.

[Photograph added.]

Mother Jones in the Military Bastile at Walsenburg, Colorado, 1914:

Below the fold we offer two more articles regarding the recent trip made by Mother Jones to Indianapolis where she met with the officers of the United Mine Workers of America at the union’s international headquarters in that city.

From The Indianapolis News of April 28, 1915:

MOTHER JONES IN THE CITY.
———-
Will Confer With Miners’ Board Over
Colorado Conditions.

Mother Jones, friend of the miner and the workingman generally, who registered plain “M. Jones, United States,” arrived at the Hotel Severin today from Washington. Her mission to Indianapolis relates to the labor situation in Colorado. While in this city, Mother Jones will have conferences with the Colorado members of the miners’ executive board, which is in session at the headquarters of the organization.Mother Jones says she has great hopes of better labor conditions in Colorado since she has had the positive promise from John D. Rockefeller, Jr., that he will go there and personally take charge of matters. She expresses sorrow for the young millionaire, that he was born and educated in the midst of wealth. “He’s a good sort of fellow at heart,” she remarked.

Mother Jones recently visited Frank Ryan and other iron workers in Leavenworth prison and she proposes to start a campaign in Washington for a parole for Ryan and three or four others whom she declares have been punished enough.

———-Photograph added.]

From The Indianapolis Star of April 29, 1915:

MOTHER JONES STOPS HERE FOR
CHAT WITH HER “BOYS”
———-

Mrs. Mary Jones, known to thousands of laboring men, throughout the United States as Mother Jones, was in Indianapolis yesterday. While here Mrs. Jones visited the offices of the United Mine Workers of America for a chat with her “boys, ” as she invariably refers to the miners.”The situation in Colorado is much better than it was and it is going to be all right again,” said Mrs. Jones at the Hotel Severin. “Things don’t get bad in a day and they can’t get good in a day, either, so we can’t expect the Colorado situation to improve right away. John D. Rockefeller Jr. told me he would go to Colorado and look after the situation there, and I believe he will do it. He has had a death in his family and that has delayed his trip.”

Mrs. Jones carries her eighty odd years with a buoyant step, a steady hand and a strong voice. She wore a black silk dress trimmed with white and a black hat with a dash of purple on the crown, which added youth to her appearance. Mrs. Jones is on her way to Colorado, but will remain here a short time before proceeding.

———-[Photograph added.]

~~~~~~~~~~

SOURCES

The Indianapolis Star
(Indianapolis, Indiana)
-Apr 29, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/…
-May 1, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/…

The Indianapolis News
Indianapolis, Indiana
-Apr 28, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/…

IMAGES
Mother Jones in West Virginia Military Bastille, 1913
http://www.wvculture.org/…
Mother Jones, Military Bastile,
Walsenburg Cellar Cell, Colorado, 1914
https://archive.org/…
Mother Jones on Cover of United Mine Workers Journal
of Jan 21, 1915 (Repaired by JtC-thank you, kind sir!)
http://books.google.com/…
Mother Jones on train, Winnipeg Tribune of June 5, 1914
http://www.newspapers.com/…

See also:

ACM: The West Virginia Court-Martial of Mother Jones
by JayRaye
http://www.dailykos.com/…

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones from Cellar Cell, “Let my friend,
General Francisco Villa know..” by JayRaye
http://www.dailykos.com/…

Google search: Hellraisers journal + cold cellar cell
(DK search not working.)
https://www.google.com/…

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones to Chicago F. of L:
Iron Workers Must Be Freed from Leavenworth by JayRaye
http://www.dailykos.com/…

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`
The Children of Mother Jones by Pete Duffy

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`

Father Hagerty’s chart was included in this month’s edition of the American Labor Union’s Voice of Labor along with the recommendation that the chart be studied as a model of “perfect Industrial Unionism:

FATHER HAGERTY’S “WHEEL OF FORTUNE”
The Structure of Industrial SystemA labor organization to correctly represent the working class must have two things in view.

First-It must combine the wage-workers in such a way that it can most successfully fight the battles and protect the interests of the working people of today in their struggle for fewer hours, more wages and better conditions.

Secondly-It must offer a final solution of the labor problem-an emancipation from strike, injunctions, bull-pens and scabbing of one against the other.

Study the Chart and observe how this organization will give recognition to control of shop affairs, provide perfect Industrial Unionism, and converge the strength of all organized workers to a common center, from which any weak point can be strengthened and protected.

Observe, also, how the growth and development of this organization will build up within itself the structure of an Industrial Democracy-a Workers’ Co-Operative Republic-which must finally burst the shell of capitalist government and be the agency by which the workers will operate the industries, and appropriate the products to themselves.

One obligation for all.

A union man once and in one industry, a union man always and in all industries.

Universal emblem.

All workers of one industry in one union; all unions of workers in one big labor alliance the world over.

~~~~~~~~~~

SOURCES

Rebel Voices
An IWW Anthology
-ed by Joyce L. Kornbluh
Charles H Kerr Publishing, 1988

Father Thomas J Haggerty
http://www.iww.org/…

Image
http://www.gutenberg.org/…

See also:
Conference of Industrial Unionist
http://www.dailykos.com/…

Note:

I made this edition of Hellraisers Journal short, thinking that Daily Kos was going to be down this morning. But I have continued to research, and more will be revealed later. Hagerty is found as a signer of the Manifesto and Convention Call as a representative of the American Labor Union. I believe that he was editor of the the ALU’s Voice of Labor by this time, but, sadly, the Voice of Labor has not yet found its way online, and I am unable, at this time, to verify exactly when he became the editor of the Voice of Labor. The American Labor Journal merged with the Railway Employees Journal to become the Voice of Labor in January of 1905.

On the spelling of Hagerty’s name: notwithstanding that his name is spelled “Haggerty” at the IWW web site, I am now prepared to say that his name should be spelled “Hagerty.” Hagerty’s wheel appeared in the May 1905 issue of the Voice of Labor signed: Thos. J. Hagerty. His name also appears as Hagerty in the stenographic report of the founding convention of the IWW.

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`

One Big Industrial Union – May Day Chorus of Asheville

PAINT ‘ER RED!

Come with us you workingmen and join the rebel band
Come you discontented ones and lend a helping hand
We march against the parasite to drive him from the land
With One Big Industrial Union

Chorus:
Hurrah! hurrah! we’re gonna paint ‘er red!
Hurrah! hurrah! The way is clear ahead!
We’re gaining shop democracy and liberty and bread
With One Big Industrial Union.

In factory and field and mine we gather in our might
We’re on the job and know the way to win our hardest fight
For the beacon that shall guide us out of darkness into light
Is One Big Industrial Union.

Come on you fellows, get in line, we’ll fill the boss with fears
Red’s the colour of our flag, it’s stained with blood and tears,
We’ll flout it in his ugly mug and raise our loudest cheers
For One Big Industrial Union.

“Slaves”, they call us, “working plugs”, inferior by birth
But when we hit their pocketbooks, we’ll spoil their smiles of mirth
We’ll stop their dirty dividends and drive them from the earth
With One Big Industrial Union.

We hate their rotten system more than any mortals do
Our aim is not to patch it up but build it all anew
And what we’ll have for government when finally we’re through
Is One Big Industrial Union.
-Ralph Chaplin/Elmer Rumbaugh

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`

Today’s Hellraisers presents the third installment of H. G. Creel’s coverage of the investigation made by the Commission on Industrial Relations into the conditions of tenant farmers in Texas and Oklahoma. The Walsh Commission was in session in Dallas in March and heard remarkable testimony of the wretched conditions under which the tenant farmers live, notwithstanding the back-breaking toil undertaken by the entire family, from small children to aged elders.Creel maintains that the plutocrats hate the Walsh Commission because of the relentless questioning of witnesses by Chairman Frank P. Walsh. We have reprinted the entire article by H. G. Creel below the fold.

From the Appeal to Reason of May 1, 1915:

Why the Plutes Hate the Walsh Commission

BY H. G. CREEL,

Staff Correspondent Appeal to Reason.
———-

Frank P Walsh
“““““

LESLIE’S WEEKLY and other reactionary organs are demanding that the United States industrial relations commission be dissolved. The following testimony, brought out before the Dallas hearings of the commission, shows why capitalism fears the commission.When Pat Nagle, the prominent Socialist of Oklahoma, took the stand, he read letters from a number of landlords to their agents. One was from J. W. Newcomb of Ardmore, telling his agent that future tenants must have plenty of “force.” The term “force” among southern landlords means children too young to rebel and too weak to resist oppression. Large, Rooseveltian families of illiterate children are preferred.

Continuing, Nagle produced some photographs that all but pulled members of the commission from their seats. The case was that of an 82-year-old invalid woman, a tenant, in Kingfisher county. Her ancestors fought in the revolutionary war, the war of 1812 and in the civil war. She and her husband came to Oklahoma 20 years ago, where they homesteaded land. Her husband’s death, sickness and the resulting invalidism took the homestead from her and gave it into the hands of Fred Lankard, a landlord of Kingfisher, Okla. Alone, forsaken and utterly helpless the aged woman was set out into the middle of the country road by Lankard and his agents. It was the photographs of this eviction, together with a recital of the case, that sent a tremor over commission and auditors.

[Said Nagle:]Don’t misunderstand me…I am not attacking Mr. Lankard personally. He is doing what many other landlords are doing and none of them do it because they want to. I know Mr. Lankard. We are neighbors. I know him to be a “good ” man and a patriotic one. But when business interests are involved the patriotic man says to his patriotism. “Goodbye; I’ll meet you July fourth.” If it’s religion that interferes with his business he says to his religion, “Meet me in church at ten-thirty next Sunday morning. I’m too busy to bother with you in business hours.”

He told how Oklahoma nightriders shoot Johnson grass seed into the soil, destroying thousands of dollars, worth of property in a few hours.

Fewer Births, Advises Professor.Nagle was followed by Professor Charles B. Austin of the University of Texas. The gist of his testimony has already been given in these columns. He declared that landlords were not responsible for the plight of tenants, but threw the blame on physicians who do not instruct renters how to keep down the birth rate, upon preachers who tell of a home beyond the sky and fail to mention betterment of the home on earth and declared that storekeepers who inveigle tenants into unnecessary purchases were even more responsible than landlords. By trying to shield the owners of rented property he condemned the entire capitalist system.

Professor Austin declared that foreign born tenants rented pieces of land and became owners in one generation. Austin is a landlord.

Usury in Oklahoma.E. J. Giddings, and Oklahoma City lawyer and counsel for the Farmers’ Protective Association, declared that tenant farmers remain poor because they pay out from one-third to one-fourth for rent. “No business can endure,” he said, “if it pays out one-half its gross income for rent. Yet that is what thousands of farmers must do and then they’re reviled because they do not become well fixed.” He declared that Oklahoma farmers now owe $60,000,000 to Oklahoma banks, $20,000,000 of which is usury. When asked for a remedy he suggested education and religion with a law against banks that practice usury. In face of his admission that the Oklahoma legislature has refused to pass an adequate usury law he declared that he was still a democrat and looked to the democratic party for relief for members of the organization that employs him as its counsel.

[He advised:]Something should be done about the Indian land, too…The government gives land to the Indian and then he refuses to work. He rents to a white man and this is the way it works out: The white tenant sets to work and improves the place. Perhaps he sinks a well. The next year his Indian landlord says, “the place has a well on it now and it is worth more money than last year. I’m going to raise your rent.” The incompetent Indian’s land should be sold and his money invested for him by the government in good securities. The competent Indian’s land should be sold and he should be compelled to shift for himself the same as the white man.

A note passed to Chairman Walsh suggested that perhaps Mr. Giddings could tell from whom the Indian landlord learned the trick of raising rents after tenants had improved the property, but Walsh failed to put the question.

Landlord Contradicts Others.A. Tom Padgett, a landlord of Coleman county, Texas, told the commission that he owned 12,000 acres of Texas land, all of which is rented. He flatly contradicted most of the previous witnesses, saying that tenants have good chances of becoming owners and that landlords encourage and help them to enter the owning class. He told the commission he knew no defects in the present system of renting land and could suggest no improvements. In the next breath he admitted that both women and children work in his fields and that children begin contributing to his support when they reach the age of eight. He also declared that he made a special effort to get large families.

Chairman Walsh asked about housing conditions. “Are there any screens in the houses occupied by your tenants?” he questioned.

“No.” sneered Padgitt, “screens wouldn’t stay in the windows 24 hours if we put them there.”

“How do you know? Have you tried it?” asked Walsh.

“We’ve tried-no, we’ve never tried it,” weakly responded the landlord.

What Capitalism Fears.It is such things as this, Chairman Walsh’s effort to get the truth about conditions, that brings the rancor of capitalist papers upon him. Had he allowed Padgitt’s statement to go unchallenged, leaving the inference that farm tenants prefer not to have screens in their houses he would be considered a “fair” chairman.

It was in 1912 that Padgitt refused to rent land to Socialists. This brought him into prominence in Texas land owning circles and was one of the reasons the commission questioned him. His testimony along this line will be given next week.

[Photograph added.]

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`

SOURCE
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-May 1, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/…IMAGES

Plucked by Plutocrats from the
Tenant Farmer of Oct 1914
http://gateway.okhistory.org/…
Frank P. Walsh from Harpers Weekly
of Sept 27, 1913
http://books.google.com/…
Herr Glessner Creel
https://books.google.com/…

See also:

Tag: Tenant Farmers
http://www.dailykos.com/…

Industrial relations: final report and testimony
-United States. Commission on Industrial
Relations,
-Francis Patrick Walsh, Basil Maxwell Manly
D.C. Gov. Print. Office, 1916
Vol 9:
https://books.google.com/…
8949-The Land Question in the Southwest
https://books.google.com/…
Vol. 10
https://books.google.com/…
9057-9290-The Land Question in the Southwest-
Continued
https://books.google.com/…
9059-Testimony of Mr. Patrick S. Nagle.
https://books.google.com/…
9077-Testimony of Prof. Charles B. Austin
https://books.google.com/…
9095-Testimony of Mr. E. J. Giddings.
https://books.google.com/…
9102-Testimony of Mr. J. Tom Padgitt.
https://books.google.com/…

Appeal Socialist Classics, No. 8
Socialism and the Farmer
-ed by W. J. Ghent
Girard, Kansas, 1916
https://archive.org/…

Tricks of the Press, A Lecture
-by H. G. Creel
National Rip-Saw Publishing Co, 1911
https://books.google.com/…

More Books by Herr Glessner Creel
https://www.google.com/…

A letter from Debs to Creel
https://books.google.com/…

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`
We Have Fed You All For A Thousand Years-Jack Herranen and the Lower 9th Ward

We have fed you all for a thousand years-
For that was our doom, you know,
From the days when you chained us in your fields
To the strike of a week ago.
You have taken our lives, and our babies and wives,
And we’re told it’s your legal share;
But if blood be the price of your lawful wealth
Good God! We have bought it fair.
-by Unknown Proletarian, 1908

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`

John Lawson was found guilty of the murder of the deputized company mine guard, John Nimmo, yesterday in Trinidad, Colorado. The jury spared him the death penalty, and imposed a sentence of life in prison. Before the sentencing, Lawson issued a long statement which Hellraisers will publish in full tomorrow.From South Dakota’s Lead Daily Call of May 3rd:

LAWSON GUILTY OF FIRST DEGREE MURDER
———-

Jury Arrived at a Verdict
This Afternoon and Fixes Penalty
at Life Imprisonment
———-
By Associated Press-TRINIDAD, COLO., May 3.-The jury trying the case of John R. Lawson, charged with the murder of John Nemmo [Nimmo], a deputy sheriff, on October 25, 1913, this afternoon returned to court with a verdict of first degree murder, fixing the penalty at life imprisonment.

John R. Lawson was charged with the murder of John Nimmo, a deputy of Las Animas county who was killed in a battle between deputies and striking coal miners near Ludlow on October 25, 1913. Lawson is the member of the International executive board of the United Mine Workers of America for District No. 15. He was one of the prominent leaders in the recent coal miners’ strike in Colorado.

———-[Photograph added.]

Below the fold we offer press coverage of the trial leading up to the verdict.

From the Chicago Day Book of May 3rd:

From the Lead Daily Call of April 30, 1915:

JOHN R. LAWSON TAKES THE STAND
———-

Labor Leader Goes on the Stand
in His Own Defense Today.

By Associated Press-

John Lawson with Louie Tikas during the strike.
“““““

TRINIDAD, COLO., April 30.-John R. Lawson, who is on trial for the alleged murder of John Nimmo, a deputy sheriff, in the battle of Ludlow on October 25, 1913, took the stand today in his own defense. Previously John Barulie testified that he had driven Charles Snyder and Pat Murphy to Ludlow that afternoon and to the tent colony, arriving at the latter place between 6:30 and 7 o’clock, and that no shots had been fired at them; that he did not see Lawson until he had reached the colony. Snyder, who had been called by the state previously, testified that he had reached the vicinity about 4 o’clock and that he had seen Lawson coming from the railroad cut, where the strikers had been stationed during the battle.Lawson testified that he had counselled the strikers to obey the law and to refrain from violence. He said that he had imported arms and ammunition to the tent colony after he had received legal advice to the effect that it was permissible to defend it.

———-[Photograph added.]

From the Lead Daily Call of May 1, 1915:

LAWSON CASE IS NEAR END
———-

John Lawson with Mother Jones

It Will Probably Be Given to Jury
Late Today—
Crimes For Which He May Be Convicted
———-TRINIDAD, COLO., May 1.-John R. Lawson, the labor leader, charged with murder in connection with the killing of Deputy Sheriff Nimmo at Ludlow during the strike battle of October 25, 1913, may be convicted of first or second degree murder, voluntary manslaughter or acquitted, according to the instructions given by the judge to the jury. The instructions preceded the closing arguments of counsel. The case may be given to the jury late today.

Assistant Attorney General West, in his argument, asked that the jury impose the death penalty, if it should find Lawson guilty of first degree murder.

———-[Photograph added.]

From the Wichita Beacon of April 26, 1915:

~~~~~~~~~~SOURCE
Lead Daily Call
(Lead, South Dakota)
-Apr 30, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/…
-May 1, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/…
-May 3, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/…

IMAGES
Colorado Coalfield Strike of 1913-14,
Strikers Policy Committee
https://archive.org/…
John Lawson with Olive and Fern
from Day Book of April 23, 1915, Last Edition
http://www.newspapers.com/…
Principals in the Lawson trial from the
Chicago Day Book of May 3, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/…
John Lawson with Louie Tikas during the strike.
http://ludlowsymposium.wordpress.com/…
John Lawson & Mother Jones,
Wichita Beacon, Kansas, Apr 22, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/…
John R Lawson at Ludlow followed by guard,
Wichita Beacon, Apr 26, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/…

See also:

John Lawson Trial + JayRaye
http://www.dailykos.com/…

Battle of Ludlow + JayRaye + Oct 2013
http://www.dailykos.com/…

The American Labor Year Book, Volume 1
Rand School of Social Science, 1916
https://books.google.com/…
The Lawson Case
https://books.google.com/…

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`
Dedicated to John Lawson and Louie Tikas,
Heroes of the Colorado Coalfield Strike of 1913-14

Working Class Hero – John Lennon

Yes , A Working Class Hero is something to be
If you want to be a hero well just follow me
If you want to be a hero well just follow me
-John Lennon

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`

Rober T. Lincoln, son of President Lincoln, came before the Commission on Industrial Relations this past Tuesday and gave testimony regarding the wages of the Pullman Porters. Mr. Lincoln admitted that the wages of the porters are too low and that the Porters must depend on tips in order to make a living for themselves and their families.Sadly, Commission Garretson, President of the Order of Railway Conductors, in the process of questioning Mr. Lincoln, saw fit to degrade his fellow railway workers. The New York Age describes the questioning, and the response by Mr. Lincoln:

Commissioner Garretson, in questioning Mr. Lincoln, had to interject an insult to the vast body of worthy Negro men who serve as Pullman porters by referring to them as “coons,” and to his reference no exception was taken by the great emancipator’s son, or any other member of the commission. This came when Garretson asked Mr. Lincoln, “Then if tips are to be paid you believe in the corporation getting them instead of the ‘coon’?” to which the reply was given, “That is what it amounts to.”

From The New York Age of May 6, 1915:

LINCOLN’S SON CLAIMS
PULLMAN CO. AN UPLIFT
—–

Tells Federal Commission Co.
has Done Most to Uplift Negro Men
———-
TIPS REALLY TO COMPANY
——
Robert Lincoln, Former President of Pullman Co.,
Testifies That Salary Paid Porters is Too Low,
and if Law Prohibited Tips
Salaries Would be Raised Immediately by the Company.
—–

Special to THE NEW YORK AGE.

Robert Lincoln

WASHINGTON, D. C., May 5.-Robert T. Lincoln, son of the late President Abraham Lincoln, and a controlling factor in the destinies of the pullman Company, was a witness before the Federal Commission on Industrial Relations, Frank P. Walsh of Missouri, chairman, which opened a three weeks’ hearing on Monday in this city.Mr Lincoln declared that the Pullman Company has been “the one large element (outside of the learned professions) that has done more to uplift colored men.” Mr. Lincoln was president of the company from 1897 to 1911, while ill health necessitated his retirement, and he became chairman of the board of directors, which position he now holds. He declared that the matter of tips to Pullman porters was an old custom, but that it was not a nice arrangement and was very annoying. He acknowledged also that tips to porters were really tips to the company stockholders.

He said that if tips to porters were prohibited by law the company, without two minutes’ discussion of the matter, would immediately raise salaries. He said that salaries to conductors and porters were too low, that increases should be granted, and that it was a matter which would have the attention of the executive board of the Pullman Company at once.

Refers to Porters as “Coons.”

A. B. Garretson, President
Order of Railway Conductors
“““““

Commissioner Garretson, in questioning Mr. Lincoln, had to interject an insult to the vast body of worthy Negro men who serve as Pullman porters by referring to them as
“coons,” and to his reference no exception was taken by the great emancipator’s son, or any other member of the commission. This came when Garretson asked Mr. Lincoln, “Then if tips are to be paid you believe in the corporation getting them instead of the ‘coon’?” to which the reply was given, “That is what it amounts to.”On the origin of the tipping system Mr. Lincoln said that it was existing when he became president of the company, and was a condition found by George M. Pullman when he entered the business.

When Chairman Walsh brought up the subject of tips Mr. Lincoln sat straight up in his chair.

“That situation annoys me very much,” said Mr. Lincoln.

“Has this tipping habit always been as widespread in the United States as at present?” asked Chairman Walsh.

“I have no doubt of it,” replied Mr. Lincoln.

“Your porters get $27.50 a month. They are supposed to supplement their pay by getting tips from the public?” was asked.

“Might I put it this way?” suggested the witness. “We know they get tips.”

“Would you say that a man was able to retain his self-respect living under a system where he is forced to get gratuities in order to earn a living wage? Are not his morals corrupted by such a system?”

Not a Question of Morals.“I do not think it is a question of morals,” replied Mr. Lincoln. “They would get tips whatever wages were paid. They get such tips as a matter of fact for performing services not strictly in their line of duty as porters. You know the colored race is subject to great limitations in getting employment. I believe that outside of the learned professions, where they have made some progress, the one large element that has done more to uplift colored men has been afforded through employment by the Pullman company.”

“Do you think this service has uplifted them?”

“The tips are paid without regard to the amount of wages,” replied Mr. Lincoln. “If you increase their wages and they continue to get tips as at present they would get much more money. You can understand how that might not be desirable.”

Mr. Lincoln conceded, in reply to questions, that the wages of Pullman conductors and porters were too low; that increases should be granted, and that it was a matter that would have the attention of the executive board of the Pullman Company at once.

When told of the case of porter who testified that one month he had made $115, all of which except $27.50, was paid by the traveling public, Mr. Lincoln explained with a show of embarrassment:

“I do not think the arrangement is nice at all. It is an old custom.”

Tipping Never Prohibited.Mr. Lincoln added that the company had never attempted to prohibit the acceptance of tips. He expressed the belief that if tips were prohibited the porters “would be very much troubled.”

Mr. Lincoln said he had never heard of any dissatisfaction on the part of the traveling public to the payment of such gratuities. It was suggested to Mr. Lincoln that most social clubs prohibited the payment of tips.

“That is true,” he said. “But I find that in all the clubs I belong to I am invited once a year to contribute to the Christmas fund of the employees.”

“Are not the stockholders of the Pullman Company the real tip takers?” asked Commissioner Garretson.

“Really that is so,” answered Mr. Lincoln, smilingly.

“Then if tips are to be paid you believe in the corporation getting them instead of the ‘coon’?” observed Mr. Garretson.

“That is what it amounts to,” replied Mr. Lincoln.

The witness added in answer to another question that if tips were prohibited by the law, wages would be increased immediately.

“There would not be two minutes discussion over it,” he said.

[Photographs added.]

~~~~~~~~~~

SOURCE
The New York Age
(New York, New York)
-May 6, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/…

IMAGES
Pullman Porters and Conductor, date unknown
http://projects.aljazeera.com/…
Robert T Lincoln in top hat
http://rogerjnorton.com/…
A. B. Garretson
http://en.wikipedia.org/…
Pullman Porters, date unknown
http://projects.aljazeera.com/…

See also:

Industrial relations: final report and testimony
United States. Commission on Industrial Relations
-ed by Francis Patrick Walsh, Basil Maxwell Manly
D.C. Gov. Print. Office, 1916
Volume 10: 9057-10,066
https://books.google.com/…
9663-Testimony of Mr. Robert T. Lincoln.
https://books.google.com/…
9677-Garretson degrades his fellow railway workers:
https://books.google.com/…

Tag: Pullman Porters
http://www.dailykos.com/…

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`
Pullman Porters Ride Again

Eye On The Prize – Sweet Honey In The Rock

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`

On May 6th, on her way to California, Miss Elizabeth Gurley Flynn stopped off in Salt Lake City to visit with Fellow Worker Joe Hill who continues to be held in the county jail there. FW Hill has been convicted of murder and has been given a death sentence by the state of Utah. Miss Flynn was allowed to visit with the prisoner face to face in the sheriff’s office. She states that she is the first visitor during his long confinement to be allowed to visit with FW Hill face to face and to shake hands with him.Miss Flynn states that she found Joe Hill to be “tall, slender, very blond, with deep blue eyes.” It was a spring day in the “garden city” and the prisoner and his visitor looked out from the prison onto an “expanse of a beautiful lawn.”

Joe Hill noted the old bearded man outside who was mowing the lawn, and said to Gurley Flynn, “He’s lucky, Gurley. He’s a Mormon and he’s had two wives and I haven’t even had one yet!”

Miss Flynn noted the contrast between the pure mountain air of Utah and the fetid jail odor that assailed the nostrils: “damp air loaded with the sickening smell of disinfectants.”

On the subject of the death sentence which he is facing, FW Hill stated:

I am not afraid of death, but I’d like to be in the fight a little longer.

~~~~~~~~~~SOURCE
The Rebel Girl: an autobiography,
my first life (1906-1926)
by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
International Publishers, 1973
https://books.google.com/…

IMAGE
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn from a Fort Scott, Kansas,
newspaper of Apr 29, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/…

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`

Letter From Joe Hill to Katie Phar

Salt Lake City
May 7
Katie Phar Spokane Wn
Dear Friend & F. W.

Yours received and am glad to note that you are getting along fine with your music lessons. Am sending you thru the local Sec’y two of my songs and would like to hear how you like them. One of the Songs “The Rebel Girl” was sung at several big meetings in Chicago and was making a bit hit they are telling me. I had the pleasure to shake hands with Gurly Flynn yesterday and she told me that she would be glad to see you when she comes to Spokane. If you would practice up on one of the Songs you could help her a whole lot by singing it at her meeting in Spokane. The Rebel Girl would be best I think because Gurly F. is certainly some Rebel Girl and when [the copy of this letter is incomplete.]Photograph added.]

SOURCE

The Letters of Joe Hill
-ed by Philip Foner
Oak Publications, 1965
https://books.google.com/…IMAGE
Follow Worker Joe Hill
http://www.freedomarchives.org/…

Note: Katie Phar was the 10-year-old daughter of a member of the Industrial Workers of the World who lived in Spokane, Washington.

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`

Thursday May 11, 1905
From the Montana News: Mother Jones Coming to Montana

The Montana News, Socialist newspaper of Helena, is reporting that Mother Jones will soon be coming to Montana. Hellraisers wishes to assure our readers that we will be on the look out to follow Mother’s activities while she is in the state of Montana.From the Montana News of May 3, 1905:

—–
“Mother” Jones, is expected to be in Montana this month.
—–[Emphasis added.]

“““““““““““““““““““““““““““`
~~~~~~~~~~SOURCE
Montana News
(Helena, Montana)
-May 3, 1905
http://www.newspapers.com/…

IMAGE
Mother Jones, Appeal to Reason, Mar 11, 1905
http://www.newspapers.com/…

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`

Letter From Mother Jones to William B WilsonI believe that Mother has misdated this letter (she did sometimes confuse her dates when writing letters) and that this letter was more likely written on June 9th. However, I am including the letter here because the letter is dated in May and further studied is needed to examine exactly where Mother was on May 9, 1905.

                                                                                            Stevensville, Montana
5-9-1905
My dear Comrade Wilson

William B Wilson

Here I am out in the mountains not on a pleasure but on duty waking up the Shumburg Joint . I spoke in Butte last night under the auspices of the Smeltermen Union. I had house packed stage and all the boys did not know what to do for me. They gave me one hundred dollars and my fare to and from Chicago. They want to remain out here all summer and go to the Springs for a rest they would pay the bill. I could not do that poor boys they earn their nickles to hard. if you could see them when they come home from those smelters in the evening you would feel they needed the Springs worse than anyone else. Who on earth did Sam marry his stenographer. I wished he had not for those old people needed him at home however that is something we cannot govern They will do as they want to.I am glad Mrs. W— and the children are well. I will be in the State of N. Y. for three months this fall. I will make an effort to go and see them while East. I want to see Joe before I die. Take care of him.

I speak in Helena on Miners day the 13th of this month. Back to Butte for two more meetings then I go to Coaldale for the Coal Miners then I go East. I have so much to tell you when I see you. The time seems so long. I am going to go before I am due. So that I just gaze on that face a reflex of the heart that has been true to the people. In looking over the field it looks as if you were going to have trouble next year. in fact it looks to me as if many crafts were on the threshold of Industrial War. let it come we only can do what we can for them. we are permeating them with clear conception of their class interest trying to put the Spirit Solidarity in them. let me warn you against that Board Member Jones [see note below] of Wyo. he is no Gods earth good for God or man. What cur will stoop to like [lick?] the feet of those in poor [power?] for a job. I am going to see you soon. Love to Miss May a Agnes your own good self.
fondly
Mother

[Photograph added.]

SOURCE

The Correspondence of Mother Jones
-ed by Edward M. Steel
University of Pittsburgh Press, 1985
https://books.google.com/…IMAGE
William B Wilson, United Mine Workers of America
http://www.blossburg.org/

See also:

Search: Montana News + Mother Jones + May 1905
(Articles about planning a speaking tour for
late May and early June.)
http://www.newspapers.com/…

Search: Montana News + Mother Jones + June 1905
(Articles about Mother speaking in various Montana locations,
and a long article about her speech in Helena on Miners Day, June 13th.)
http://www.newspapers.com/…

Note: Mother is referring to W. E. Jones of Dietz, Wyoming, UMWA Executive Board Member from District 22. Exactly what Mother had against him, I do not know. Perhaps it had something to do with the convention floor fight from the Jan 1905 UMWA convention, summed up in this pamphlet by Robert Randell [Randall]:
http://babel.hathitrust.org/…

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`
The Rebel Girl-Mats Paulson

Yes, her hands may be harden’d from labor
And her dress may not be very fine
But a heart in her bosom is beating
That is true to her class and her kind
And the grafters in terror are trembling
When her spite and defiance she’ll hurl
For the only and thoroughbred lady
Is the Rebel Girl.
-Joe Hill

`

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`

LABOR AND LAW WILL BE PROBED THIS WEEK
—–
“Mother” Jones, William [D.] Haywood,
and Clarence Darrow to Testify.
—–

Chairman Frank P. Walsh
of the Commission on Industrial Relations
“““““

With “Mother” Jones, militant friend of the miners, William W.[D.] Haywood, head of the Industrial Workers of the World, and Clarence Darrow, the man who defended the McNamaras, as witnesses, the Commission on Industrial Relations this week will begin the second leg of its investigation into labor conditions. The general subject of “labor and the law” will be treated.Chairman Walsh has announced that former President Taft and Alton B. Parker, one-time Democratic candidate for President, will not appear before the commission this week as planned. Their engagements will not permit, it is explained. John D. Rockefeller, jr., and officials of the Colorado Fuel and Iron company will not appear before the commission until next week, when the investigation of the Colorado strike is reopened.

Clash Coming To a Head.The clash between Chairman Walsh and Mr. Rockefeller over the former’s action in making a newspaper attack on the Rockefeller interests for political activity in Colorado, will come to a head at this meeting….

[Photograph added.]

MOTHER JONES SPEAKS IN ALLENTOWN, PENNSYLVANIAFrom The Allentown Leader of May 10, 1915:

STIRRING ADDRESS BY MOTHER JONES
—–
Raps “Sentimental Efforts, ” and Tells Women
to Get Down to Meal Ticket Work.
—–

Declaring that the government was not at Washington or Harrisburg, but at 26 Broadway, eighty-three-year-old Mother Jones, prominent labor agitator, advised the working class to act immediately, as the time for action was here, before a large audience in the Orpheum Theatre yesterday afternoon. She was introduced by Councilman Wheeler.Hale and hearty and lacking any of the deficiencies of advanced years, Mother Jones spoke in a loud, clear voice and there was no trace of nervousness during her entire address. At times she would become excited and wave her arms about in a manner which emphasized her words.

Mother Jones particularly appealed to Allentown women saying that they should lend their assistance to the industrial movement. In speaking of woman’s suffrage, she said that women should first learn how to use the ballot.

“Get away from sentimental efforts,” fairly shrieked the aged woman, addressing the women, “such as social settlement work, temperance movements, charity and foreign missions and learn what causes the ownership of our bread by a few.”

The speaker flayed the “high class robbers,” as she called the capitalists, who she claimed were taking the instruments of manufacture away from the masses and were concentrating them among about six men who were ruling the destines of the United States.

Mother Jones referred to the conditions in the coal fields of Colorado and West Virginia. She gave her story of the burning of the tenet colony in Colorado, when 11 children and two women lost their lives.

Winifred Wavrek played several violin solos, accompanied by his mother, Mrs. John Wavrek.

Mother Jones was presented with a handsome bouquet at the close of her talk by members of the local Socialist party.

—–[Photograph added.]

From The Allentown Democrat of May 10, 1915:

MOTHER JONES URGES IMMEDIATE STRIKE
—–
Makes One of Her Characteristic Speeches
in Orpheum to Large Audience.
—–

Mary Jones, known throughout the industrial world more familiarly as Mother Jones, the acknowledged friend and champion of the working class, held an audience of several hundred persons spellbound at the Orpheum theatre yesterday afternoon.Mother Jones at times resides at Denver, Colorado, but as she put it, her home is also on the industrial battlefields most of the time. She spoke on the Colorado outrages and of conditions existing in West Virginia when the big strikes were on and the laborers were without organization.

To be organized thoroughly was the duty of the working man, she stated, and it was their duty to cement their relation or the industrial interests would crush the masses and make them worse than any slave.

She stated that the workers are standing in the dawn of the greatest era this world has ever seen and that now is the appointed time to strike. Continuing she asserted that the time was fast approaching when the “high class burglars,” as she called the capitalists were taking the instruments of manufacture away from the masses and were concentrating them among about six men, who were ruling the destinies of the United States.

The speaker stated that the women had a great work to accomplish and that if they would see that the men sent the proper men to the judicial halls, conditions would be different. Today she asserted, the government was not at Washington or Harrisburg, but was at 26 Broadway.

She advocated the women giving up their foolish connections with the so-called peace commissions, temperance and social clubs and mission societies and get down to real work.

The horrors attending the big conflicts between capital and labor were graphically described, how the laborers were shot down by the hired tools of the wealthy and how women and children met the same fate. Mother Jones stated that first of all she was for a peaceable settlement of all troubles, but that if the interests were going to use force, she advocated the oppressed to retaliate with force.

She described how she had led meetings over which there was imminent danger of a massacre being committed, but that [no?] blood had ever been shed at these gatherings.

She asserted that the money being spent for the maintenance of state police and militia in the oppressed territory, which amounted to about $800,000 a year, should be spent for the upkeep of schools, which would return untold benefits. This end will only be attained by the cooperation of the men and women and by sending the proper men too the halls of justice.

“Meet your congressmen at the depot,” she said “and erect a platform and make them tell what they have done. Don’t go there and shout our welcome and leave the men think[ing?] that you are satisfied,” she stated.

In numerous cases cited by the speaker, she brought out the horrors of the situation and advised that as a first duty, the men and women of the working class educate themselves and they will soon reap the harvest of their work.

Councilman R. J. Wheeler was the chairman of the afternoon and introduced a booklet selling for 25 cents, on “Standard Oil and People or Who Owns America.” He explained that it was the idea of the Socialist party to educate the people-not only to have them hear lectures, which would be forgotten….

Mother Jones was presented with a handsome bouquet of carnations by the local Socialist party, under whose direction the lecture was given.

If it were not known that she is 83 years old, it would be hard to believe the fact, so clear and strong is her voice and active is she.

—–[Photograph added.]

~~~~~~~~~~

SOURCES

The Washington Times
(Washington, District of Columbia)
-May 9, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/…

The Allentown Leader
(Allentown, Pennsylvania)
-May 10, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/…

The Allentown Democrat
(Allentown, Pennsylvania)
-May 10, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/…

IMAGES
Frank P. Walsh from Harpers Weekly
of Sept 27, 1913
http://books.google.com/…
Mother Jones, Boston Glob, Jan 30, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/…
Mother Jones, New York Tribune, Jan 29, 1915
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/…

See also:
Standard Oil or The People
-by Henry H. Klein
New York City, 1914
(This could be the booklet to which Councilman Wheeler refers.)
http://babel.hathitrust.org/…

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`
This Land Is Your Land – Woody Guthrie

As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said “No Trespassing.”
But on the other side it didn’t say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.

In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,
By the relief office I seen my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking
Is this land made for you and me?
-Woody Guthrie

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`

Big Bill Haywood, the secretary-treasurer of the Industrial Workers of the World, came before the Commission on Industrial Relations yesterday and gave testimony regarding his long history in the American labor movement.Regarding his vision of the future, Mr. Haywood stated:

I have had a dream of a new society some time, in which there will be no struggle between capital and labor, in which every man will have free access to the land and means of production and livelihood. There will be no government, no states, as we know them now. Congress will be made up not of lawyers and preachers, but of experts from all branches of industry, come together for the good of all the people.

Below the fold our readers can find coverage provided by the The Washington Post

of Fellow Worker Haywood’s testimony from yesterday’s session of the Commission. Haywood was recalled to the witness stand this morning and is expected to give testimony for most of the day.

From The Washington Post of May 13, 1915:

GOAL IS ONE BIG UNION
—–

I. W. W. Leader Tells Federal Board of Labor’s Ideal Era.
—–
WARRING AGAINST CAPITAL
—–
Identity of Interests Between Workers and Men Like Rockefeller
and Morgan; Impossible, Asserts W. D. Haywood
Before Industrial Relations Commission.
“Don’t Care if It Means Revolution.”
—–

Big Bill Haywood
“““““

A revolution that would wipe out America’s present industrial and political system and establish and ideal era of freedom was described to the Federal commission on industrial relations yesterday as the ultimate object of the Industrial Workers of the World, by William D. Haywood, its secretary and treasurer.A world in which labor, organized into a vast compact union, should control all of the means of production, and in which there would be no such thing as “capital” was held up by Haywood as his land of promise. He declared that only implacable war between labor and capital ending with a great general strike and confiscation of the means of production could bring the workers to that ideal existence.

“Struggle That Must Go On.”[He told the commission:]

This is a class struggle that must go on. There can be no identity of interest between the workers, who have only their labor power, and such men as Rockefeller and Morgan and their stockholders, who contribute nothing to production. The struggle will go on despite everything this commission can do or commend to Congress the battle is inevitable. Labor must fight for what capital now controls, the means of production, tools, machinery and all of those things which should be controlled by labor alone.

I have had a dream of a new society some time, in which there will be no struggle between capital and labor, in which every man will have free access to the land and means of production and livelihood. There will be no government, no states, as we know them now. Congress will be made up not of lawyers and preachers, but of experts from all branches of industry, come together for the good of all the people.

Believes in Any Tactics.Commissioner Weinstock questioned Haywood as to what methods would be employed to bring about this change.

“I believe in any kind of tactics,” said the witness. “I don’t care if it means revolution. That’s all.”

In reply to other questions. Haywood said the I. W. W. differed with the trade unionists because it believed in the organization of a single great union instead of craft unions. Its ultimate purpose, he said, differed little from socialism.

“I might say it is socialism with its working clothes on,” he added.

Would Wipe Out Great Cities.In the new era, Haywood said, there would be no great cities.

“What is to become of New York, Chicago, and the other great cities?” asked Commissioner Weinstock.

“There would be no idle brokers, lawyers, and financiers to occupy such cities,” replied the witness.

“But what would you do with New York?”

“Tear it down, or leave it as a monument to the foolishness of this age.”

Recites Incidents of His Past.Haywood sketched the stormy incidents of his past life, telling of strikes in which he had participated, from the early troubles in Colorado and Utah to the recent outbreaks at Lawrence and Patterson. He will continue his testimony today.

Police Commissioner Woods, of New York, discussed the use of New York gunmen in labor disputes, and the protection accorded free speech and free assembly in that city.

Dr. H. R. Seager, of New York, spoke of the difficulties of labor in the courts.

—–[Photograph added.]

~~~~~~~~~~

SOURCE
The Washington Post
(Washington, District of Columbia)
-May 13, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/…IMAGES
IWW Red Button
http://iww.ca/
Big Bill Haywood & Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
with strikers children, Lawrence, MA, 1912
http://spartacus-educational.com/…
Big Bill Haywood, 1915
http://www.loc.gov/…
General Strike by William D Haywood
http://babel.hathitrust.org/…

See also:
Industrial relations: final report and testimony
United States. Commission on Industrial Relations
-ed by Francis Patrick Walsh,
& Basil Maxwell Manly
D.C. Gov. Print. Office, 1916
Volume 11: https://books.google.com/…
10540-Washington, D. C, Wednesday,
May 12, 1915—10 a. m.
Present : Chairman Walsh, Commissioners
Weinstock, O’Connell, Lennon, and Garretson.
https://books.google.com/…
10569-10586: Testimony of Mr. William D.
Haywood -afternoon session.
https://books.google.com/…

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`
Workers of the World Awaken

If the workers take a notion,
They can stop all speeding trains;
Every ship upon the ocean
They can tie with mighty chains.
Every wheel in the creation,
Every mine and every mill,
Fleets and armies of the nation,
Will at their command stand still.
-Joe Hill (words and music)
https://www.youtube.com/…
http://www.folkarchive.de/…

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`

During the coarse of his testimony before the Commission on Industrial Relations, Big Bill Haywood, Secretary-Treasurer of the Industrial Workers of the World, was questioned by Commissioner Harris Weinstock, a California businessman. Fellow Worker Haywood explained how government might operate when the working people have a voice through their union, as opposed to the present system of government under which most working men and women, and all working class children, are disenfranchised.

“I AM A PARTISAN OF THE WORKERS”Commissioner Weinstock. Well, then, will you briefly outline to us, Mr. Haywood, how would you govern and direct the affairs under your proposed system of 100,000,000 of people, as we are in this country to-day?

Mr. Haywood. Well, how are the affairs of the hundred million people conducted at the present time? The workers have no interest, have no voice in anything except the shops. Many of the workers are children. They certainly have no interest and no voice in the franchise. They are employed in the shops, and of course my idea is that children who work should have a voice in the way they work—in the hours they work, in the wages that they should receive—that is, under the present conditions children should have that voice, children who labor.

The same is true of women. The political state, the Government, says that women are not entitled to vote—that is, except in the 10 free States of the West; but they are industrial units; they are productive units; from millions of women. My idea is that they should have a voice in the control or disposition of their labor powers, and the only place where they can express themselves is in their labor union halls, and there they express themselves to the fullest as citizens of industry, if you will, as to the purposes of their work and the conditions under which they will labor. Now, you recognize that in conjunction with women and children.

The black men of the South are on the same footing. They are all citizens of this country, but they have no voice in its government. Millions of black men are disfranchised, who if organized would have a voice in saying how they should work and how the conditions of labor should be regulated. But unorganized they are as helpless and in the same condition of slavery as they were before the war.

This is not only true of women and children and black men, but it extends to the foreigner who comes to this country and is certainly a useful member of society. Most of them at once go into industries, but for five years they are not citizens. They plod along at their work and have no voice in the control or the use of their labor power. And as you have learned through this commission there are corporations who direct the manner in which those foreigners shall vote. Certainly you have heard something of that in connection with the Rockefeller interests in the southern part of Colorado. You know that the elections there were never carried on straight, and these foreigners were directed as to how their ballot should be placed.

They are not the only ones who are disfranchised, but there is also the workingman who is born in this country, who is shifted about from place to place by industrial depressions; their homes are broken up and they are compelled to go from one city to another, and each state requires a certain period of residence before a man has the right to vote. Some States say he must be a resident 1 year, others say 2 years; he must live for a certain length of time in the county; he must live for 30 days or such a matter in the precinct before he has any voice in the conduct of government.

Now, if a man was not a subject of a state or nation, but a citizen of industry, moving from place to place, belonging to his union, wherever he went he would step in the union hall, show his card, register, and he at once has a voice in the conduct of the affairs pertaining to his welfare. That is the form of society I want to see, where the men who do the work, and who are the only people who are worth while—understand me, Mr. Weinstock, I think that the workingman, even doing the meanest kind of work, the workingman is a more important member of society than any judge on the supreme bench; than any other of the useless members of society. I am speaking for the working class, and I am a partisan of the workers.

[Emphasis added.]

From Pennsylvania’s Allentown Democrat of May 14, 1915:

HAYWOOD SAYS THE SOCIALISTS
IN WAR ARE DISCREDITED
—–

Defines Difference Between Socialism
and I. W. W. for Commission.
—–
UNIVERSITY HEAD UPHOLDS MILITIA.
—–
Declares There Never Has Been Even-Handed
Justice Since World Began.
—–

International News Service.-

Reading Times of Pennsylvania
May 14, 1915
“““““

WASHINGTON, May 13-German Socialism is discredited in the eyes of the world because it has gone in for war, William D. Heywood [Haywood], secretary of the I. W. W. told the commission on industrial relations today.”The I. W. W. is opposed to war,” Haywood said. He objected to the use of Socialism and I. W. W. as interchangeable terms. “The Socialists would give the state supreme control; we would abolish the state and give the organized workers control.”

Haywood quoted John D. Rockefeller, Jr., as describing “common labor as an animate machine.” When Commissioner Weinstock questioned him as to whether Rockefeller had used this expression. Haywood replied:

“Ask him when he comes before you next week. That is his viewpoint. We believe the common laborer is a human being.

Mrs. J. Borden Harriman interposed this question: “If you don’t believe in war, why do you believe in violence in labor disputes?”

“The greatest violence that could be done to a capitalist is to drain his pocketbook,” Haywood replied. “I believe in that kind of violence.”

Haywood said unemployment was one of the most pressing causes of industrial unrest and suggested that the Government extend its reclamation, river and harbor improvement and other purpose works in order to afford opportunity for employment.

Dr. Frank J. Goodnow, president of Johns Hopkins University, defended the use of militia in strikes. In most instances, he said, martial law is proceeded by violence and the government exercises its constitutional power in ordering out armed men.

When abuse of militia’s power in Colorado and elsewhere was alleged, Dr. Goodnow said there was no redress except through the courts and at the polls.

“There never has been even-handed justice since the world began,” he said, “and resistance to law always will fail as a remedy.”

Dr. Goodnow favored changes in qualification for admission to the bar in order to get judges who are trained in economics and industrial condition.

—–[Photograph and emphasis added.]

~~~~~~~~~~

SOURCES

Bill Haywood’s Book
The Autobiography of William D. Haywood
International Publishers,1983
(Paragraph breaks from exchange with Weinstock
are from Haywood’s book.)
https://books.google.com/…The Allentown Democrat
(Allentown, Pennsylvania)
-May 14, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/…

IMAGES
Big Bill Haywood, WDC, 1915
http://www.loc.gov/…
Big Bill Haywood from Reading Times,
of Pennsylvania, May 14, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/…
IWW Is Coming
http://libcom.org/…

See also:

Testimony of William D. Haywood
before the Industrial Relations Commission
IWW Publishing Bureau, after May 1915
http://babel.hathitrust.org/…

Industrial relations: final report and testimony
United States. Commission on Industrial Relations
-ed by Francis Patrick Walsh,
& Basil Maxwell Manly
D.C. Gov. Print. Office, 1916
Volume 11: https://books.google.com/…
10540-Washington, D. C, Wednesday,
May 12, 1915—10 a. m.
Present : Chairman Walsh, Commissioners
Weinstock, O’Connell, Lennon, and Garretson.
https://books.google.com/…
10569-10586: Testimony of Mr. William D.
Haywood -afternoon session.
https://books.google.com/…
10586-10599: Testimony of William D. Haywood,
continued
Washington, D. C, Thursday, May 13, 1915—10 a. m.
Present: Chairman Walsh; Commissioners
Harriman, Garretson, Lennon, Weinstoek, and O’Connell.
https://books.google.com/…

The International Socialist Review, Volume 15
-ed by Algie Martin Simons, Charles H. Kerr
C.H. Kerr, July 1914-June 1915
https://books.google.com/…
ISR Nov 1914
https://books.google.com/…
“Militarism and Socialism
An Analysis of the Factors That Led European
Socialists to Support the War”
By Harry Uswald
https://books.google.com/…
“International Notes
The War, the Socialists, and the Future”
BY William E. Bohn
https://books.google.com/…

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`
The Commonwealth of Toil-Pete Seeger

When our cause is all triumphant
And we claim our Mother Earth,
And the nightmare of the present fades away,
We shall live with love and laughter,
We who now are little worth,
But we’ll not forget the price we had to pay.
-Ralph Chaplin
(with last line changed by JayRaye)

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`

Mother Jones was called before the Commission on Industrial Relations last week and gave testimony regarding her many long years as an active participant in the struggles of working class men, women, and children to gain a better life under the present industrial system. At times she wept as she recounted the horrors of the industrial wars that she has witnessed first-hand.Testimony of Mother Jones on May 13th
As reported by the Chicago Daily Tribune:

‘MOTHER’ JONES TELLS OF AID
TO ‘BOYS’ ON STRIKE
—–

Industrial Board Paves Way to Hear
Her Cure for Unrest;
Haywood Again on Stand.
—–

Washington, D. C., May 13-Tales of industrial wars from Pennsylvania to California during the last thirty-five years were recounted before the federal industrial commission today by Mrs. Mary Jones, the “Mother” Jones of scores of strikes.”Mother” Jones told the history of her connection with industrial disturbances preliminary to her examination regarding causes and cures for unrest which will be undertaken tomorrow.

The commission today heard Prof. Frank J. Goodnow, president of Johns Hopkins University, and Harry A. Cyphers of South Bethlehem, Pa., on the treatment of labor in the courts, and concluded the examination of William D. Haywood of the Industrial Workers of the World…

“Mother” Jones on Stand.“Mother” Jones was the next witness. When Chairman Walsh asked her residence she replied:

I reside wherever there is a good fight against wrong. I live wherever the workers are fighting the robbers.

Beginning with the Pennsylvania railroad strike at Pittsburgh in 1877, “Mother” Jones told of her efforts to help “the boys” in their various “fights.” She told of leading an “army” about from mine to mine in the Pennsylvania coal strike of 1900, “Pulling out” the men at work.She related a long story of strikes in West Virginia, Maryland, and Colorado. She described night marches with bands of strikers, battles with the militia, and of caring for strikers, killed and wounded, in strike riots.

The witness told of being carried out of Colorado by militiamen and of hurrying back on the heels of the escort that took her to the state line.

She described the horrors of industrial wars and at times tears streamed from her eyes as she told of the treatment of men, women, and children.

—–[Photograph added.]

Testimony of Mother Jones, May 14th
As reported by The Washington Times:

WORKERS’ WAR NEAR, SAYS MOTHER JONES
—–

Mother Jones with John R Lawson
“““““

Unless the Government checks the use of the militia and private detective gunmen in labor disputes, an uprising of workers is threatened, “Mother” Jones told the Commission on Industrial Relations at its hearing here today. “Mother” Jones reminded the commission that it was an attempt to force a condition of military rule that brought on the American Revolution.Daniel Davenport, a Bridgeport, Conn., attorney, who prosecuted the case against the Danbury hatters for the manufacturers, defended the courts against charges of bias in labor disputes. He clashed with the commission by refusing to give the names of the members of the Anti-Boycott Association, of which he is general counsel, and which was organized to prosecute the hatters’ case.

Scores Agencies.The wiping out of all private detective agencies was suggested by “Mother” Jones as one means of relieving industrial unrest in testimony before the Commission on Industrial Relations today.

“The Government should take over the detective agencies and run them honestly,” the witness said. Other remedies suggested were public ownership of mines and transportation.

“Mother” Jones read a prepared statement in which she served notice that usurpation of power by militia and courts is “making anarchists out of workingmen.”

“The feeling which is rising throughout the United States will result in terrible consequences if not checked, “Mother” Jones continued.

“There is no such thing as equality before the law,” she continued in disputes between capital and labor.”

To illustrate, “Mother” Jones said that 150 miners were indicted following the recent Colorado strike, but that operators were not indicted, though it was established in Congressional hearings that gunmen were imported, and though women and children were slaughtered at Ludlow when the tent colony was destroyed.

Strong defense of John R. Lawson, international board member of the U. M. W. A., was made by “Mother” Jones. She charged that Lawson’s conviction was “framed up” by the creation of a special judge to try him.

[Photograph added.]

~~~~~~~~~~

SOURCES

Chicago Daily Tribune
(Chicago, Illinois)
-May 14, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/…

The Washington Times
(Washington, District of Columbia)
-May 14, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/…

IMAGES
Mother Jones at Ludlow
http://www.socialwelfarehistory.com/…
Mother Jones on Cover of United Mine Workers Journal
of Jan 21, 1915
http://books.google.com/…
John Lawson & Mother Jones,
Wichita Beacon, Kansas, Apr 22, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/…

See also:
Industrial relations: final report and testimony
United States. Commission on Industrial Relations
-ed by Francis Patrick Walsh, Basil Maxwell Manly
D.C. Gov. Print. Office, 1916
Volume 11: 10,067-11,260
https://books.google.com/…
10618-10645-Mother Jones
https://books.google.com/…

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`
THE BALLAD OF THE BALTIMORE REBELLION
(The Great Labor Uprising of 1877)

The strike had spread up west and north
From Baltimore to Pittsburgh,
Rebellion was erupting everywhere
By August the national strike was over
Crushed by gangs of federal soldiers
With 100 people gone and dead
A government sworn to uphold change
Could have made a living wage
But gave the crowd the bullet instead
Governor Carrol served the boss
Baltimore taxes paid the cost
And the railroad barons thanked the President
And Baltimore went back to normal
Poverty, fear, and fruitless toil
Destined to rise up once again
-Ryan Harvey

WE NEVER FORGET

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`

On the 13th and 14th of this month, Mother Jones came before the Commission on Industrial Relations, now in session in the nation’s capital. Mother gave testimony regarding her many years of service to the American man, woman, and child of the working class. Newspaper accounts describe the tears streaming down her face as she told of the horrors of the many industrial struggles waged by the producers of the nation over the past many years.Today’s Hellraisers is pleased to offer excerpts from her testimony given on May 13th when she was questioned exclusively by Chairman Frank P. Walsh. Tomorrow we will cover her testimony from May 14th, on which day she testified regarding labor and the law.

TESTIMONY OF MRS. MARY JONES
Washington, D. C., May 13, 1915
Questioned by Chairman Frank P. WalshIntroduction

Chairman Walsh. What is your name?
Mother Jones. Mary Jones.
Chairman Walsh. Where do you reside?
Mother Jones. Well, I reside wherever there is a good fight against wrong— all over the
country.
Chairman Walsh. Do you claim a residence in any particular State?
Mother Jones. No. Wherever the workers are fighting the robbers I go there.
Chairman Walsh. Now, it may seem unnecessary, but you are the lady that is known to
the country as ” Mother Jones,” are you?
Mother Jones. I suppose so, Mr. Walsh.

1877-Pittsburgh Railroad Strike

Mother Jones. Well, the strike began in Martinsburg, Ohio [West Virginia]. It started with the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad employees, and it reached down to Pittsburgh and east to Scranton. I was in New York. I came down. I was a member of the Knights of Labor at that time, and some of the boys met me and asked me to stay over with them, and I did. So the traffic was stopped and a lawless element that had got into Pittsburgh during the panic of 1873, they had gathered in from the eastern part of the country and, of course, began to revolt and started to rioting. The employees of the railroad and others went to the mayor of the city and asked him if he would not swear them in as deputies to preserve the property and have the law enforced. While this was going on the sheriff of the county telegraphed to the governor, and the governor sent the militia.Now, at that time I believe the troops went to Pittsburgh, but the fight turned onto the Pennsylvania Railroad; it concentrated on the Pennsylvania Railroad mostly, and some of the militia was quartered in the roundhouse. The business men of Pittsburgh, who for years had complained of discrimination by the railroad company against the city, were free in their expression of enmity against the company. Some of them connected with this committed acts of violence and actually participated in the riots that followed. Cars were set on fire and run down the tracks to the roundhouse, which was destroyed, together with over 100 locomotives belonging to the Pennsylvania Railroad Co.

The feeling at that time of many workers and sympathizers was one of distrust, and in many instances amounted to hatred, because the corporations of that day were open and successful in passing antilabor legislation, tramp laws, and other legislation, which caused the workers to feel that they were being discriminated against. The corporations succeeded in the passing of the law which required that in case of a strike the train crew should bring in a locomotive to the starting place before the strike would begin. It was because of that legislation that so many locomotives were housed at Pittsburgh and be came the prey to the flames by an outraged populace and not by the workers and not by strikers.

I know most of the strikers; all had done everything they could to keep order. Not but what they felt the sting of the lash, the injustice that was done, but nevertheless they wanted to keep order and be steady otherwise. But the business men were the men who perpetrated the wrongs, because they felt that the railroad company had discriminated against them so much.

1900-Arnot, Pennsylvania

Mother Jones. I had been down in Arnot, Pa. We had a strike there for six months, but there were no deputies and no gunmen and no militia brought in there, and there was no violence. That is the home of the Secretary of Labor [William B. Wilson].During the whole six months, it was a nine months’ strike, but it was six months after I went there; but the men were orderly and they themselves took care of the property. The superintendent and the officials of that company could come up 4 miles from Blossburg at any hour of the night they wanted to alone, and they were not afraid and had no reason to be. That strike was settled very peacefully. The Erie Co. conceded to the men most of what they asked for, and there was no violence during the whole nine months.

1900-The First Great Anthracite Strike

Mother Jones. Then I went into Maryland. I was not in Maryland very long until I was sent for to come into the anthracite region…in 1900….And in that—there were only 7,000 men organized out of 160,000, and I addressed the convention the day that I got in from Maryland and they called the strike right afterwards. Well, of course, we had to go over all the district—three districts—to rally them together. There was no violence up in either Scranton or around Hazelton, and very little of it down in a town named Shamokin—scarcely any violence there, but the militia was brought in. First the company would guard the mines so that the men could not get out, or that we could not get near them; and if we billed a meeting, why the company would always attend the meeting and the men could not; It was the force of the company entirely that attended the meeting, and I concluded that these men had suffered long enough.

I want to say, Mr. Walsh, that I do not take any orders from any officials. I belong to a class who have been robbed, exploited, and plundered down through many long centuries, and because I belong to that class I have an instinct to go and help break the chains; and so I concluded some moves had to be made to bring the men all out; and I organized the men and women, the women particularly, and I made raids every night; we marched and pulled out those mines—the men. There was no violence. The sheriff in Hazelton was a very fine man. He understood the law, and he knew he could manage the affair without bringing the military there.

But I went down to Panther Creek. There were 5,000 men there that could not be reached, and I knew they had to be got out in order to get more bread for the children that were coming, so one night, without saying anything to anyone, I gathered up 2,000 or 3,000 women, and naturally the men followed. That is their natural instinct—to know what we were going to do. We started. I had to go into the saloons and tell them to close up and not give any liquor to the boys. I knew the women did not go near the saloons; I was the only one that did. We marched, and about 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning we met the militia.

There was a poor little sheriff, not to be condemned at all, but he was unable to grasp the thing, and he yelled like a mad dog in the night to send the guns to him, the governor. I did not know it, or I would have telegraphed the governor, to keep the guns at home and there would be no trouble. Then we marched 15 miles over the mountains from Hazelton to Panther Creek, and there we met the militia in the middle of the night.

The militia did not know what kind of an army I had with me. He thought it was just a few strikers; he told us to go back. I told him that the American workingman never goes backward; we go forward, and we did not go out to go back; and he said he would charge bayonets. Well, he didn’t do it anyway; but it took us three hours to go back 2 miles. I don’t like to resist officers and create any trouble, but I saw he was a sort of a Sunday-school fellow and there wasn’t very much to him, and I concluded to just pat him on the back a little, and I pulled out the 5,000 men…

Yes [I induced the 5,000 men to go out on strike]; I wanted them to win the fight. I had a large army with me and I wanted them all, and so I had to get these miners out, because they were furnishing the coal. I brought out the 5,000 men. We held up the street cars and did not hurt anybody, and the men—oh, once in awhile when a boss wanted to jump over us we picked him up and threw him over the fence to his wife, and told her to take care of him. We did not hurt him, but we wanted him out of our way; so that thing continued until 10 o’clock in the morning ; and we had the 5.000 men out and that ended it, and that part of the strike was ended peacefully.

The women had nothing but brooms and mops and they were very hungry, and the militia had ordered breakfast at some hotel and I told the women go in and eat their breakfast and let the State pay for it; and it was our breakfast anyhow. So they did. We ate the breakfast. We had more strength to get back.

1902-Parkersburg, West Virginia

Mother Jones. The prosecuting attorney recommended me to the mercy of the court [of Federal Judge John Jay Jackson]. I don’t want any mercy from any court. I don’t do anything but what is my duty to do as a citizen of this Nation, and I don’t ask you for mercy. I am asking for justice, and not mercy, and I told the judge not to have any mercy on me.

1902-The Raleigh County Massacre

Mother Jones.…Now, then, I am coming to that part of it—the strike of 1902 in West Virginia. There is a very sad, sad story to be told about that. They were pretty peaceful boys down there as a rule, and we kept them in line, and there was one mountain, Standford Stanaford Mountain, and they had issued this injunction, that men could not look at the mines. That injunction was always issued on me, and the boys went one day to take a walk along the highway and came back and went home peacefully and quietly, interfering with nobody nor anything. They had never been in court in their lives, none of those boys; they were law-abiding, good men, living quietly up there in the mountains.The United States deputy marshal came In the next morning with a warrant for 33 of them. They were holding a meeting in their hall, quietly, and he read the warrant, and some said, “You can’t arrest us; we have broken no law; we have hurt nobody; and you will have to leave the town.” I think his brother was a company doctor, and they asked him to come, and he did come down and take him away. Anyhow, the next night they went up that mountain, and they shot seven men while they slept. There were about 100 of those gunmen and their deputies and these mine owners and their sons, and they went up that mountain, and while those men slept they shot them; they riddled their little shacks with bullets and wounded 23 as they were sleeping.

I was going to a meeting the next morning very early, and I was told what happened, and I went and called a couple of boys and told them that they had had some trouble on Standford Mountain, and let’s go up. We went up, and the picture I shall never forget. The mattresses were all seeping with blood, and the bodies were lying there. It was sad, and I shudder at the picture, and the women were screaming, and the babies were running to me to call back their papas. It was a sad, sad picture. I knew those men had violated no law outside of walking on the highway and that supposed injunction. They got a coroner, and he held an inquest over them. A few were arrested, but no one was ever convicted for the crime.

Five or six days after this I went back up that mountain; there was a grave out in the field, and a woman was over it and a little baby, and the little baby, when she saw me she screamed, and she said, ” Oh, Mother Jones, come and pick up my papa!” And she was scraping the clay with her little, tender hands, and the wife was watering with her tears. That young man was as law-abiding a young man, I think, as you could find in the country. I don’t think he ever thought of such thing, but he was shot while standing up on the mountains.

1903 & 1904-Colorado Coalfield Strike

Mother Jones. In 1903. That was the first [Colorado Coalfield] strike. The governor sent for me, and I never go to see those officers alone; I generally take some of our officials with me when I go. I know them pretty well. He said, “Are you going to have a strike in the southern coal fields, Mother Jones?” I said, “I don’t know, Governor [Peabody]; that is up to you. If you can bring the conflicting parties together, I think we can ward off the strike, and both sides concede.” He said, “I don’t want a strike.” “Neither do I, but we will strike rather than slavery.” I said, “I suppose you are very anxious to know, Governor?” And he said, “Yes, I am; why do you think so?”And I said, “I suppose you want to get your militia ready to go out.” He said that he had them already in another district in Colorado to open a mine. I was not aware that the State owned the mines. I thought they were private property, belonging to a combination of private individuals, and he said, “So they are, but we have to get the militia after that lawbreaking organization.”

“Who are you talking about, the Western Federation of Miners?” “Yes.” And I said, “It is strange that they have become lawless and lawbreakers since you got in. They have developed this State and have their families here, and I think they would hardly become rioters at once.” He said. “I won’t discuss it.” And I said, “What did you send for me for?” And he said, “I want to know if you are going to have a strike.” And I said, “Yes, we are, and you had just as well know it now as any time.”

And I went back, and the strike order went out. I went around holding meetings of the men, women, and children. We didn’t have as large a tent colony then as afterwards. From the miners themselves there was little violence at that time, but the militia was brought in there. The sheriff came to me Saturday night and said, “Mother Jones, I heard the miners are going to organize and make a raid down on some camp” he told me about, and I said, “Sheriff, you are sheriff of the county, and you ought to know that these miners are not going to do anything of the kind. If they do, I would know it the first one.”

He said, “The governor has a representative here.” “Of course, that is perfectly natural that he would have a representative here, but there is no need of the governor sending any troops here. You and your officers of the law here can take care of this situation. There has been no trouble that amounts to anything, and let me guaranty to you that if there is to be any trouble I will give you the first news. Is there any trouble in the county?” “Not that I know of,” he said.

And I said, “If there is, you get your buggy right out.” It was 11 o’clock at night, but I says, “I will go with you to any part of the county, and I will guaranty to you that if there is any trouble we will stop it immediately.” “There is none, Mother.” he said. I said, “Very well, why don’t you go home and to bed and don’t bother about this?”

The militia came on Monday. They gambled all night. The representative of the C. F. & I.—I have forgotten his name—and the sheriff and this militia man; one of them lost, I heard, $700, but that didn’t bother me, because it didn’t concern me how much it was; it was among themselves. However, Monday the militia came in, and we didn’t know anything about it until I got a telephone message from Denver early in the morning, and they said they are mobilizing the militia here, and I think they are going to Trinidad; you had better watch yourself; and I said, “Let them come,” and that afternoon the militia came in, and I told one of our officers that I had just got a telephone from Denver that they were mobilizing the militia, and that he had better see the boys and tell them to keep quiet, and he did, and the militia came.

I went out to the camp several days, talking to the women and children, and Saturday evening I came in; I had been out all day. But before that we went out to a meeting, and coming back from that meeting I met a wagon loaded with guns that were going to Bowen, I think, and I said to the party with me, “There has been something doing; if those fellows belong to Bowen, they are the gunmen,” and I think the superintendent was with them; I am not certain.

But when we came back to Bowen a young woman came out screaming. She said, “Stop, oh, stop,” and I said to the party with me, “I guess they are drinking in there; keep away, don’t mix in it,” and she pleaded and pleaded and pulled and pulled; she was an Italian; and so we finally went in. I went into the house, and old man Farley sat there with his head all tied up, and a young man named Rooney was lying in bed all covered with blood. You could have put your finger down through him. They had been at a meeting and were coming home when those fellows attacked them from ambush and almost beat them to death.

There was not very much violence during that strike until the militia came. Then one Saturday night I was going to bed when a knock came on the door, and I said, Come in,” and the militiaman opened the door and he said, ” Come on;” and, of course, I had to go; there was the bayonets, and I said, “Just wait a moment, will you please, until I dress?” And so I went up to the militia headquarters, and the major asked me where I lived, and I told him I lived wherever there was a fight, and so he called the militia, seven of them, and told me to get my things, and I got a few little things I had, and there was such a hurry—there were seven militiamen, two at my back and two at each side and one in front of me—and they took me down the street and put me on the train and went with me to La Junta, Colo., and left me at the depot at La Junta.

I had only 5 cents in my pocket. And a railroad man came, and an Associated Press man, and he said, “Are you Mother Jones?” And I said, ” Yes,” and he said, ” I thought so, because I saw the militia going.” And I followed the militia when I saw they were leaving me there, and I said, “I want to say to you fellows that there is not money enough in the United States Treasury to hire me to acknowledge I was the mother of one of you.” They didn’t say anything, and they went away. This Associated Press man and the railroad man came and asked me what I was going to do, and I said I didn’t know, I didn’t have time to decide.

And I found out there was two of our men there, but the railroad man gave me money. They did not go back, but went to Indianapolis. I went back. I had orders not to come back, but no governor owns the State and no President owns the United States, and I happened to be in this country before any of them, and I had a share of stock in there, and I said I was going back the next morning, and I went back the next morning.

Well, I sent the governor a note, which was not a very polite one, either, because when I get worked up I am not a very polite character, Mr. Walsh.

Spring 1904-Utah

Mother Jones. I went then to Helper, Utah. And I went to the hotel at midnight and got a room, and the next morning I got my breakfast and went to the post office in the morning and got my mail, and I saw I was watched; they went to the post office to find out when I got my mail, and I went to an Italian family and got a room in that house, and I took my things over there and didn’t see anything more until the next day, when we were going to have a meeting. The next day was Sunday, and the miners all came up. There was a vacant lot in front of the house where I was staying, and the miners all came along and we were going to hold the meeting there, and the company doctor came and said, you know he didn’t think it was right to hold the meeting, and the marshal said, “I don’t think it is right for you to hold the meeting here, and I don’t think you ought to do it.”I said, “How far does your jurisdiction extend?” And he told me, and I said, “Well, we will go outside of your jurisdiction.” And I took the miners and went 24 miles down farther. I held the meeting. They had notified the railroad men not to come to my meeting, but the men all came, and I held the meeting and went back and went to my room. Quite a number of the boys came up town again, and I had not been in the room 10 minutes until the company’s doctor and the marshal came in and said, “You are quarantined, Mother Jones, for 16 days.” I said, “What is the matter?” And they said, “Why, you might have had the smallpox.” Well, I said, “Maybe I have, but why don’t you quarantine the whole train?” They said, “You know you mingle about a great deal.”

I never have an argument, because it don’t do any good and it causes trouble, and I was afraid the men would get excited, and I said, “Boys, you go on down town.” And he came along Monday and put a yellow flag on the door, “Smallpox in here.” He brought me some books and magazines, and I put them in the stove, because I thought the poor little stove would do anything for his corporation and I put the books in the stove, and the next day, Tuesday, the secretary for the miners came and he was sitting there and I was discussing things with him what they should do, so along came this doctor, and he said, “My, my, my, didn’t I tell you not to let anybody inside that gate?”

And I said, “You did not; I am a patient, and if you want to keep anybody outside that gate you put a picket at the gate and keep people out; I am a patient and I am not going to do picket work also.” And he took hold of this fellow and he got scared, and I said, “Mike, don’t get scared, he is only going to inject something into you; don’t get afraid; let him inject it.”

And they took me down and I was put in the back of an old store. There was no violence, for these miners were as lawabidlng as this audience is; there was not a single one of them doing anything, only just striking. They were singing a little down in their tents. I was in the back of an old store, and on Saturday night I learned that they were coming in Sunday morning and going to arrest all of the boys; so I sent for them and I said, “Have you got any guns?” And they said, “Yes.” And I said, “You take them up and bury them under the range,” because I thought if the boys that had their guns and those men came in suddenly there would be some trouble; and I said, ” Boys, you go and bury your guns and you go back; I am going to stay up all night,” and they said “No” and I said “Yes,” and to-morrow we will talk things over.

At 4 o’clock in the morning the sheriff and 45 deputies came up. I heard them whooping, and so I put my head out of the window and said, “What is the matter?” The sheriff was the first one, and he said, “We are going to arrest all these fellows.” I said, “What have they done?” He said, “They are striking.” I said, “They have a right to strike; this Nation was founded on a strike, and they have the right to strike; and we have a right to strike; Washington struck against King George, and we will strike against King Gould.” But they took them all; they were not allowed to put on their clothes, and they shook like aspen leaves. They took them up several miles and held them there until night and got a box car and took them down to Price.

After they were gone a woman came to me with her babe, weeping bitterly, and said, “You see my Johnnie?” I said, “Yes,” and she said, “Let me tell you, Mother, this baby was born at 11 o’clock at night, and I got up in the morning and got breakfast for 11 men to go into the mines.” And she was watering the baby with her tears. “Now,” she said, “tell me what to do; they have got my John; they have got my house; we rented a little piece of land from the company, and I took in boarders and I put up a little house on it, and I want to give my children a chance; but now they have got my house, they have my health, and they have got my John, and what will I do?”

Now, I want to say to this commission and to this audience that are listening here, on the quivering heart and the aching breast and blasted hopes of this mother, and of thousands like her, Miss Gould and her class carries on her philanthropy in the Scofield mines, where 400 men were roasted to death; their bones are rotting out there, and their wives and children are carrying on life’s struggle as best they can, and, my friends, we can have no civilization until such things are abolished.

That woman with her babe and four children was sad to look at, but she is only one of many thousands I know of in this terrific struggle for industrial freedom. It touches a human cord in most anyone. I brought that up before Mr. Rockefeller when I had the meeting with him. I feel that men in that position do not grasp these things as they are, nor do the people outside, nor do our officials who live in offices, nor do our newspaper men; it takes those who are down with them to see the horrors of this industrial tragedy that is going on in our Nation to-day.

1910-Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, Strike

Mother Jones. I went into that Westmoreland strike, and I did not have any conflict with the constabulary. The only time I came against them at all was when 12 or 13 women were arrested one day and carried into a squire’s office; and he, poor wretch, you could see he was a narrow creature; and I went with the women, and I told them to take their babes along. I said, “Wherever you go, take the children, they are yours “; and so the women took all their little ones and babes; and when the people gave their evidence about them, which did not amount to anything, the judge said he would fine them $30 apiece. I said to the women, ” Tell him you are not going to pay it,” and he said, “Then you will get 30 days in jail.” I said, “Tell him all right, they will go to jail.” And the women asked for some one who could take the babies, and I said, “No; God Almighty gave you the babies, and you keep them until they are taken away from you.”Two of the constabulary went with the women, and the women ran across some scabs on the way and they licked them, and I took care of the babies until they licked the scabs.

On the way to Greensburg the motorman wanted to stop the car, and I said, “You can’t stop this car, it is contrary to law; you must obey the law until you get to the station.” They said, “These fellows want to get off,” and I said, “You won’t let us off, and you won’t let them off.”

Well, the women were singing all the way to Greensburg. and the two constabulary turned them over to the sheriff, and the sheriff said, “Mother Jones, I would rather you had brought me a hundred men than these women”; and I said, “I didn’t bring them, the old squire sent them up; you hold him responsible.” He said, “I don’t know how to manage them” ; and I said, “What did you get married for if you can’t manage women; these women are peaceable, you can manage them.” And they were sent up to the room, and I sent them food, and milk for the babies; and I said to the women, “You sing all night, sing all day if you want to, but sing all night and don’t stop for anybody.” And they didn’t; they sang the whole night, and the people complained about the singing, and the women would not shut up, and the babies would not shut up, and nobody would shut up, and they turned them all out.

1912-Cabin Creek, West Virginia

Mother Jones. One night two of the miners came to me at about 2 o’clock at night, at Montgomery, and they said, “We have been down to Charleston, and no one will go up Cabin Creek; will you come?” I said, “Yes.” For nine years no organizer had dared to go up that creek, and if he did, he came out on a stretcher, or a corpse. The boys said, “They will kill you, Mother “; and I said, “It don’t make any difference to me when I get killed; there is a duty to be performed, and I am going.” I said, “Is it billed?” And they said, “No”; and I said, “I will attend to that,” and the railroad men circulated the bills.I went up on Tuesday, and the governor heard I was going and sent a company of the militia; and those men came down over those mountains, and their toes were out through their shoes; they walked 12 miles, some of them. They stood there and looked up as much as to say, “Have you brought us any message of hope? “I talked to them with the militia there, and the company’s representatives, and I said, “Boys, freedom is not dead,” and some poor wretch hollowed, “Where is she?” “She is gently sleeping, and when you call her she will awake.” Those men screamed, and they said, “Will you organize us, Mother?” I said, “Yes.” They said, “Into what?” I said, “Into the mine workers,” and I said, “If you get organized, will you stay organized? I left you all organized 10 years ago when I went away,” and they said, “We will, Mother.” I took them over by the church; I don’t go to church; I am waiting outside for the fellows in the church to come out and fight with me, and then I will go in. Outside of the church I stood up on a bench and organized the men, and I said for everyone to take out their mine clothes in the morning and to take their picks and shovels and dig coal, and I said, “To-morrow you go to work and don’t say anything about this meeting.”

1913-The West Virginia Court Martial

Mother Jones. I carried the fight on—I knew the boys would—only this is a spectacular age. They have no conception of freedom or justice; until it hits them they don’t care. I thought, “I will make a move that will stir the State and draw the attention of the people to this “; and I went out, and at that time I got 3,000 or 4,000 miners and came up to the capitol with a banner which said, “Nero fiddled while Rome burned”; that is what the governor of West Virginia did. And we went into the Statehouse grounds, and I read the document to the governor asking him to do away with the Baldwin guards; that this Nation was not founded to be governed by gunmen; and I read the document on the steps of the statehouse to about 5,000 people. The governor was at my right, and I said that if the Government would not do business that we would by 8 o’clock to-morrow night. So we sent the document in, and the governor still remained there, and they said, “We will wait, Mother, for him to answer “; and I said, “No; you go back.”…So I said to the crowd, “This governor is not going to do anything for you.” Some one said, “Why?” I said, “Because the biggest political crook that ever cursed a nation elected him—Senator Elkins,” and when he says “Bark,” he does it.

I talked for an hour and a half, and there is an inscription on the steps of the capitol that mountaineers are always free, and I called attention to that Inscription and I said, “Now, I want to state right here to this audience that we are going to make that good or we will tear up the inscription,” and the governor stood there; and so when the meeting was over I went away. I was tired and worn out, for I had been preparing for that for some days; and some one got up and began to blow off a lot of locomotive hot air, and the boys came up to me to stop it, and I took him by the shoulder and told him to get down, and I got up and said, “This meeting stands adjourned until I need you again. And I want you to stay away from the saloons and save your money, because you will need it.” Somebody in the audience hollowed, “Well, what will we do with it. Mother?” “Buy a gun,” said I; and they bought the guns; they went to every store in town and bought the guns and put them on their shoulders and went off with them.

…So [arriving later in Charleston] I was arrested as soon as I got off the train and thrown into an automobile and carried down to the Robber’s Roost, a hotel near the bridge, which I call the Robber’s Roost, because the pirates used always to put up there. So there, was no warrant that I saw, and so I was taken to the C. & O. train and put on the C. & O. train and carried down and handed over to the military 25 miles from where I was arrested.

And I was handed over to the military while the civil court was open. Well, I was held there for three months, and they established a drumhead court and the court appointed two lawyers, and they came to see me, and they said that the court appointed them to defend me. I said, “Gentlemen, personally I have nothing in the world against you; but there is no lawyer in the United States that will defend me in that court.” Well, some civilian lawyers came down, and they wanted to defend me—not to cost anything, and I said, “No, sir; there is no lawyer will ever go into that court to defend me.”

And so we were taken into court. I think we were, five days there and some nights until 11 o’clock at night. There were about 30 of the men that consented to take a lawyer, but there were six or seven of us that would not have a lawyer to defend us, and we were sent over to the bull pen and the boys were held in their bull pen and I was held in mine, and we saw the military on each side of the bull pen day and night watching.

And it was great fun for me. I used to see the poor kids dressed up in that uniform, and I wondered what their mothers thought of them; and I used to feel sorry for them, and I used to give them an apple once in a while. There was a break in the floor and they used to send things up to me out of the cellar; and I felt sorry for them because they were carrying guns to shoot people, and I used to give them an apple…

The “Bull Moose..” The train the military used. And they came down several nights; and a party in it wanted me to go to Ohio; said my health would break down there. ” Well, let it break. I have only one death to meet. … Well, the attorney general, I think it was, that came down, and I said to the attorney general, “Now, I want to make a statement right here. This thing has got to end. I want to tell the governor of the State that he can chain me to that tree outside there and he can get his dogs of war to riddle this body with bullets, but I will not surrender my constitutional rights to him. I happen to be one of the women who tramped the highways where the blood of the revolutionists watered it that I might have a trial by jury. The civil courts are open, and I demand that the law be enforced.” And so I did not; we were tried, anyhow. We were kept in that bull pen, but I would not surrender.

May 1913-Telegram to Senator Kern

Mother Jones. And I got a telegram blank and made up a telegram, and this is about what it stated:

Senator Keen, Washington, D. C:
From out the military prison at [Platt], W. Va., I send to you the groans and heartbreaks and tears of men, women, and children, as I have heard them in this State, pleading with you in their behalf for the honor of the nation to push that investigation, and children yet unborn will rise and call you blessed.

And I had two bottles and I rang them together, and a fellow came down in the cellar, and he came, and I says, “You take that up as quick as you can to that telegraph office. Don’t go to this one here, but go 3 miles up the road, and tell him to send that telegram to Washington for me”; and the fellow says, “This is fine stuff; tell Mother Jones it will be in Washington before you get home.” And so I slept good that night, when I knew that telegram had gone to Washington, and I had bluffed the gang in Wall Street for once; and I had a good sleep.And the thing came up in the Senate, and old Judge Goff—he is not a bad fellow at all, but he has been dead for 40 years and doesn’t know it. The old judge had a telegram from the governor stating that I was not at all incarcerated; that I was in a very pleasant boarding house; and he went on about outside agitators, and who they were and what they were. Well, this Nation was founded on agitation. The chattel slavery was abolished through agitation, and God grant the agitation keeps up until the last chain of slavery is broken. And he said, “That is old Mother Jones, and I want to tell you that if you listen to her as I did you will find out she will convince you.” But I never convinced him; but he should never have been in the United States Senate at all. The old fellow was not a bad fellow, but he is dead and the world has run beyond him.

Senator Kern pulled out his telegram and read, and the Senators in Washington told me that in 50 years nothing had ever struck the Senate like that telegram. I says, “Well, thank God, something struck them; they needed a cyclone once in a while, and if the telegram stirred them up, so much the better.”

September 1913-The Colorado Strike Begins

Mother Jones. I went out to the colony because it was rainy and drizzly, and I wanted to see that the little children were cared for, if there were any there; and I went to carry some clothing to them. In that 14 miles between Trinidad and the tent colony I met 28 wagons; mothers with babies in their arms were walking. It was a cold, drizzling rain. I want to say to this commission that it was the earthly belongings of those people, it was their earthly savings that were in those wagons. There Is not a second-hand man in the United States that would have given $30 for the contents of the 28 wagons, yet it was all those people had. When I came to the tents, the mattresses were wet, and I said to the women, “You didn’t sleep there all night?” “Yes; and the baby slept, too.” And an Italian said—I said, “Joe, where did you sleep?” And he says, “Out on the ground.” ” Why, it was raining and the ground was wet.” “Sure, mother,” he said, “but I no like the company; like better than sleep in company house.” Now, this was the sentiment, and nobody can understand this unless they live with those people. I know their lives, and it was on the blood of those people that we carry on our charity institutions and everything else. And that tent colony went on, and we fed them, and then the scabs were coming—

January 1914-Trinidad, Colorado: Deportation and Arrest

Mother Jones. Well, then, the scabbers were coming in from Mexico; I had been to Mexico a few years before that, down to see Madero and De la Barra and other men; and I was going to El Paso to stop the scabs coming in, and I went down. I was there a week and held some meetings, and I wanted to see the revolutionists and have a talk with them.The morning I came back was the 4th of January, 1914. When I got off of the train here was the bunch. I got off of the Santa Fe. They ran and said, “Here she comes,” and I looked around. “Take her back.” I said, “What is the matter?” “We have got you.” “Here I am, take me, I am going to Denver.” ” Get on that train.” “I am not going on that train.” “Get in here and get your ticket.” “They don’t sell the C. & S. tickets in that office.”

He went and asked the telephone, and they said there would not be a train for an hour and a quarter yet, so I was put in an automobile and taken to the Columbia Hotel, and I was taken to a room. On the way to the room I said that I had not had any breakfast; I would like to have some breakfast. They said, “Take her in to breakfast,” and I asked the captain who was escorting me, I said, “Who Is going to pay for this?” And he said. “The State will pay for it.” And I said, “All right, if the State pays for it I will get a good breakfast.” I don’t often have an opportunity to do that, but the State was paying for it and I got a good break fast. I was taken to the room, and a half a dozen were there to take care of me.

The train came and the automobile came, and with three bayonets, one at my back and one at my left, and this fellow that had arrested me was at my right, and there were two others in front. When I got to the depot there were the cavalry and the infantry and the gunmen after one old woman 80 years old. I said, “You are awful brave fellows, your mothers ought to put you in a nursery and give you a nursing bottle for 10 years.” I got on the train and the captain came along and said that he was going to Denver. I told him I was glad to have him. He came along and said, “Don’t come back,” and I said, “If I don’t feel like it, I won’t,” and so I went on into Denver.

While I was here in Washington I picked up a paper and saw where the governor would have me arrested if I came back, and I won’t let any governor run a State that I have an interest in; I have one share of stock, and so I went back, and he put two detectives in the hotel to watch me. He put one at the gate watching the trains, and I thought that I would fix him right there, and I would let the world see that you are not such a wonderful governor after all.

The militia was there, and a man, I think he called himself a humane man, I don’t know whether he was taking care of dogs or human beings, but he came up Sunday and said, “Are you going down to Trinidad, Mother?” And I said, “Yes.” And he said, “When?” And I said, “The last of the week.” And he said, “I want to know because I want to go on the train with you.”

I told him I would be glad to have him, I knew he was a Baldwin rat, and I wanted to go along. He said, “Where are you going this afternoon?” And I said, “Trade and labor.” And he said, “May I go with you?” And he escorted me up the street so no one would hurt me, and I said, “I told the boys that the governor said I could not go to Trinidad, but that he didn’t own it; I had a share of stock in it, but that I was not going until the last of the week; that I had some matters coming from Washington.” I went to my room, and the fellow went home contented; he said there were two other fellows in a house across the street in a room watching me.

I had my sleeper all bought on Saturday, and I got into the sleeper and went to sleep, and when the train pulled out I was asleep, and I told the conductor when he got there to stop the train before it got to the depot. He held up the train, and I got down and walked up the street and into the hotel and sent out and got my breakfast, and was in the hotel three hours before they found out I was there. I sent for the boys, and they came up and I said to the boys that they were liable to arrest me, but don’t you fellows make any fuss or move; just let them arrest me; don’t say a word and make a move, and keep the boys all quiet and off of the streets, because you can not do that, because the curiosity of an animal is aroused whenever anything is going on.

So I had my breakfast, and presently along came the troopers—tramp, tramp, tramp—after three hours. The governor had telephoned and telegraphed, “Arrest her at once,” and the general said, “Get her,” so they did. I said, “You come after me,” and they said, “Yes.” I said, “Wait until I get my few duds.” I got into an automobile, with a bunch of guns and bayonets behind me and in front, and the poor fellow that was running the automobile was scared to death, but I told him to keep that machine going straight, that they wouldn’t hurt him. There was 150 cavalry, 150 infantry, 150 horses with their heads poked at me, 150 gunmen of the Standard Oil Co., and the old woman, and I shook my hands to the boys good-by.

I was taken to the hospital and put in a room, and I was kept there for nine weeks and didn’t see a human being except Attorney Hawkins. But there was a thing that they called a colonel that came along once in a while that wanted me to go to Denver. But I said, “No; I will stay here.” He would come strutting about every now and then, and there were a lot of poor boys there. They had stationed three of the militiamen—three on the outside of the door and two in that room and one outside of the window.

I couldn’t eat. I didn’t have much appetite locked up in a room, and so I gave my food to the militia boys. They are good boys when you get at them right, and I gave my fruit to them to eat and got on the right side of those fellows, and they told me they had not gotten any money for several weeks, and I said, “I have five or six dollars. I will give it to you boys, and you can go to the show to-night.” I gave it to them, and they went, and I got them with me, and they said, “I will tell you, Mother, we will never take up a gun again to shoot a worker,” and I said, “That is what you should have done before.”

Chairman Walsh. At this point, Mother Jones, we will stand adjourned until to-morrow morning.
Mother Jones. I have a good deal to tell you yet, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Walsh. All right.
(Whereupon, the hour for adjournment having arrived, the commission here adjourned until Friday, May 14, 1915, at 10 a. m. )

Note:

paragraph breaks and emphasis added to above testimony of Mother Jones.

~~~~~~~~~~SOURCES

Industrial relations: final report and testimony
United States. Commission on Industrial Relations
-ed by Francis Patrick Walsh, Basil Maxwell Manly
D.C. Gov. Print. Office, 1916
Volume 11: https://books.google.com/…
10586-Washington, D. C, Thursday, May 13, 1915—10 a. m. Present: Chairman Walsh; Commissioners Harriman, Garretson, Lennon, Weinstock, and O’Connell.
https://books.google.com/…
10618-PM: Testimony of Mrs Mary Jones
https://books.google.com/…

Mother Jones Speaks
-ed by Philip S Foner
NY, 1983

IMAGES
Mother Jones with Strikers Children
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/…
Mother Mary Harris Jones, Miners Angel
http://www.biography.com/…
Mother Mary Harris Jones Standing
http://theadvocateonline.com/…
Mother Jones, Appeal to Reason, Mar 11, 1905
http://www.newspapers.com/…
Mother Jones, Raising Hell
http://www.laborheritage.org/…
Mother Jones in West Virginia Military Bastille, 1913
http://www.wvculture.org/…
Women March for Mother Jones, Trinidad Jan 23, 1914
http://www.du.edu/…

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`
The Death of Mother Jones-Gene Autry

O’er the hills and through the valley
In ev’ry mining town;
Mother Jones was ready to help them,
She never turned them down.
On front with the striking miners
She always could be found;
And received a hearty welcome
In ev’ry mining town.

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`

On Friday May 14th, Mother Jones appeared before the Commission on Industrial Relations to conclude her testimony. She was questioned on that day by Chairman Walsh and by Commissioner Weinstock.She made many memorable statements on during these interrogations.

Regarding the time spent in the cold cellar cell at Walsenburg, Colorado, she said:

And so I was put in the cellar. It was cold, it was a horrible place, and they thought it would sicken me, but I concluded to stay in that cellar and fight them out. I had sewer rats that long every night to fight, and all I had was a beer bottle; I would get one rat, and another would run across the cellar at me. I fought the rats inside and out just alike.

Speaking of a mass meeting held in Philadelphia before the March of the Mill Children, she declared:

I showed them children with their hands off, a sacrifice on the altar of profit, giving to this Nation maimed and useless citizens.I spoke to the ministers, and asked them if they were not carrying out Christ’s doctrine, suffer little children to come unto me, they are all that is pure and holy, and you say “Suffer the little ones to go into the slave pens, and we will grind them into profit.” And that is what is done.

When asked by Commissioner Weinstock if she had respect for Law and Order, she replied:

I certainly do, but when the law jumps all over my class and there is no law for my class, and it is only for the other fellow, then I want to educate my people so as to put my people on the bench…

And she further stated:

I am always in favor of obeying the law; but if the high-class burglar breaks the law and defies it, then I say we will have a law that will defend the Nation and our people.

When asked for recommendations that the Commission could take to the U. S. Congress, one of Mother’s suggestions was public ownership of the mines:

Now, I believe in taking over the mines, Mr. Weinstock. They are mineral, and no operator, no coal company on the face of the earth made that coal. It is a mineral; it belongs to the Nation; it was there down the ages, and it belongs to every generation that comes along, and no set of men should be permitted to use that which is nature’s. It should be given to all of nature’s children in other nations.

Note:

emphasis added to above quotations.Below the fold, Hellraisers offers excerpts from the May 14th testimony of Mother Jones.

TESTIMONY OF MRS. MARY JONES—Recalled
Washington, D. C., May 14, 1915
Questioned by Chairman WalshEarly 1914-In the Cold Cellar Cell at Walsenburg, Colorado

Chairman Walsh. I think last night when we adjourned, Mrs. Jones, you had just detailed your arrest in Colorado, and if you would, please, I wish you would continue and put in the whole Colorado incident down to the end, so far as it has to do with you.Mother Jones. I think I closed about where I was arrested.

Chairman Walsh. You were arrested at Trinidad?

Mother Jones. And taken to the Sisters of Mercy Hospital. They turned it into a prison, a portion of it, and I was incarcerated there with three military men, one in front of the door, and one at each side of the door, and one outside of the window, and the whole military camp across the way from the hospital, and then the headquarters of the military was in the next room to me.

And I didn’t see anyone for the nine weeks that I was incarcerated there but my attorney…Mr. Hawkins and Mr. Clark, who represented him. He came once to see me to get me to sign some documents for writ of habeas corpus, and Maj. Boughton came with him; and I made some remarks with regard to they wouldn’t get the writ of habeas corpus granted from the judge there. I knew very well they would not, because he represented the interests there, and I did not want our people to spend any money, because they had none to spend. So, however, they applied for the habeas corpus and it was not granted.

The superioress came and told me—I think the colonel got her to do so, thinking I would succumb and surrender—that it was turned down. I said, “All right,” and she says, ” You ought to go to Denver.” ” I will go when I get ready; when my hands are free. I don’t need any instructions or advice on that at all.” And so she went away and I was kept there; I never got any mail, not a newspaper or a postal card or a single thing for nine long weeks that I was alone in that room.

But the colonel used to come every once in a while to see me to see if I was getting ready to surrender, and I said, ” Colonel, I will not surrender,” or “captain.” He says, “I am not a captain; you are pulling me down.” I says, “What are you?” He says, “A colonel.” He was a strutting back to tell me what his title was, and so on. I says, “All right, sir.” And so he went away and didn’t come back for a day or two. And I never saw Gen. Chase at all until the morning I was taken to Denver, at the close of the nine weeks, when they were going into the supreme court in Denver for writ of habeas corpus. He came to me on Sunday and he said, “Would you go up and see the governor if he wishes to see you?” I waited a moment and I said, ” Well, yes; I will go up and see the governor if he wishes to see me. While I have no respect for the governor personally, I have a great deal for the office he holds, and out of respect I hold for the office he holds I shall comply with his request.” And so that is all I heard of it.

And he came that evening eight minutes before the Santa Fe train was to go out, in an automobile, and said, “Are you ready?” “Why,” I said, “No; I am just getting ready to retire.” He says, “Get ready; they are going in eight minutes.” He said. “Jump, jump, jump.” Well, I had a little valise there, and I got it and I handed it out to the guard at the door to put the straps on it, and he took the valise and threw it out in the automobile, and they locked the guard up in his room and cleared the whole hall, and so I was taken down the back way—not the front way at all, but the back way—and was put into an automobile in the dark.

The automobile ran away. I had the fellow that was running it—he was running it down by the C. & S. road—to make a short cut to the Santa Fe; and he made him go around some dark alleys. I want to say, Mr. Walsh, it was the first time in my life that I made up my mind I was going to die; I concluded that they were going to kill me, and I was preparing to make a fight before I left. However, after a while we struck the Santa Fe train, pulled away, out entirely away from the depot. That was switched away from the depot, and I was put on. I got a little relief when I was up in the Pullman, and so I went to bed. There were two of the military officers there, this man colonel that used to come all of the time, and another one, a doctor, and we went into Denver.

In the morning the general met me at the train. He introduced me to the general, and I didn’t catch his first name, and I said to the colonel, “Who is that?” (he was in his civilian clothes), and he said, “It is Gen. Chase.” “Oh,” I said, “that is Gen. Chase?” “Yes. We will go to the Adams Hotel.” “General, if you would, concede to me the right to go to the Oxford; I have been going there for years and know them all, and I don’t care to go to the Adams.” It was rather aristocratic and was out of my line, and I didn’t care to go there, and so we went to the Oxford, and he said, “We will come after you at 9 o’clock to go to the governor.”

“I think you had better put it off until 10; I want Mr. Hawkins to go with me,” and he said. “You don’t need him; the governor will treat you courteous,” and I said, “That is not the question involved; I want my attorney to go with me to the governor, and I won’t go unless he says go,” and he said “All right.”

They went away and left me, and I immediately went to the phone and called Mr. Hawkins, and Mr. Hawkins was not yet out of bed, and he said, “Is this you. Mother?” and I said, “Yes; they brought me in, but I don’t know what they are going to do with me.” And he said, “Who is with you?” and I said. “Nobody.” ” What did they say?” he said. I said, “They said they were coming after me at 9 o’clock, but I got them to postpone it until 10 o’clock.”

Mother with John Lawson and Horace Hawkins
“““““

Mr. Hawkins came down, and Mr. Lawson with him, and I told him the whole story, and he said, “They have kidnapped you. Mother.” I said, “I don’t know what they have done.” But he called the Adams Hotel and asked Gen. Chase what they had done with me, and he said, “She is turned loose; she is free.” But we went to see the governor. He says, “I didn’t send for you.” And I said, “Your colonel said you did. Somebody must be telling something that is untrue, either you or him.” Mr. Hawkins and he talked for a long time, and Mr. Lawson.I said, “Governor, I will tell you something; you don’t own this State, nor you don’t own Trinidad. I have broken no law; I have never in my life been in a police court or district court, and I am going back to Trinidad.” He said, “If anybody told me it was not the thing to do, I would not do it.” “If Washington took that advice we would be under King George the Third; if Lincoln took it, Grant never would have gone to Gettysburg.” I didn’t tell him just when I was going, but some newspaper men came around and wrote the matter up. I stayed at the hotel for a few days, and I said to Mr. Hawkins, “I have no use for a despot in this country; it was not founded on despotism; and I am going back to Trinidad.” And he said, “Do you feel able to, Mother?” And I said, “Yes; I feel able to.” “Very well,” said he;” when you get ready, you can go back.”

I openly got my ticket and went to the train and into the sleeper, and Reno, the C. & F. detective was right across the berth from me. My ticket was registered for Trinidad, and my sleeper also. When I got to Walsenlserg, before I got in there the military man called me. I let on I knew it was the military, but I didn’t undress at all that night, and he said. “You have to get up.” I said, “No; I am going to Trinidad.” “But we want you.” “Who are you?” “Oh, I am the military,” he said. “Oh,” I said, “all right; I will be with you.” I got up and went into the dressing room and combed my hair back and came back.

I was taken off of the train by the militia, and the train crew got a little excited; the engineer jumped down and came back and shook hands with me. and the conductor, and I said, “Boys, keep quiet; let this go.” We started off with the military, Mr. Brown, an organizer of the United Mine Workers, who happened to be with me on that train. I said to this young fellow, “Where are you going to take me?” He said, “To jail.” I said. “Where is the jail?” “In the cellar under the courthouse.”

I said, “All right. Is there a fireplace in it or a chimney there?” And he said, “I don’t know; do you want a fire?”‘ “I am not so particular about the fire, as having the chimney.” And he said. “What do you want the chimney for, and not the fire?” And I said, “I will tell you about that; I have a pigeon that I have trained, and it goes to Washington, and there is a new wireless invention around its neck, and every week he comes back from Washington, gets on top of the chimney and unwinds that message and sends it down to me.” He said, “Did he come when you were at the hospital?” And I said. “Yes; he came every week.” And he said, “They never found it out?” I said, “No; I am telling you that now.” Imagine an educated woman that raised a thing like that; imagine a State that put a belt full of bullets around his stomach; imagine the Nation that stands for such insults to the intelligence of the people.

Mother in the Cold Cellar Cell
at Walsenburg, Colorado
“““““

And so I was put in the cellar. It was cold, it was a horrible place, and they thought it would sicken me, but I concluded to stay in that cellar and fight them out. I had sewer rats that long every night to fight, and all I had was a beer bottle; I would get one rat, and another would run across the cellar at me. I fought the rats inside and out just alike. I was there 26 days, but one thing I have to say, the colonel that had charge of that, Col. Berdiker, came to me that morning and said. “Mother, I have never been placed in a position as painful as this; won’t you go to Denver? “I said, “No, Colonel. I will not.” He said—my breakfast came in, two spoonsful of black coffee and some dry bread, and he said, “Don’t eat that breakfast; I will send you some.” He sent me my meals all the time I was there; at least, he got the miners to do it He was very kind and did everything in the world that his officers would let him do; he had to obey orders, of course, but he was a man in every sense of the word.So I was there 26 days, and during the 26 days I never slept a night; I used to sleep some daytime. At the end of the 26 days the habeas corpus—the Supreme Court had notified the militia to deliver me in person to the Supreme Court, and they had to turn the militia loose before they could deliver me; before they could turn me loose. And so one morning the colonel said, “Mother, I have some good news for you; I don’t know that you will consider it good news, but the general has just telephoned to me that you are free.” I said, “No; I don’t consider that good news; I consider it a very dirty, contemptible way of doing business, Colonel; it is not the method I admire at all in a person in the general’s position.”

He said, “You can have transportation wherever you wish to go,” and I said, “You tell the general I never have taken any favor from the enemies of my class and I shall accept none from him; I shall transport myself wherever I wish to go, and if I don’t have the money to do so, I will walk.” And so the colonel shook hands and went away, and the boys came and got my valise and I went to Denver.

Then my attorney knew, of course, the habeas corpus business was turned over, and they sent me to Washington, to Congress.

Summer 1903-The March of the Mill Children

Mother Jones at start March of Mill Children,
June 1903
“““““

Mother Jones. Before I close I would like to ask the permission of the commission, the Child Labor Federal Commission that is here. I am more or less responsible for it. I was called to the strike of the textile workers in Philadelphia. I saw the little boys who had not seen their eleventh year with their hands off here [indicating]; their wrists, taken off from their wrists. I saw their fingers, and I saw those children maimed for life. I asked the reporters; I asked the children first, “Do you work in the mills?” “Yes.” “How old are yon?” “I am just a little over 10, Mother.” And so it went with boys and girls.I said to the reporters. “Why don’t you publish this and make comment on it?” And they showed me the advertisements, and said that they would be only too willing to, but that they didn’t dare. I concluded I would have to wake up the people of this Nation, and I went to work and organized some 6,000 or 7,000 children, many of them with their hands off. I telegraphed to the papers in New York to send me down reporters, feeling that the Philadelphia papers would not take any notice of it, and so the New York papers sent down the reporters.

I had those children in Independence Park; the police didn’t know that we were coming until we were down there. We had our banner, and I marched them to the business part of the city and the newspaper district. I had a table in front of the city hall. I put those children up there. There were 50,000 people at that meeting; the biggest gathering that ever assembled in Philadelphia in their history, they said. I showed them children with their hands off, a sacrifice on the altar of profit, giving to this Nation maimed and useless citizens.

I spoke to the ministers, and asked them if they were not carrying out Christ’s doctrine, suffer little children to come unto me, they are all that is pure and holy, and you say, “Suffer the little ones to go into the slave pens, and we will grind them into profit.” And that is what is done. They closed up; the New York papers and the Philadelphia papers got to fighting one another, and that was all I wanted when I can get those fellows to fight one another, I am all right. It was given publicity, and was discussed in the universities and colleges, and finally got quieted down, and I asked the parents to let me have the little boys, and they said, “Yes.”

I got 75 little boys; some with their fingers off and their hands off, and I said, “I am going to see the President and have a bill passed to prohibit the murder of children for profit.” I was only going 80 miles, but the children were so happy, and the agitation was so great; they never had had the sunshine or the grass before, and now they were bathing in the rivers, and the people were feeding them.

They had their little tincups and knapsacks, and were marching, and were having the finest time they had ever had, and the newspapers were hammering me, and the priests and ministers were hammering me, but I am alive yet. I am still here, hammering them, and so I marched them along until I got them in Jersey City.

I sent some one over to New York to ask the chief of police if he would give me protection for the children, and he was a military fellow, the commissioner, and the chief was away, and he said, “No; you can’t come into New York.” Well, I concluded I would show him whether I could or not, and I went over myself and asked him if he had any reason, and he said, “Yes”; but he would not give it to me. “Very well,” I said, “I will take it to the mayor.”

And Low was mayor of New York at that time. He evidently knew I was coming, because the usher said that the mayor would see me directly. I said, “All right.” In a few minutes the mayor came in, and I told him my business, and he said. “Mother Jones, I had to sustain the commissioner’s decision.” “Do you have to, mayor?” “Yes.” And I said, “I don’t see why New York pays an understrapper, if the other man does the business.” He just kind of looked down and said nothing. I said, “Mayor Low, have you a reason?” And he said, “Yes.” “You won’t object to giving it to me?” And he said, “No;” and I said, “Perhaps we can clear it up.”

The reason was, I was not a citizen of New York, nor neither were those children. “Is that your chief reason?” He said, “Yes.” “Well, I think I can clear that up. Mayor Low. I think we will straighten that out immediately. Some time last summer there came over here a piece of royalty from Germany, and the United States voted $45,000 to fill that fellow’s stomach for three weeks. And President Roosevelt hired a massage doctor to rub him down so he could get back. Was he a citizen of New York,” I says. “No,” he says, “he was not.”

“Did he ever create any wealth for this Nation?” “Well, no,” he said. And I says, “We did. Don’t I have the same right to come in here that he had?” He says, “Yes.” So I went in and I got my children all in, and we had a big meeting that night and the police took care of us, and the captain says, “Mother,” he says, “you need never go to the chief or the mayor or to anybody else when you want to come in; you come to me and it will be all right.”

So my children did have a meeting and we raised $3,000 or $4,000 or $5,000 for the strikers; and I took my children down and took them down to Boston Bay, and Boston came and took them children and showed them the elephants and everything; and they never had seen anything like it.

Now, the reporters were all going to Oyster Bay, and they blocked my job, and I wanted to see the President, so I telephoned Senator Platt to give me assistant; and he said, “All right, Mother.” And I went down. Well, you know this Oriental Hotel, and that is where the robbers of Wall Street go to roost through the summer. So I took the children and went down there, and I had my little band, and they had every place blockaded. You can’t step on that sacred ground without there is an officer after you. And I went to a section man, and I says, “How am I going to get in to them fellows?” He says, “I don’t know. You can’t go in at the door?” “Well, no; the thing is so guarded I can’t get in.” He says, “Well, I don’t know, Mother.”

“Well, I want to go in with these children, and I want breakfast.” And he says, “There is only one way to get in there, and that is through the saloon. And if the saloon keeper lets you in there, you can get in.” “Do you know him?” “Yes,” he said “I know him; yes.” “Well,” I says, “come on down with me, and I will get you a drink.” And you can always buy an Irishman a drink. And so we went to the saloon and went in, and I says to the saloon keeper, I says, “Can I go in to see them pirates to-day with these children?” And he says, “Yes.”

And so I took the children and went in, and the children had a little band, and so they sang, “Hail, hail, the gang’s all here.” Well, that bunch all got up and ran away and went upstairs; the men and women; and the hotel gave us our breakfast, and we all had good things, and the children had never had any such breakfast. The cook fixed it up. You know, he was a miner cook, and he fixed up everything; and the little ones went off happy.

Well, I went down to Oyster Bay, and the reporters didn’t know where I was going, and I got in and didn’t see no one of the secret-service men; and I thought I would go up and see President Roosevelt about having passed that bill; and when I got up to go there, he put secret-service men all the way from his house down to Oyster Bay to prevent the children coming up there. He had a lot of secret-service men watching an old woman and an army of children. You fellows do elect wonderful Presidents. The best thing you can do is to put a woman in the next time, and she will do it.

Mother Jones Questioned by Commissioner Weinstock

Mother Jones on “Law and Order”

Commissioner Weinstock. In your statement yesterday, among other things you told about the experiences you had, I think, in the vicinity of Greensburg.Mother Jones. Yes, Pennsylvania.

Commissioner Weinstock. And there was some one with you on a street car or a railroad car, and you wanted to get off?

Mother Jones. A street car.

Commissioner Weinstock. And the conductor refused to let you off?

Mother Jones. No; you have that wrong, Mr. Weinstock. The conductor never refused to let me off; it was the women and the babies. The judge had sentenced them to 30 days in jail. I would not let the women leave their babies behind, so they got on the street car, and when we got to a station there were three or four scabs got on the car, and the women were going to jail, and they had a certain resentment against those scabs because they go in and take their bread. Now, Mr. Weinstock remember we strikers are striking for a better condition for all, whether they are union men and women or nonunion; they are all workers anyhow; but they make the fight and they raise the wages of the nonunion mother as well as the union one. We are in a conference, you know.

So these women were a little irritated when they saw those scabs get on, and they gave me the babies, and I took the babies; I think I had four or five of them in my arms and another bunch of them around me, and they went and lampooned those scabs, and the scabs began to holler. There were two of the constabulary there, but they were nice boys and they didn’t meddle; I think they were a little leery of what was going to happen; and I would not let the street car motorman stop to let those men off until he got to a regular station. They were hollering, “Stop the car,” and the motorman got a little nervous, too., and I said, “Now, you don’t stop that car; it is against the law, and you must obey the law.”

Commissioner Weinstock. That is the point I wanted you to refresh my memory on. You called attention to the fact that they must obey and respect the law.
Mother Jones. Yes, the motorman; he had no right to stop the car there; it was an interurban car.

Commissioner Weinstock. I take it from that. Mother Jones, that you are an advocate of law and order and would insist on people obeying the law and respecting it?

Mother Jones. I certainly do, but when the law jumps all over my class and there is no law for my class, and it is only for the other fellow, then I want to educate my people so as to put my people on the bench….

Commissioner Weinstock. From what you have explained. Mother Jones, it is evident that some explanation is needed. There appears in the record of the congressional committee a copy of which I have here, setting forth a hearing before a subcommittee of the Committee on Mines and Mining of the House of Representatives, a statement attributed to you, which evidently is a mistake, and does you a grave injustice, and I think you should be afforded an opportunity at this hearing for the purposes of our record to correct it.

(This is entered here as Operators’ Exhibit No. 305, “Address made by Mother Jones, delivered before the convention in Trinidad, Colo., on Tuesday, the 16th day of September, 1913.”)

Among other things you are alleged to have said, speaking, I think, of some labor trouble in West Virginia:

Mother Jones in West Virginia
during Paint Creek-Cabin Creek Strike
of 1912-13
“““““

We told him we lived in America beneath the flag for which our fathers fought; that we lived in the United States, and we had a right and had a ground to fight on; and we asked the governor to abolish the Baldwin guards. That was the chief thing I was after, and I tell you the truth, because I knew when we cleaned them out other things would come with it.So I said in the article we will give the governor until 8 o’clock to-morrow evening to get rid of the Baldwin guards, and if he don’t do business we will do business. I called the committee, and I said, “Here, take this document and go into the governor’s office and present it to him. Now, don’t get on your knees; you don’t need to get on your knees: we have no kings in America; stand on both feet, with your heads erect, and present that document to the governor.” And they said. “Will we wait?” I said. “No. don’t wait, and don’t say, ‘your honor,'” said I, because few of those fellows have any honor and don’t know what it is.

When we adjourned the meeting and saw we were not going to get any help, I said, “We will protect ourselves and buy every gun in Charleston.” There was not a gun left in Charleston; and we did it openly, no underhanded business about it, for I don’t believe in it at all. We simply got our guns and ammunition and walked down to the camps, and the fight began.

Now, as one who believes in law and order and obeying the law, there must be some mistake, or you were misquoted, and this is an opportunity for you to correct it.Mother Jones. I am going to tell you about that. I made that speech, not in Trinidad, but on the steps of the statehouse in Charleston. The strike was not on very long—three or four months, I think three months—and I did so, and the governor stood there, and the whole statehouse administration was there. When I said, “We demand of the governor to abolish the Baldwin guards,” I did so; I don’t deny it. I don’t believe in any such brutal combination; they are a disgrace to our Nation; they violate every law; they teach the coming children to be lawbreakers, brutes, and murderers, and for that I am strictly opposed to those armies.

And I would say, Mr. Weinstock, that I would ask this Government and ask this commission to demand of Congress that she pass a bill that the Government take over all of those detective agencies and run them on an honorable basis.

I don’t believe—I have had more experience with those people than any other one person in America and I have never seen one of them hurt. I could have had all those deputies and sheriffs murdered that morning down at Half Way, in Utah, if I had just said one word to those men the night before, but that would not settle the disease; the disease still remained. The disease lies in the private ownership of my bread, and one class of men can say how much I shall eat and how much my children shall eat.

I stand for a better citizenship, and I stand for law and have stood for law, and in all my career it can be proven, the records of the courts, police and county, and everywhere can be searched, and there has never been a charge against me;

I am always in favor of obeying the law; but if the high-class burglar breaks the law and defies it, then I say we will have a law that will defend the Nation and our people,

for whenever a nation undertakes to crush her producers and to debase and dehumanize them, that nation is going over the breakers; it is the history of all nations down the stairway of time

In 50 years we have created more wealth than any other nation in the world has done in 700 years, and one group owns that wealth and the masses of people are impoverished.

I am for schools. I said to the governor of West Virginia, “If you had taken that $700,000 that you spent to crush my class, the miners, and put it into the schoolrooms of the State, and given to the Nation a more highly developed citizenship, morally, physically, and mentally, it would have been more valuable to the Nation.”

I saw the schooldoors closed on the children, and for many of them never to open again. Many of them had to go out and struggle for bread, and many were made criminals and idiots, and if that money, that $700,000 that was put into the militia, to crush my class, had been put into the schoolrooms we would have had less use for law.

Commissioner Weinstock. There is no change to be made in that statement?

Mother Jones. No; that can stay. I will tell you how that came to be put into the record. They had a little two-by-four lawyer in Charleston, and he made up a job with the coal company’s lawyer to run that in, so that he could get it on me, and the miners are paying him $7,500 a year for doing nothing, only incarcerating them, and I am going to put a stop to that thing.

Am I through? I am tired.

The Recommendations of Mother Jones

Commissioner Weinstock. You know the purposes that this commission is created for, Mother Jones—that is, that Congress expects this commission to come back to it with recommendations for remedial legislation. Now, if you were a member of the commission, Mother Jones, what would you recommend to Congress to remedy the condition that you complain of?Mother Jones. I will tell you, as I stated before we got to discussing this question, you and I, I was not an educated woman; I belong to the classes. I should recommend to Congress that they should do away with all of these arms and detective agencies, because they create crime. They are criminals.

The Death Special
Complete with Gunthugs
and Machine Gun
“““““

Commissioner Weinstock. That is, to do away with the gunmen?Mother Jones. And these detective agencies; let the Government run their agencies, and you will have less trouble, less crime, less penitentiary subjects, and you will have better manhood and better womanhood. I have a great deal to tell the commission, but it is unnecessary; but you see, Mr. Weinstock, we have spent years in the past, we are an infant in the history of nations yet, practically speaking. Now, we have spent our years following our birth inventing machinery, building railroads, telephones, telegraphs, and everything else, and we are reaching a stage where these inventions are taking the place of labor. There must be something done by the National Government to relieve this discontent, because we have armies of unemployed. Last Sunday I addressed a large meeting down here in Pennsylvania. It was the glass industry, where a thousand men were employed. The machine came in and threw the whole thousand of skilled mechanics out—10 men are doing the work of 1,000, and it is so in so many other industries.

Now, Mr. Weinstock, we had a Federal commission 15 years ago. I think Mr. O’Connell remembers that. That commission went through this Nation; it made some of the finest recommendations that could be made to Congress. Those recommendations lie up in the archives of this Nation, and I venture to say in the last 15 years not 12 Congressmen have read them. Now, you see, you had an investigation in Colorado; one whole year passed away, and two days before Congress closed they brought that up on the floor of the House. They had an investigation in Michigan that they never brought up at all. What good are the investigations if the public don’t know what is happening in the country?

My advice, and I give it to the workers when I speak to them is, when you send a man to the Senate or Congress or to the legislature, when he comes home have a platform at the depot, and make that representative tell you what he has done for the best interests of the Nation, and render an account of himself right then and there, and then you will not have so many Congressmen fighting for bills for the protection of 26 Broadway and other institutions like that.

Am I through?

Commissioner Weinstock. Your recommendation, then, briefly, is this-I want to make sure that I understand it thoroughly—that the remedy for industrial unrest would be to wipe out the detective agencies?

Mother Jones. That is only one step. Now, I believe in taking over the mines, Mr. Weinstock. They are mineral, and no operator, no coal company on the face of the earth made that coal. It is a mineral; it belongs to the Nation; it was there down the ages, and it belongs to every generation that comes along, and no set of men should be permitted to use that which is nature’s. It should be given to all of nature’s children in other nations.

Commissioner Weinstock. Then your remedy would be public ownership of the mines?

Mother Jones. All other industries, and then we can get the hours of labor down and put men to work. I also believe in the ownership of the transportation lines. I don’t want to put you out of a job, Mr. Aishton.

Chairman Walsh. We thank you, Mrs. Jones; and you will be excused permanently.

SOURCES

Industrial relations: final report and testimony
United States. Commission on Industrial Relations
-ed by Francis Patrick Walsh, Basil Maxwell Manly
D.C. Gov. Print. Office, 1916
Volume 11: https://books.google.com/…
10634-Washington, D. C., Friday, May 14, 1915—10 a. m.
Present: Chairman Walsh, Commissioners Garretson, Weinstock,
Lennon, O’Connell, Aishton, and Harriman.
Mother Jones-recalled
https://books.google.com/…

Mother Jones Speaks
-ed by Philip S Foner
NY, 1983
(The entire testimony of Mother Jones along with the
Mother Jones Statement & Exhibit can be found in this book.)
https://books.google.com/…

IMAGES
Mother Jones from the Great Bend (KS) Tribune
of Mar 6, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/…
Mother Jones from Evening Public Ledger
of Philadelphia of Jan 22, 1915
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/…
John Lawson, Mother Jones, Attorney Horace Hawkins
http://ludlowsymposium.wordpress.com/…
Mother Jones, Military Bastile,
Walsenburg Cellar Cell, Colorado, 1914
https://archive.org/…
Mother Jones at start March of Mill Children, June 1903
(search with Mother Jones, choose p.253)
http://books.google.com/…
Mother Jones with Strikers Children in West Virginia
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/…
The Death Special
https://www.du.edu/…

See also:

Written Statement of Mother Jones,
read by Mother into the record of the Commission:
https://books.google.com/…

Jones Exhibit
https://books.google.com/…

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`
The Spirit of Mother Jones – Andy Irvine

Mother Jones, the Miners’ Angel must be treated with respect
She’s an old fashioned lady, and you never would suspect
That this gown and this bonnet would fill a rich man full of dread
“She’s the most dangerous woman in America,” they said.
-Andy Irvine

See Also:
Spirit of Mother Jones Festival July 2014

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`

In the latest edition of the Appeal, Comrade Creel continued his series on the investigation conducted by the Commission on Industrial Relations into the conditions of tenant farmers in Texas and Oklahoma. The hearings took place this past March in Dallas under the capable guidance of Chairman Frank P. Walsh. Creel described testimony from a Socialist preacher who stated that he must “stifle” the preaching of the Bible as he understands it, or risk raising the ire of the Landlord.Creel further reported how some of the witnesses were brought to tears by descriptions of the hardships endured by the women with small children, particularly the story of a woman struggling to care for a tiny baby as she picked cotton on her hands and knees, while dragging behind her her new-born on its improvised bed of cotton balls.

From the Appeal of May 15th:

Preachers Fear Landlord’s Ire
—–

BY H. G. CREEL

Staff Correspondent Appeal to Reason.

Herr Glessner Creel
“““““

“To land a man with plenty of force (a large family of children), who’ll get up early, work late and push a mule down the rows between times is the sole philosophy of southern landlordism,” declared W. T. Davis, witness before the United States industrial relations commission at Dallas.Davis is a farmer tenant of A. [J.] Tom Padgitt, the Coleman county (Texas) landlord who says he is capable of deciding weighty questions for an entire community and who announced that he would rent no more land to Socialists. Davis is now a small land owner. He told a vastly different story than either Padgitt or his overseer, Rieves. The former tenant declared that most of the people of the community were in hearty accord with Socialism and that because of its rapid growth the landlord and overseer decided to stamp it out. He told of preachers who joined the Socialist local on Padgitt’s place and related that he was the local Sunday school superintendent when he took out membership in the party. He declared that commissary prices were 50 per cent to 60 percent higher than elsewhere.

Country Preacher’s Position.The Rev. John C. Granberry followed Davis. Granberry is professor of sociology and economics at Southwestern University, Georgetown. He testified:

The country church and the country preacher are keys to the whole situation. I have been a rural preacher and I know what I’m talking about. The man who enters and remains in the rural ministry today is either a fool or a hero. The books he studies were written in a bygone age. They do not deal with present-day problems. But his Bible deals very definitely with matters of today. It teaches “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.” It declares that land shall not be sold forever. It thunders against usury. It gives the preacher every encouragement to mount his pulpit and say “The Heavenly Father put oil in the earth for all of his children and you, Mr. Oil Monopolist, are only one of them.“But what’s going to happen if he does that? He’ll certainly lose his job. Whether he stifles himself and makes sure of a living for his family or says what his book teaches him to say and is kicked out he’s either a fool or a hero. I don’t know which.

[Continued below the fold.]

[Continued from above.]

The Big Land Graft.

Geo. W. Simon, social worker for Jewish Agricultural Society, supported by the Baron De Hirsh fund, told the commission that the south was a victim of Big Business. He declared that most southern land companies exist upon paper only and that most of those actually in business soon fail. He told of their successful efforts to lure northern people southward. He related many instances in which corporations purchase land at $5 and $6 an acre, subdivided into 10-acre tracts and sold to unsuspecting northerners at $40 to $50 an acre.Judge E. O. Meitzen of Hallettsville, Texas, produced cancelled notes signed by tenant farmers and originally held by Governor Ferguson of Texas. One note was for $10, the loan being secured by a bale of cotton. In case the borrower could not repay the $10 it was stipulated that Ferguson receive an extra dollar for his trouble in finding a buyer for the bale.

“Government Must Take Hold.”Professor of Economics L. H. Haney of the University of Texas produced figures showing that in 1914 more than half of the tenant farmers of Texas borrowed more than their incomes. He showed how this was gradually reducing a considerable number to peonage or actual slavery. He caused the commission to sit up when he remarked. “The share-cropper or the man who works on halves merely borrows his wages and pays interest on them. It is too late,” he continued, “to scruple about the niceties of the government taking part in things. No individual can do it and the state must take hold. The state should establish banks immediately.”

W. L. Thurman of Sulphur, Okla., a physician, told the commission he could duplicate the Stewart family by hundreds in Oklahoma. He was questioned closely about the effect of cotton picking on women, particularly expectant mothers or those with very young babies. He brought tears to the eyes of many women as he related how Oklahoma mothers, wives of tenant farmers, care for their babies at cotton picking time. “I have seen them,” he remarked, “with a babe but a few days old, pick a few pounds of cotton, make the child a pillow on the end of the cotton sack and then drag it up and down the rows as they worked on their hands and knees.”

Asks Socialist Definition.When Thurman concluded his testimony Mrs. J. Borden Harriman, member of the commission, leaned over and asked: “Did I understand you to say that you are a Socialist?”

“yes,” answered Thurman.

“Will you please tell us, briefly, what Socialism is?”

And then Thurman gave the sixteen-word definition of Socialism adopted by the party in Oklahoma-

Collective ownership and democratic management of things collectively used and private ownership of things privately used.

And so it was that when the commission closed its hearing that definition of Socialism became part of the record.[Photographs and emphasis added.]

~~~~~~~~~~

SOURCE
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-May 15, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/…

IMAGES
Appeal to Reason, banner
http://www.newspapers.com/…
Herr Glessner Creel
https://books.google.com/…
Tenant Farmer Plucked By Parasites,
from The Tenant Farmer, Oct 1914
http://gateway.okhistory.org/…
Socialist Party of America
http://www.marxisthistory.org/…

See also:

“Appeal to Reason on the Losing Fight Against Debt Bondage of Tenant Farmers”
by JayRaye
http://www.dailykos.com/…

“Family of Tenant Farmers So Poor That They Are Offering to Give Children Away”
by JayRaye
http://www.dailykos.com/…

“Landlords want tenant farmers with plenty of “force,” meaning little children.”
by JayRaye
http://www.dailykos.com/…

“Texas Landlord Evicts Socialists Tenants as a “menace to God and humanity.”
by JayRaye
http://www.dailykos.com/…

Industrial relations: final report and testimony
-United States. Commission on Industrial
Relations,
-Francis Patrick Walsh, Basil Maxwell Manly
D.C. Gov. Print. Office, 1916
Vol 9:
https://books.google.com/…
8949-The Land Question in the Southwest
https://books.google.com/…
Vol. 10
https://books.google.com/…
9057-9290-The Land Question in the Southwest-
Continued
https://books.google.com/…

Appeal Socialist Classics, No. 8
Socialism and the Farmer
-ed by W. J. Ghent
Girard, Kansas, 1916
https://archive.org/…

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`
Hungry Ragged Blues – Aunt Molly Jackson

Although written for the coal miners and their families, this song fits every worker every where who labors for poverty wages.

I’m sad and weary, I’ve got the hungry, ragged blues.
Not one penny in the pocket to buy one thing I need to use.

I woke up this morning, with the worst blues I ever had in my life;
Not a bite to eat for breakfast, a poor coal miner’s wife!

When my husband works in the coalmines, he loads a carload every trip;
Then he goes to the office at the evening to get denied of scrip.

Just because they took all he made that day to pay his mine expense,
A man that will work for just coal oil and carbide, he ain’t got a stack of sense.

All the women in the coal camps are sitting with bowed down heads,
Ragged and bare-footed, and the children cryin’ for bread.

No food, no clothes for our children, I’m sure this head don’t lie;
If we can’t get more for our labor we’ll starve to death and die!

Don’t go under the mountain, with a slate hangin’ o’er your head;
And work for just coal oil and carbide, and your children cryin’ for bread.

This mining town I live in is a sad and lonely place
Where pity and starvation is pictured on every face!

Some coal operators might tell you the hungry blues are not there.
They’re the worst kind of blues this poor woman ever had.
-Aunt Molly Jackson

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`

From The Washington Herald of May 18, 1915:

DARROW FLAYS COURTS
—–
Labor Attorney Asserts Laws Are
Not Equally Administered.
—–

Clarence Darrow
in Washington, D. C.
“““““

Clarence S. Darrow, the Chicago attorney, who has been prominently identified with court proceedings involving labor leaders and the cause of unions for a quarter of a century, notably in the Debs case, the Moyer-Haywood case at Boise city, and the McNamara case at Los angeles, was another witness before the commission yesterday. He said that unquestionably the laws are not equally administered between the rich and the poor.

Debs Got Six Months in Jail.“In the Debs case, ” he said, “Debs” conviction was the first under the Sherman act and he got six months in jail. A few years Later the Standard Oil Company was convicted under the Sherman law and it got six months also-six months in which to revise its charter and methods of doing business. These are the things that the laboring man remembers and resents.”

A little later he said: “Federal judges are appointed for life or good behavior. They always behave and they never die!”

Mr. Darrow denounced the kidnaping of the McNamaras from Indianapolis and the transporting of them to Los Angeles for trial, and declared that it was clearly illegal. The men could not have been extradited for a crime admittedly committed when they were not in the State; and, moreover, if put to trial they were entitled to a trial in their own homes. Moyer, Haywood, and Pettibone were kidnaped from Colorado and taken to Idaho for trial in just as outrageous manner, he said. “The Supreme Court of the United States decided that the authorities had no right to kidnap them,” he said, “but that decision did the men no good. They were already in Idaho and were kept there.”

[Photograph added.]

From The Washington Herald of May 19, 1915:

Darrow Doesn’t Believe There’s Any Remedy.
—–

Clarence Darrow
“““““

Clarence S. Darrow, the Chicago labor attorney, concluded his testimony [yesterday], and in reply to a question of Commissioner Weinstock told frankly the amount of fees he received in three notable labor cases. In the coal strike case, to which he gave four months’ time, he said his fee was $10,000. For defending Moyer, Haywood, and Pettibone in the spectacular trial at Boise City, to which he gave eighteen months, time, he received $35,000. In the McNamara case, at Los Angeles, he received $48,000 for six months’ work but he had to spend all that money and eighteen months time in defending himself from the charge of attempted jury fixing. On the whole, he said, he had not made money out of his labor cases.Mr. Darrow gave numerous epigrammatic expressions in summing up his views on social, political and industrial questions. Among them were:

“Everybody boycotts the thing he doesn’t like.” “Punishment is barbarism, being predicated on the theory that if you hang me you’ll be a good citizen.” “There is a cause for crime as there is for typhoid fever.” “Hate and love move courts and juries just as they move all human beings.” “We’re all partly criminal and partly conventional.” “There is nothing so fickle nothing so ephemeral and nothing so powerful as public opinion-it is the greatest force there is and the hope of labor,” and “I don’t believe there is any remedy for anything, and the grave is the only escape from unrest.”

[Photograph added.]

~~~~~~~~~~

SOURCE
The Washington Herald
(Washington, District of Columbia)
-May 18, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/…
-May 19, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/…

IMAGES
Clarence Darrow in WDC X2
http://www.loc.gov/…
http://www.loc.gov/…

See also:
Industrial relations: final report and testimony
United States. Commission on Industrial Relations, Vol. 11
-ed by Francis Patrick Walsh, Basil Maxwell Manly
D.C. Gov. Print. Office, 1916
https://books.google.com/…
10769-Testimony of Mr. Clarence S. Darrow.
Washington, D. C., on May 17, 1915
https://books.google.com/…
10784-Darrow Recalled on May 18th
https://books.google.com/…

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`
The Bending Cross – David Hanners

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`

On the front page of yesterday’s edition of Solidarity we find an account authored by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn of her visit with FW Joe Hill who is now buried alive in the Salt Lake County Jail. The Rebel Song writer has been convicted of murder on purely circumstantial evidence and is under sentence of death. Miss Flynn stopped over in Salt Lake City on her way to California. She was allowed a one hour visit with Hill on May 6th.Miss Flynn describes meeting Joe Hill:

When he came to us he was guarded on all sides by deputies, he came with a smile and a cheery greeting, with the clear eyed look of one who cannot be crushed. He is tall, good looking, but naturally thin after sixteen months in a dark narrow cell, with a corridor and another row of cells between him and daylight, and nourished by the soup and bean diet of a prison.

A Prisoner of the Class War

Miss Flynn further states:

He’s a true soldier in the army of labor, philosophically accepting the status of a prisoner of war and the possibility of death.

And she asks of us:

Shall we fellow workers accept it with him so lightly?

Funds for the Defense Campaign are low, and Gurley Flynn urges that donations be made and made quickly in order to save the life of Fellow Worker Joe Hill.

From Solidarity of May 22, 1915:

A Visit to Joe Hill.

I. W. W. Song Writer and Rebel Shows Undaunted Spirit in Jail.
$300 Needed At Once For Defense.
—–

by Elzabeth Gurley Flynn

Joe Hill
““`

Salt Lake City is a garden city, encircled by great mountains, crowned with eternal snows. In the springtime its green shimmer, high altitude, clear, pure air and leisurely moving people should be ennobling and inspiring to one [and a city?] from whence the easterner is not pleased to terminate…But this superficial impression is rapidly dispelled by a visit to that cornerstone of civilization the county jail.

At the doorway of the low-visaged structure, squatted in behind residences, the familiar, fetid jail odor assails the nostrils and the clang of the keys, the surly permission to enter, the damp, tomblike air within, welcomes us to the compulsory abode of the free spirit under capitalism.

It was indeed a free spirit that drew us there-Joe Hill, the inimitable songster and poet of the I. W. W… They have accused him of an ignoble act, murder for petty theft, and they lied and lied until they’ve hypnotized themselves into believing it. So when he came to us he was guarded on all sides by deputies, he came with a smile and a cheery greeting, with the clear eyed look of one who cannot be crushed. He is tall, good looking, but naturally thin after sixteen months in a dark narrow cell, with a corridor and another row of cells between him and daylight, and nourished by the soup and bean diet of a prison. Yet he writes constantly and his latest jail product “The Rebel Girl” is judged by many as his most beautiful…

Joe Hill had nothing to say about his case, or himself, but wanted to know about the I. W. W., its growth, outlook, its contemplated work in the harvest, Solidarity, and Margaret Sanger’s case, etc. And so the hour was spent in giving him the news of the movement, and a few words of encouragement about his fight for life. I’ve seen men more worried about a six month’s sentence than Joe Hill apparently worries about his life. He only said: “I’m not afraid of death, but I’d like to be in the fight a little longer.”

He’s a true soldier in the army of labor, philosophically accepting the status of a prisoner of war and the possibility of death. But, shall we fellow workers accept it with him so lightly?

When I came out into the blinding sunshine, a cold hand gripped my heart. Was I leaving a tomb? Would he ever “be in the fight a little longer?” Nor is this concern for the individual exclusively, although I see no reason why we shouldn’t exhaust our defense resources for every individual; but it’s the realization that Joe Hill typifies to the employer the I. W. W. and if he can be murdered legally, so can every other agitator and organizer out here in short order.

Can we afford to give up our Joe Hill without a struggle? While I was in Salt Lake City, I saw a telegram from the attorneys pressing the committee for funds, $660 is still due, half of which the committee has. A stupid, sentimental story was published that a”woman of unlimited means” is backing the case. There is no truth in this, it is merely the fabrication of a romantic reporter. But I was surprised to know that members throughout the country believe it and are under the delusion that the committee has plenty of money. Three hundred dollars is needed quickly and fellow workers should realize that even if the appeal is granted it will not mean necessarily his release, but a new trial, the expense of which will have to be met.

Joe Hill didn’t ask the I. W. W. to fight for him; he was in jail months before he’d consent to the local’s taking up his case. So this appeal is not from him, but in the spirit of:

He’s in their dungeon, dark and grim;
He stood by us, we’ll stand by him!

As a matter of fact he hasn’t been told how low the funds actually are, and it’s up to us to make it unnecessary….Letters and telegrams to Gov. Spry will help, but money is the prime necessity.

I appeal to you-help Joe Hill to “fan the flames of discontent,” to fight (and sing)-a little longer!

[Photograph added.]

~~~~~~~~~~SOURCES

The Letters of Joe Hill
-ed by Philip S. Foner
Oak Publications, 1965
-p.33 (snippet view), for date of visit
https://books.google.com/…Joe Hill
-by Gibbs M. Smith
Gibbs Smith, Sep 1, 2009
https://books.google.com/…
-p.126: EGF in Solidarity
https://books.google.com/…

The Case of Joe Hill
by Philip Sheldon Foner
International Publishers Co, 1966
-p.53: EGF’s article in Solidarity
https://books.google.com/…

IMAGES
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
http://dp.la/…
Joe Hill
http://en.wikipedia.org/…
Joe Hill-Shall This Take Place
http://www.warresisters.org/…
The Rebel Girl, Joe Hill, Sheet Music
http://www.gothamcenter.org/…
Little Red Songbook
https://www.reuther.wayne.edu/…

See also:
Joe Hill + Salt Lake + JayRaye
http://www.dailykos.com/…

“THE AGRICULTURAL WORKERS ORGANIZATION”
by Jesse Heckman
Kansas City Labor History, UMKC, April 29, 2004
pdf! http://cas.umkc.edu/…

“““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““
Tune: The Red Flag – Billy Bragg

Joe Hill In JailA rebel we have know for long,
Who’s thrilled us often with his song,
Has fallen on an evil day:
They seek to take his life away!

No harm to him can we allow;
He needs our help and he needs it now;
He’s in their dungeon, dark and grim;
He fought for us; we will stand by him.

They’d fill his warrior heart with lead
And gloat to see him safely dead:
His voice forever hushed and still,
Our singing, fighting brave Joe Hill!

No harm to him can we allow;
He needs our help and he needs it now;
He’s in their dungeon, dark and grim;
He fought for us; we will stand by him.

His spirit gloried in the fight:
In Labor’s sure resistless might;
And One Big Union, staunch and strong:
This was the burden of his song.

No harm to him can we allow;
He needs our help and he needs it now;
He’s in their dungeon, dark and grim;
He fought for us; we will stand by him.

His heart was hot with burning hate
Against the bosses, small and great;
He told what haughty Sab-cats do,
And all about the wooden shoe.

No harm to him can we allow;
He needs our help and he needs it now;
He’s in their dungeon, dark and grim;
He fought for us; we will stand by him.

The “long-haired preachers” feared his name;
He filled apologists with shame:
While “Mister Block” so bland and meek,
With “Scissor-bill” did take a sneak.

No harm to him can we allow;
He needs our help and he needs it now;
He’s in their dungeon, dark and grim;
He fought for us; we will stand by him.

Now, boys, we’ve known this rebel long;
In every land, we’ve sung his song;
Let’s get him free that he may see
The day of our great victory!

No harm to him can we allow;
He needs our help and he needs it now;
He’s in their dungeon, dark and grim;
He fought for us; we will stand by him.

He made them hate him high and low;
They feared his tuneful message so;
He’d fight for us while he had breath;
We’ll save him from the jaws of death!

No harm to him can we allow;
He needs our help and he needs it now;
He’s in their dungeon, dark and grim;
He fought for us; we will stand by him.
-Ralph Chaplin, 1914

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`

Although we welcome the news that Brother Uhlich has been acquitted of murder in the death of Brother Mack Powell, we would point out that no acquittal can ever restore to Uhlich the many long months that he has spent in that filthy jail in Trinidad. The news accounts below state that Mack Powell was a cowboy. We will remind our readers that Brother Powell was a union miner who was working as a cowboy and was shot off his horse by mine guards when these guards attacked the Ludlow Tent Colony in October of 1913.From the El Paso Herald of May 22, 1915:

UHLICH WOULD PROVE ALIBE AS DEFENCE AGAINST CHARGETrinidad,Colo., May 22.-Denial that he was at Ludlow on Oct.9, the day that Mack Powell was shot and killed, and that he took any part in the battle between strikers and deputies, was made on the witness stand this morning by Robert Uhlich, on trial for his life. The testimony of the defendant, which was short, balanced the testimony to establish a complete alibi offered by a number of witnesses Friday.

—–

From the El Paso Herald of May 24, 1915:

UHLICH MURDER CASE GOES TO THE JURYTrinidad, Colo., May 24.-Two and a half hours of argument this morning to be followed by four hours of argument this afternoon was to conclude the trial of Robert Uhlich, former president of the Trinidad Miners’ union, on trial for his life for the murder of Mack Powell, a noncombatant, during a battle between strikers and deputies on Oct. 9, 1913.

The case will go to the jury late this afternoon.

——

From the El Paso Herald of May 25, 1915:

UHLICH IS ACQUITTED OF CHARGE OF MURDERTrinidad, Colo., May 25.-On the jury’s first ballot, Robert Uhlich, a union leader, was acquitted Monday night of a charge of murder of Mack Powell, a cowboy, Oct. 9, 1913. Powell was killed in a fight between mine guards and strikers near Ludlow during the coal strike.

—–

THE APPEAL TO REASON ON JOHN R. LAWSONFrom the Appeal of May 22, 1915

John R. vs. John D.

John Lawson with Louie Tikas
at Ludlow
“““““

John R. Lawson is under sentence for life in the Colorado prison.John D. Rockefeller is playing golf at his Tarrtyown links, carefree and happy.

John R. Lawson led the miners at Ludlow.

John D. Rockefeller led the murderous militia and gunmen at Ludlow.

That is the difference between John R. And John D.

The reason John D. is enjoying liberty and John R. is suffering incarceration is that former controls the channels of public information and the latter does not. The Rockefellers dominate the plutocratic press and thus poison the minds of the people against the Lawsons and the Quinlans and all the men who fight for labor and liberty. Not until the workers stand solidly behind their own press will life and freedom be secure in this country.

In Colorado 82 men are in prison awaiting trial for their participation in the recent coal mining strike. Serious charges have been framed up against these men. They will get the same dose of capitalist justice as Lawson received unless the people of Colorado learn the truth about the workers’ side of this struggle. The APPEAL is ready to tell them the truth if you will pay for putting the names of Colorado voters on our mailing list. This is the need of the hour….

—–

UNION TO PROTEST LAWSON CONVICTION

From The Washington Post of May 24, 1915:

PROTESTS BY MINERS’ UNIONS
—–
Organizations Throughout Country to Take Up
Colorado Strike Convictions.

James Lord
“““““

Meetings of miners’ organizations throughout the United States will be held to protest the conviction of John R. Lawson, Louis Zancanelli and others implicated in the Colorado strike last year. This news has been received here by James Lord, president of the mining department of the American Federation of Labor, in a communication from the international executive board of mine workers.The board adopted resolutions at a recent meeting declaring that the conduct of the cases against these men shows that they were convicted without evidence and on testimony of men employed by the coal companies.

—–

CHARGES DROPPED AGAINST W. F. of M. LEADERS IN MICHIGAN

Readers of Hellraisers will remember this story from December 27, 1913:

Last night at about 8:30 p.m. Sheriff Cruse and a “committee” paid a visit to the Scott Hotel in Hancock. They went to the room of Charles Moyer, President of the Western Federation of Miners. The “committee” was determined that the leaders of the W. F. of M. should reconsider their refusal to accept any donations from the Citizens’ Alliance to the families of the victims of the Italian Hall Massacre. Mr. Moyer remained adamant that donations from the Citizens’ Alliance amounted to blood money and that the union would bury it’s own dead.No sooner had this “committee” left the room than a mob burst into the room. They began to beat Moyer and also Charles Tanner who was there with him. A gun was used to beat Moyer over the head which discharged during the assault. Moyer was shot in the shoulder. Moyer and Tanner were dragged out of the Hotel and down the street to the train station in Houghton. At the Houghton-Hancock bridge they were threatened with hanging, and shown a noose brought for that purpose.

The kidnappers put Moyer and Tanner on the Chicago train. Deputy Sheriff Hensley and Deputy McKeever were assigned to accompany the deportees. The deputies wore their Citizens’ Alliance buttons right next to their deputy badges for all to see.

The train stopped briefly in Milwaukee, and reporters were able to get the story from Moyer and Tanner. The reporters also witnessed Moyers’ “pillow and bed linen were soiled with blood from wounds in his scalp and back.”

Not one of the mob involved in this brutal crime was ever charged, let alone convicted of the kidnapping and assault upon Charles Moyer even though the crime had many witnesses. Yet the union leaders soon found themselves under indictment simply for performing their duties as union leaders. We are pleased to report that that indictment has been dropped. However, the money and time spent fighting the indictment will never be repaid.From the Duluth Labor World of May 22, 1915:

DROP INDICTMENTS AGAINST LABOR MEN
—–
C. H. Moyer and 37 Others Will Not Be Prosecuted
for Alleged Copper Strike Conspiracy.
—–

CALUMET, Mich., May 21.-The conspiracy indictment found against President C. H. Moyer and 18 other officials of the Western Federation of Miners, by the Houghton county grand jury a year ago, as a result of charges of violence brought against them by corporation sympathizers and union haters have been dropped by Judge P. H. O’Brien in the Baraga county circuit court at Lanse, on motion of Prosecutor W. J. Galbraith of Houghton county.The indictment, which was so worded as to charge a misdemeanor was returned Jan. 15, 1914, and contained three counts. The first and second counts alleged that President Moyer and 27 other officials and members of the union had conspired to prevent employes of mining companies affected by the strike, from pursuing their lawful vocations. The third count alleged that the conspiracy extended to an attempt to deprive the laborers generally of their property rights.

Among the 28 men indicted were C. E. Mahoney, vice president of the Western Federation of Miners, and Guy Miller, J. C. Lowney, W. P. Davidson and Yanko Terzich, members of the council of the union. The other defendants were officers and members of the four locals into which the federation’s Michigan organization was divided.

The case was early transfered from Houghton county in which the indictment was returned, to Bargara county on the plea of the union’s attorneys that the citizens of the mining country were prejudiced against the organization which conducted the strike. It was set for trial at the May 1914 term of court, but postponed at the request of the prosecution. Meanwhile, the strike had ended. The decision to drop the prosecution was said to have been one of the first decisions of the new county administration elected last autumn.

—–

~~~~~~~~~~

SOURCESEl Paso Herald
(El Paso, Texas)
-May 22, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/…
-May 24, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/…
-May 25, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/…

Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-May 22, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/…

The Washington Post
(Washington, District of Columbia)
-May 24, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/…

The Labor World
(Duluth, Minnesota)
-May 22, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/…

IMAGES
Colorado Justice
http://dlib.nyu.edu/…
John R Lawson with Louie Tikas during the strike.
http://ludlowsymposium.wordpress.com/…
James Lord of the UMWA, head of AFL Mining Department
http://www.flickr.com/…
Charles Moyer in Hospital
http://en.wikipedia.org/…
WFM Seal, July 1912 Convention Proceedings
https://books.google.com/…

See also:
DK search: Uhlich + JayRaye
http://www.dailykos.com/…

The International Socialist Review, Volume 14
-ed by Algie Martin Simons, Charles H. Kerr
Charles H. Kerr & Company, July 1913-June 1914
http://books.google.com/…
ISR February 1914
https://books.google.com/…
“The Miners’ War in Colorado” by George N. Falconer
https://books.google.com/…

The Railroad Worker, Volume 13
(Chicago, Illinois)
American Federation of Railroad Workers, 1915
TRW of Nov 1915
https://books.google.com/…
“The Lawson Case.”
https://books.google.com/…
TRW of Dec 1915
https://books.google.com/…
“The Lawson Case” (continued)
https://books.google.com/…

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`
Which Side Are You On? – Tom Morello: The Nightwatchman

Across this great old nation
Tell me whatcha gonna do
When there’s one law for the rulers
And one law for the ruled?
-Florence Reese/Tom Morello

“““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`

WE NEVER FORGET
Mack Powell

Appeal Staff Correspondent Describes
Walsh-Rockefeller Combat

BY P. H. SKINNER.
Staff Correspondent Appeal to Reason.
——

Frank P Walsh
“““““

Washington, D. C.-Here in sordid, capital-ridden Washington, a miracle is being performed. An investigation involving capital and labor is being held with utter and exact impartiality between the two forces. With my own eyes I have seen John D. Rockefeller, one of the richest men in the whole world, and, perhaps, the most powerful, on terms of exact equality with “Tony the Tramp”-the “roughneck sky-pilot” as one silk clad lady, with Rockefeller predilections, called him-Daniel E. McCorckle, a preacher from Sunrise, Wyo. And I saw a poor, worn-out slave of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Co., another “sky-pilot,” gazing defiantly into the eyes of the uncrowned czar, and reciting the most blood-curdling atrocities committed by the Cossacks of the great one.And later I saw this same czar on the witness stand, doubling and twisting on his crooked trail like a scared rabbit-throwing out his clouds of sophistry-ink like a cuttle-fish, and determined, relentless, persistent, resourceful Frank P. Walsh, chairman of the industrial relations commission, towering above him, shaking a bony finger at the white, expressionless face and demanding in a bull-like roar, “What are you going to do-never mind your pleasant generalities-what are you going to do about these atrocious conditions in your state-your state-of Colorado?” And pinning him down, by force of personality, holding the bony form in his mental grasp as a youngster holds a squirming eel, until John D. Rockefeller, Jr., had made confessions enough to damn him forever before any impartial court in the world.

[Continued below the fold.]

[Continued from above.]

From Perjuring to Murder.

The Death Special, built in a C. F. & I. plant.
“““““

E. S. Gaddis, head of John D.’s Colorado social welfare trap, through three mortal hours recited horror after horror that rested upon the doorstep of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Co.-from subornation of perjury, all the slimy way through renting shacks for prostitution and gambling, to murder of the most ferocious and cold-blooded description.Yes, dear reader, these things were all established by unimpeachable testimony, in an impartial investigation, before the industrial relations commission, fought tooth and toe-nail by the most skillful law-sharks that Standard Oil money could buy, here in the capital of the nation, within biscuit-toss of the Riggs National Bank and the treasury and the white-house and all the other strongholds of privilege. These and more-so many that twenty pages like this you are reading would not contain it all, and every word pointing unerringly to John D.’s Fuel and Iron Co. as one of the most conscienceless and appalling criminals of all history.

Excoriates the Money Changers.Listen to the “roughneck sky-pilot” arraigning the methods of the exploiters as John D. Rockefeller, Jr., enters the crowded gold room of the Shoreham hotel, where the meetings are held, surrounded by his bodyguard of lawyers, publicity agents and general utility men. “These officials of Colorado,” the dominie was saying, “are anarchists. They are no more responsible to any authority for their acts than are so many crazy men. And they were put there by the C. F. I. Whoever is responsible for the hiring of these gunmen, whether Rockefeller or whoever it may be, is guilty of treason, and should be executed for the crime.”

These are the words that greeted the man whose conscience acquits him of wrong doing in Colorado. And McCorkle is so well thought of that the Standard Oil Co., with all its lawless power, is afraid to evict him from its own property-for fear that his fellow townsmen would go on strike in protest-as indeed they would. And a strike just now would be inconvenient.

McCorkle told, while the millionaire stared in simulated indifference, how the coffers of the Sunday school superintendent were filled by excessive rentals charged for saloons-kept open in defiance of the Colorado law passed at the last election by a 12,000 majority referendum vote; how raffling was carried on in the company stores in evasion of the law; how the workers were compelled to buy lottery tickets, in many cases depriving their families of the necessities of life, by threat of losing their jobs and footing it for many miles through the Colorado hills for another, if by any chance another were to be obtained.

And John D. got the profits-and evaded the responsibility. The minister described these brothels and gambling hells on the Colorado Fuel and Iron Co. property as “chambers of horrors beyond description.”

Horrible Lack of Sanitation.

Company Shacks
“““““

He told of the unbelievably unsanitary conditions that would shock a community of African Bushmen; how cesspools, reeking with filth, were allowed to overflow and spread their putrid liquors along the main street of the town, breeding typhoid fever, so that many victims, men, women and children, were added to the Ludlow achievement. He told how the men, “ignorant foreigners” and American born free and independent citizens, had attempted to organize that these conditions might be remedied, by the simple process of forcing obedience to the law-law that was absolutely disregarded by the anarchists in office by virtue of Rockefeller money.Speaking of an investigation committee, upon whose report the intelligent American public depends for information on Colorado conditions, Mr. Wellborn, President to the C. F. I., who was doing the “investigating,” told the preacher to “fix it up so as not to give a bad idea of conditions.” Although the saloons and “dives” (gambling hells) are not run in the name of the C. F. I., yet, says the preacher, the traveling auditor of that philanthropic company invoices the stock and liquors in them. It is understood that Mr. Rockefeller intends soon to preach a sermon before his Bible class on the blessings of temperance.

“Uplift Work Is Satanic.”“All this uplift work is satanic,” the preacher was told at one time by L. M. Bowers, Vice President of the C. F. I., when McCorkle had tried to get a nurse for a miner’s wife who was dangerously ill. “The company expects you to keep the Greek and Italian workers down. That is what you are here for.” McCorkle didn’t think so, and “we cannot permit him to stay where he is,” wrote Bowers to A. R. Ford, the “man higher up” in preacherdom, although the congregation or the Presbytery is supposedly the power that can remove a preacher. The calm assumption that the rules of the church and the desire of the congregation could be overridden came from many years’ experience in such matters. But McCorkle is a fighter and a Socialist and he is there yet. “I shall stay,” he told the commission, “until they throw me out bodily.”

That there are many, many towns in the C. F. I. district in a similar condition, all with preachers, and that only two have dared to protest gives us a sinister line on the monopoly that the iron company holds in religion as well as in the saloons, brothels and gambling dens.

Rockefeller Takes the Stand.

John D Rockefeller Jr
“““““

Then the Bible-student-financier took the stand. He gave his name and occupation, omitting, doubtless by oversight, any reference to the saloon business. Chairman Walsh asked a question or two, which the pious one answered. Then, “Mr. Chairman,” he said, “I have prepared a paper which I prefer to read before answering any further questions.” “But I prefer to ask the questions first,” said the chairman. Then dispute continued a few moments, ending in victory for the millionaire. He read his paper, in which he proved to all his followers that he was entitled to the profits, but was in no way responsible for the lawlessness of the coal company.Then began the questions again, and the twisting and the turnings. Chairman Walsh referred to the evidence of Mr. McCorkle, showing that one of the jurors who condemned John R. Lawson was a certain W. W. Wilson, who had a monopoly to sell goods in all the company stores. “Do you think that a fair trial was possible under such circumstances?” thundered Walsh. “This man was beholden to your company for his livelihood.” “It is not proved that this W. W. Wilson who was on the jury is the man who held the monopoly,” answered the oil prince.

An Artful Dodger.“But if it is true that this agent was on the jury that condemned this poor workingman to the tortures of a life in the penitentiary, leaving his wife and children to starve-if it is true, will you make the same effort to secure him a new and fair trial that you did to protect the strike breakers in their alleged desire to work for starvation wages?” But no power on earth could pin that champion dodger down to a definite statement on any subject under the sun, except that he was entitled to the profits, and exempt from responsibility. “I do not know,” “I cannot recall,” or “that is a matter for Mr. Welborn to decide,” were the answers to nine-tenths of Mr. Walsh’s questions.

As an example of the carefulness with which the investigation was conducted, the commission wired to Denver to make sure whether the W. W. Wilson referred to by Mr. McCorkle was the Wilson who sat on the jury that condemned Lawson to a life in the penitentiary. In the Friday morning session: “This,” said Walsh, holding a telegram under the millionaire’s nose, “is the reply to our telegram of yesterday to the attorney general of Colorado-the one you have so much confidence in.” It was to the effect that the Wilson who sat on the Lawson jury was the one who held the concession from the C. F. I. “What are you going to do?” roared Walsh, leaning over the table and shaking his finger within six inches of John’s white, perspiring face. “Are you going to see that he gets a fair trial?”

Rockefeller tried more of his evasive tactics. “What are you going to do?” thundered Walsh again. “Mr. Rockefeller. I have asked you this question. I require a direct answer. What are you going to do to help this poor man who has been condemned to worse than death by an unfair trial? Will you use every effort to secure a fair trial for him?” Mr. Rockefeller felt that he had no power to interfere. Whatever is done to save Lawson from the clutches of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company must be done by the APPEAL. There is no other hope for him.

“Poison Ivy” Lee.

Ivy Lee
““`

The commission showed that Rockefeller had recommended to Ivy Lee (Poison Ivy Lee, as the “sky-pilot” called him) an article from the Popular Science Monthly by Prof. John J. Stevenson, as the “best, clearest, soundest and most forcible article on Labor and Capital” and recommended that it be sent out over the country as a part of the C. F. I. educational campaign.Walsh read passage after passage from this article, with which John D. did not have the nerve to agree. Statements that the death of 700,000 little ones by starvation was a blessing to the community; that F. H. Harriman is of more lasting service to the nation than 1,000,000 unskilled laborers; that slave-like obedience prevails in the labor unions; that union men are peons to the unions; that the principles of union men are no better than those of the India thugs, who practiced robbery and murder; that the sympathy of the legal authorities are always with the workers-to all these John D. replied, “I endorsed the article as a whole, not the various parts of it.” Yet these passages are the meat of the article that the Sunday school superintendent would have sent broadcast over the country.

Photographs and paragraph breaks added.]

~~~~~~~~~~

SOURCE
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-May 29, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/…

IMAGES
Frank P. Walsh from
Harpers Weekly of Sept 27, 1913
http://books.google.com/…
The Death Special
https://www.du.edu/…
Company Shacks
http://www.miningartifacts.org/…
ohn D Rockefeller Jr 1915
http://en.academic.ru/…
Ivy L Lee
http://en.wikipedia.org/…

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`
I Hate the Capitalist System-esp family

I hate the company bosses,
I’ll tell you the reason why:
They cause me so much suffering
And my dearest friends to die.
-Sarah Ogan Gunning

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`

Frank Walsh Knocks Out Young Rockefeller
in Three Days’ Battle
—–

Plutocratic Prince Gets Severe Pummeling from Chairman of Uncle Sam’s Commission on Industrial Relations—Youthful Magnate Tries to Dodge Walsh’s Powerful Blows But Fails—Public Opinion Decide Walsh is Victor Over Arch-Hypocrite—Appeal Reports Mighty Struggle by Rounds—Special Correspondent at Ringside, Washington
—–

Scene of Fight-Shoreham Hotel, Washington, D. C.
Time-May 20, 21, and 22.
Occasion-Hearing of Federal Commission of Industrial Relations.
Opponents-Chairman Frank P. Walsh, people’s representative,
and John D. Rockefeller, Jr., prince of plutocrats
Prize-Good will of the American people.

Round One
[Walsh shows that he is the general of the ring. Rockefeller’s effort to force the fighting a complete failure. In this round Walsh demonstrates that he is master of the situation.]Walsh sharply rapped Rockefeller at the hearing when Rockefeller protested against the form of a question. “I happen to be conducting this examination myself,” Walsh said, “and any strictures you may pass upon my method may, in your opinion, be good taste, but they cannot affect me. So far as directing me as to how I shall conduct this examination, I must say that is entirely my own affair.”

“My only desire,” said Rockefeller, “is to have the examination entirely fair.”

“I am to be the judge of the fairness of my examination of you,” returned Walsh, “and I must insist that you confine yourself to answering questions and making any such explanations as you may desire.”

Round Two
[This was Walsh’s round. Rockefeller made no effort to defend himself. His tactics in this round consisted of a poor memory and poor dodging.]Walsh read a letter by Rockefeller to Bowers, dated December 26, 1913, at a time when foreigners and negroes were being sent into the Colorado coal fields to take the places of strikers.

“You say you tell your father of the progress of industries in which he has invested? Did you tell him that when your men were out in the canyons that Christmas your officials were shipping in these foreigners and negroes to take their places and force them to starvation?”

Rockefeller said he could not remember as far back as that, but that he probably had seen his father at that time.

“What did he say about this situation, or did he just laugh at it?” fiercely demanded Walsh.

“It is difficult for me to recollect,” said Rockefeller.

Round Three
[Rockefeller angers Walsh with his evasive tactics. The latter tries hard to corner the young plutocrat, but fails because of squirming methods.]Walsh seemed angered at the indifference of Rockefeller to the testimony before the commission.

“Haven’t you heard any of these witnesses telling about conditions out there?” he exclaimed. “Is it a part of your plan not to learn or to even hear of these conditions?”

“I shall read the testimony,” quietly replied Rockefeller.

Round Four

[Rockefeller loses power of speech when Walsh pictures his deportation to Girard, Kan. Rockefeller perspires profusely at this terrible suggestion.]If a burglar attacked him Rockefeller said he would use force only to defend his life.

“Suppose the burglar’s mask fell off and you found he was the sheriff,” suggested Walsh.

“An officer of the law should not be opposed,” said Rockefeller.

Walsh then painted a picture of an invasion, at night, of Rockefeller’s home at Seal Harbor, by four men, one of whom Rockefeller knew to be a sheriff who had no regard for the law, while the other three were foreigners, ignorant of English. He asked the witness to assume that he was aware the sheriff’s purpose was to deport him to Girard, Kas., in a box car, and inquired:

“Knowing the sheriff’s character, would you submit?”

“If a man’s life seemed about to be taken-” began Rockefeller.

“No,” interrupted Walsh. “There’s no intention to take your life-just to deport you unlawfully.”

“I’ve stated the only circumstances under which I think an officer of the law should be opposed and I’m not prepared to go beyond that,” said the witness.

“Isn’t it a fact that you’d rouse the neighborhood and resist the Anarchist sheriff?” urged Walsh.

“I’ve nothing further to say,” replied Rockefeller.

Round Five
[Walsh came near scoring a knockout in this round. He was hindered by John D.’s apparent inability to distinguish between representatives of justice and representatives of Colorado Fuel & Iron.]Walsh-Would you go to Denver and take action against your officials and employes, paid by you down to and through the trial of Lawson, if you knew that their testimony was being used to secure conviction and, in effect, being paid for by the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company?

Rockefeller-I would not stand back of any authority that was not perfectly fair.

Q. Then you would go there?

A. I am not prepared to say what steps I would take.

Q. Suppose you learned that a man who had the exclusive privilege of selling to the company stores was taken to Trinidad and made a member of the jury that tried Lawson? What would you do?

A. I have no knowledge of the facts you state.

Round Six
[After chasing Rockefeller around the ring. Walsh forces the evasive magnate to seek shelter behind his second, Mr. Welborn.]In a statement read to the commissioner, Rockefeller had denied that officials of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company had anything to do with the prosecution of Lawson and called attention to a statement issued by Welborn, saying some of the company’s employes might be called as witnesses.

“Were these employes,” asked Walsh, “men who came through a detective agency who pretended to be strikers, and did they afterward, for pay that your company gave them, testify to that portion of the evidence which convicted Lawson of the crime of murder?”

“I would have to refer you Wellborn,” said Rockefeller.

~~~~~~~~~~

SOURCE
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-May 29, 1915
(Source for all newspaper images.)
http://www.newspapers.com/…

IMAGE
The Masses, JDR Jr Caught Red-Handed,
by John Sloan, July 1914
http://dlib.nyu.edu/…See also:
Industrial relations: final report and testimony, Volume 9
United States. Commission on Industrial Relations
D.C. Gov. Print. Office, 1916
https://books.google.com/…
Testimony of JDR Jr
8592: https://books.google.com/…
8604: https://books.google.com/…
8672: https://books.google.com/…
8702: https://books.google.com/…

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`
Hold the Fort-One of Labor’s Oldest Songs

We meet today in Freedom’s cause,
And raise our voices high;
We’ll join our hands in union strong,
To battle or to die.

Chorus:
Hold the fort for we are coming-
Union men, be strong.
Side by side we battle onward,
Victory will come.

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`

Monday May 31, 1915
From the Appeal to Reason: Round by Round Pummeling of Rockefeller by Walsh

Today Hellraisers offers more reporting from P. H. Skinner, staff correspondent to the Appeal, who sat ringside as Frank P. Walsh, chairman of the Commission on Industrial Relations, gave the young Mr. Rockefeller a good three-day “pummeling.” Skinner describes the battle in 14 rounds. Today we offer the conclusion of Skinner’s coverage, rounds seven through fourteen. See Hellraisers Journal of May 29th and 30th for the first two parts of Skinners coverage.Skinner’s description of Rockefeller confronted with a postcard from the parents of little Frankie Snyder, on the back of which was a photograph of little boy’s corspe, needs no comment. Who among us can ever forget the brutality of Rockefeller’s gunthugs as they told Frankie’s father to “take that damn thing.” Rockefeller’s thugs were referring to the body of the little boy, as they chased the family from their burning tent, burning from a fire started by these hired gunmen-miltia while the family was yet cowering in the cellar below.

Mr. Rockefeller replied when asked if he wanted to view the photograph, “No; you have described it.”

From The Masses:

From the Appeal to Reason of May 29, 1915:

Frank P Walsh
““`

Round Seven[Capitalism’s pride gets winded and makes desperate efforts to keep from falling to the floor. He is saved by the sound of the gong.]

Walsh read a portion of a letter written by young Rockefeller the day after Christmas, 1913, in which it was set forth that the elder Rockefeller was gratified at the way things were going. The letter spoke of men being brought into the mines from the South and East.

Walsh-Were the men from the South negroes?

Rockefeller-I don’t know.

Walsh-For your information they were.

Walsh-How did your father express this satisfaction?

Rockefeller-I see him as often as I can and he is always glad to have me tell him about things. It is entirely natural that we should tell him about a matter of this kind.

Walsh-How did he express his satisfaction?

Rockefeller-It would be difficult for me to recall.

Walsh-He was unusually satisfied, wasn’t he?

Rockefeller-Well, you seem to know.

Walsh-Well, I’ll read it.

Whereupon Chairman Walsh read the letter.

Walsh-Some time prior to the time this letter was written had not several thousand of your faithful employes taken to the canyons rather than stay in the mines any longer?

Rockefeller-Didn’t know the number, but thought it was about 4,500.

Walsh-And a few months prior to that letter had not Jeff Farr armed 326 men and turned them loose?

Rockefeller-That’s a statement that has been made. I don’t know.

Walsh-And prior to that letter did such men not riddle the Forbes tent colony and riddle the leg of one boy with nine bullets?

Rockefeller was dubious in his knowledge of this.

Round Eight[Walsh fails to make his opponent stand up and fight. The cowardly millionaire again tries to hide behind his second.]

Walsh brought up Jeff Farr and his employment of 328 special deputy sheriffs, who were gunmen and thugs, he said, recruited from all parts of the country, and the shooting of a miner at Forbes as he lay in his tent.

“I can’t vouch for the account of that,” said Rockefeller.

Q. Well, did your officials, prior to this letter of yours at Christmas time, ever treat with the men? As a matter of fact, didn’t they refuse even to go through a door in a thin partition to meet the representatives of the men? A. I remember that the representatives of the company met the representatives of the miners in the presence of Secretary Wilson and proposed terms that were not agreed to by the men.

Round Nine[Rockefeller clinches and hangs on until separated by sheer strength and skill of his opponent. Walsh compels him to stand up and take his medicine.]

Walsh read the report on the deportation of miners from Colorado, and Rockefeller admitted having had some knowledge of the facts through letters from officials.

Next Walsh read a letter from L. M. Bowers to Rockefeller in which was the sentence: “Old Mother Jones has been on the ground two weeks, but Saturday we understand the governor ordered her to leave the state and not to return.”

“You are aware, are you,” asked Walsh, “that deportation is a violation of the fourteenth amendment?”

“No, I am not.”

Walsh read the fourteenth amendment.

“You recognize it, as read?” he inquired.

“Yes.”

“You recognize it as one frequently invoked to protect property rights?”

Rockefeller was noncommittal.

“Did you know that this lady’s rights were to be violated by deportation?”

He did not, said Rockefeller.

Now that he knew it, Walsh asked, would he wish to discharge Bowers and other officers who were responsible? If there was any doubt concerning Bowers’ part, he added, Bowers was in the room, as was Starr J. Murphy, and this afternoon they probably could arrive at a conclusion relative to the former’s personal responsibility and he could be discharged if they found-as the chairman said the letter indicated-that he had violated the law.

“I’ve stated and I maintain,” said Rockefeller,”that I’ll do whatever is right, but I do not intend to commit myself to any specific action.”

“You believe in upholding the constitution?”

“I do; I am in favor of absolute justice.”

Round Ten[Walsh knocks Rockefeller to the floor with a straight blow at his jaw, after the latter’s desperate efforts to evade the blow.]

Walsh read a telegram from L. M. Bowers, vice president of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, in which he told Rockefeller five days before the Ludlow disaster of the arming of more than 100 volunteers at Trinidad, who were to be paid by the Rockefeller company.

“Do you know,” Walsh asked, “that this is the troop that not only shot, into the camp at Ludlow, but looted the bodies and set fire with the torch?”

“That’s the report,” Rockefeller said.

“Do you uphold these acts?”

“I don’t uphold any acts of violence,” Rockefeller replied with heat.

“Yet, you say that you uphold every act of your executives, and your executives employed these gunmen,” Walsh persisted.

“Don’t you feel a moral responsibility for those actions?” Walsh added.

“I would feel a greater moral responsibility if the executive officers had not done everything in their power to preserve life and property,” was Rockefeller’s response.

[Emphasis above added.]

Round Eleven[Rockefeller has an unpleasant round, breathing heavily and perspiring profusely. The young millionaire shows loss of nerve.]

“Did you read the evidence at the coroner’s inquest over the Ludlow disaster?” Chairman Walsh asked. When Rockefeller replied in the negative Walsh asked him if he did not feel it a duty to determine the facts to learn the train of events that lead to the massacre.

“I have such knowledge of the actions of the executives to give them my entire confidence,” Rockefeller replied.

“Yes,” Walsh continued, “you only take their word. You close your eyes to the crimes at Ludlow and the evidence of the coroner’s inquest. You close your eyes to the other outrages. You sit in your offices in New York and say ‘I uphold these executives.'”

“Now for your information,” Mr. Walsh continued, “I will tell you that all these people were not smothered. I will read you a postal card I received from a woman in Trinidad whose little boy was shot and killed, ‘while caressing his sister’ as his mother wrote.

“Here is the picture of the child; do you want to see it?” Walsh asked as he handed it to Rockefeller.

“No; you have described it,” Rockefeller answered.

Round Twelve[Rockefeller manages to escape in this round by clever feinting and artful dodging.]

Chairman Walsh-Do you know it to be a fact that there was not a single life lost among the striking people and militia until your executive officers whipped the governor into line and had the militia protect the importation of strikebreakers into the camp?

Rockefeller-I do not.

Chairman Walsh-Do you say that it is not a fact?

Rockefeller-I don’ express any opinion about it.

Round Thirteen[Rockefeller tries to crawl under the ropes, but crowd forces him back to meet his opponent squarely.]

Walsh-Prior to that time hadn’t you received a letter form Mr. Bowers telling you that he had used every effort to whip the Governor of Colorado into line?

Rockefeller-I have forgotten any such letter.

Walsh-Is it the case that in a matter so important as whipping into line the Governor of a State you forget?

Round Fourteen[In this round Rockefeller took the count and was considered badly beaten, having failed to answer convincingly the three charges.]

When Chairman Walsh finished questioning Rockefeller, Commissioner Weinstock presented a letter to the latter which set forth a preliminary statement in which the commissioner reviewed the commission’s inquiry into Colorado conditions.

[It read:]What I have been able, in brief, to get out of it all…is that the strikers and their sympathizers made three specific charges.

That at no time after the strike could they get a hearing at the hands of the operators.

That the civil and judicial machinery for obtaining such justice as the law affords was in the hands of the operators and not available to the strikers.

That the operators, through their agents, were the first to resort to violence and that all the violence which followed was defensive on the part of the strikers and not offensive.

If these three charges have been established then it must be plain that the responsibility for the unfortunate happenings in Colorado must be laid at the door of the operators and the strikers are entitled to all support and sympathy of the American people.

—–[Photographs added.]

~~~~~~~~~~

SOURCE
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-May 29, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/…

IMAGES
Mackenzie King with John D Rockefeller Jr
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/…
Ludlow Massacre Frankie Snyder “That Damn Thing”
http://john-adcock.blogspot.com/…
Frank P. Walsh from Harpers Weekly of Sept 27, 1913
http://books.google.com/…
Facsimilie by Jay Raye-Front and back of postcard
from Mr. and Mrs. Wm Snyder
to Frank P Walsh regarding son
Frankie Snyder murdered by Rockefeller’s gunmen
at Ludlow, April 20, 1914
Text from CIR: https://books.google.com/…
Photo: http://lawcha.org/…

See also:

“Hellraisers Journal: It is a damned pity that all of you
damned red-necked bitches were not killed.” by JayRaye
http://www.dailykos.com/…

Industrial relations: final report and testimony, Volume 9
United States. Commission on Industrial Relations
D.C. Gov. Print. Office, 1916
https://books.google.com/…
Testimony of JDR Jr
8592: https://books.google.com/…
8604: https://books.google.com/…
8672: https://books.google.com/…
8702: https://books.google.com/…

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`
WE NEVER FORGET

Written by Woody Guthrie & performed by Christy Moore – Ludlow Massacre

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““