Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday August 7, 1912 Charleston, West Virginia – Mother Jones Speaks to Striking Miners
Thursday, August 1, 1912, Charleston Levee -Mother Jones speaks to striking miners from the back of a dray wagon.
The Wheeling Intelligencer August 2, 1912
Now, you have gathered here today for a purpose. Every movement made in civilization has had an underlying purpose. You have reached the century in human civilization when the charge of human slavery must forever disappear. (Applause.)
You, my friends, in my estimation, have stood this insult too long. You have borne the master’s venom, his oppression, you have allowed him to oppress you. When we said, “a little more bread” he set out to get the human blood-hounds to murder you. Your Governor [Glasscock] has stood for it. He went off to Chicago [Republican convention] and left two Gatling guns with the blood-hounds to blow your brains out.
Then you elected a sheriff, that began to shake like a poodle dog the night of the trouble on Paint Creek. He began to tremble and ran into a store to be sheltered. I have never in all my life—in all the battles I have had—taken back water, and why should a public officer do it—elected by the people. The best thing you can do is to apply to some scientist to give you some chemicals and put into a nursing bottle, give it to them fellows and tell them to go away back and sit down. (Applause.)
This industrial warfare is on. It can’t be stopped, it can’t be put back, it is breaking out over all the nation from the city of Mexico clean through to the border of Canada, from the Atlantic Ocean clean across the oceans of the world; it is the throbbing of the human heart in the industrial field for relief. They are preaching appeal to the Legislature, they appeal to Congress—and I must give this Congress credit—I always want to give credit where credit is due—you have had more labor bills passed in the last session than in all the days of your Congress.
I was in Washington not many weeks ago. I sat up in the gallery watching the voters. I was watching the fellows who would vote against your bill. One fellow, when they asked for roll call, he got up among those who didn’t want it, but when the vote came he had to be registered on the Congressional Record, he took mighty good care that his vote was in your favor Why? Because the whole machine of capitalism realize for the first time in history that there is an intellectual awakening of the dog below, and he is barking. Have you been barking on Paint Creek?
I want to say, without apology, without fear of the courts, without fear of jails, you have done what ought to have been done a long time ago. When-when a corporation which is bleeding you to death, would go and hire,-send over the nation and hire human blood-hounds to abuse your wife, your child, it is time every man in the State should rise.
I saw an inscription on your statehouse, and looked at it,-because I know Virginia. I know the whole machine of capitalism; they locked me up and put me out of the State and shook their fists at me and told me not to come back again. I told them to go to hell, I will be back tomorrow.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday August 6, 1902 “Mother Jones” by William Mailly, Part III: Courage and Devotion
From The Socialist Spirit of August 1902:
“MOTHER” JONES
BY WILLIAM MAILLY
[Part III of III]
[Versatility and Power]
The most fertile writer of romance would never select a woman 60 years of age as the central figure of a story, and yet “Mother” Jones has had a career as full of diversity and adventure as could be devised by any disciple of Dumas. One can easily imagine a Joan of Arc, a D’Artagnan, or a Richard of the Lion Heart, but who would ever hit upon a little woman with grey hair as the daring leader of a crusade? There is material here for some genius to immortalize in the years to come. I have only space here for three incidents that, briefly related, will serve, perhaps, to illustrate the versatility and power of “Mother” Jones.
Several years ago, while passing through Montgomery, Alabama, after one of her investigations of conditions in the Southern cotton mills, she visited the Democratic convention, which was in session at the time. One of the delegates, an acquaintance, suggested that she address the convention, and she assented. When the proposition was made several delegates who knew “Mother” objected, but the others, with true Southern chivalry, and their historic regard for women, voted down all objections, and she was given the floor. They regretted their chivalry afterwards.
“Mother” thanked the convention for the courtesy extended to her, but immediately asked: “What about the women you have working in the mills of Alabama, sixteen hours a day, for two and three dollars a week? Don’t you think they’re entitled to some consideration?”She then proceeded to roast the Democratic state administration for its treachery toward the workers and particularly for its repeal, a few years previously, of the law prohibiting the employment of children under twelve years of age in factories. When she got through there was consternation in the convention. Several delegates remonstrated, but others took it up, and when “Mother” left they were still fighting. The papers next day denounced the attempt “to bring discord into the Democratic party by allowing a labor agitator to address the convention.”
One winter, when the snow lay deep upon the ground, “Mother” Jones’ duties as organizer took her into a Pennsylvania mining camp, where there were no friendly faces and the mine owners were prepared to fight her. She hired a room in the only boarding house, kept by a widow, in the place.Then she went out and got up her meeting. It was late when “Mother” returned; she was tired, but the rest she expected when she reached her room was not to be hers that night.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday August 5, 1902 “Mother Jones” by William Mailly, Part II: Found in West Virginia
From The Socialist Spirit of August 1902:
“MOTHER” JONES
BY WILLIAM MAILLY
[Part II of III]
[Standing with Strikers]
During this time she was also working on the skirmish line of the trade union movement, going here and there, assisting where she could in winning battles on the economic field. She was in Chicago during the famous strike of 1894, and no great struggle but has known her since. It was her work in the bituminous miners’ strike of 1897 that first attracted universal public attention, although labor agitators almost everywhere knew her. At that time she braved a cordon of deputies in West Virginia in order to get the miners there to quit work, and in the Pittsburg district her pathway was lined with thugs employed to intimidate her, an effort which was, of course, a failure. From that time her name has been anathema to the coal operators of America.
Her exploits during these latter years would fill a good-sized book. Travelling overland through Nebraska and other western states in a waggon, speaking and distributing literature on socialism; securing employment in southern cotton mills to investigate conditions first hand; conducting a successful strike of packers in the stock yards of Omaha; another of four thousand silk mill girls in Scranton, Pa., extending over four months; a seven months’ miners’ strike at Arnot, Pa., another victory and one which marked a new era in the mining industry of that region-these and others constitute a record unequaled by anyone. For the past two years her time has almost wholly been taken up in organizing the miners of West Virginia, whose indifference to organization and subjection to the mine-owners has made that State a source of injury to the whole miners’ union.
[Organizing in West Virginia]
It is here where “Mother” has encountered more dangers than in all her experience, for the state has been heretofore entirely under control of the capitalists, and the entrance of agitators has been opposed in every shape and manner. It was for this very reason that “Mother” went there.She has been able to do what no man or any number of men could accomplish, even had they wanted to. The present strike of 20,000 men, after years of abject slavery, is the direct result of her work. Injunction after injunction has been issued against her, but she has gone right on. As I write this the news comes that, after awaiting sentence for several days, following upon being found guilty of contempt of court for violating one of these injunctions, the same judge has dismissed her with a reprimand. In this he showed more wisdom than such as he are usually credited with, but the effectiveness of the reprimand is doubted.
It remained for President John Mitchell to recognize the value of this woman’s great ability and provide the opportunity to put it to full account. Through him she has been a national organizer of the United Mine Workers for the past three years, and her work has more than justified his action. It is conceded and acknowledged by all that she has done more than anyone else to solidify the miners into a strong national organization. She has infected the whole mining industry with her enthusiasm and by her socialist teaching she has turned the thoughts of thousands of workers towards the greater mission in store for them. In view of this it is easy to understand why every one of the thousand delegates to the national convention just adjourned, wept when they bade farewell to her upon her departure to West Virginia to receive sentence from a capitalist court.
Courageous almost to the point of recklessness, she knows no danger when occasion requires it. Her defiance of a court’s injunction is not mere bravado nor shallow “playing to the galleries.” She realizes the probable cost of such action, but she believes it is necessary—some one must do these things, else there will be no progress. Underneath her apparent indifference to injunctions, Pinkerton Thugs and prison cells lies the motive born of a definite purpose. If needs be she would yield her freedom gladly if by so doing she believed the workers would the more quickly gain theirs.Nevertheless, there is nothing incendiary about her; she trusts in the efficacy of the ballot, and has no sympathy with those who teach otherwise.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday August 4, 1902 “Mother Jones” by William Mailly, Part I: Working Class Joan of Arc
From The Socialist Spirit of August 1902:
“MOTHER” JONES
BY WILLIAM MAILLY
[Part I of III]
“Mother” Jones has been compared to Joan of Arc, but she is more than that.
The French maid derived her inspiration from the mystical creations of a brain inflamed by religious ecstasy. She was the slave of her own imagination. She fought for the “divine right of kings,” dying a victorious sacrifice to a cause which, dominant in her day, will soon cease to disfigure the world. Her rightful place as the fanatical representative of medieval mummery has already been assigned her.
But “Mother” Jones absorbs inspiration from living men and women; their hopes and fears, their scant joys and abundant sorrows, are hers also to laugh with and to weep over. She deals with things that are, to fashion the better things that will be. And her cause is the one that will release mankind from material subserviency and mental obliquity, to finally rejuvenate and glorify the world.
In this only are they alike: John of Arc was peculiarly the product of the material conditions of her time, just as “Mother” Jones is of the conditions existing to-day. Each would have been impossible at any other period. As Joan of Arc typified the superstition and mental darkness of the people who hailed and followed her as one gifted with supernatural power, so “Mother” Jones is the embodiment of the new spiritual concept and clearer mentality characteristic of the awakening working class of our day. She is the incarnation of the spirit of revolt against modern industrial conditions—the spirit which finds fullest expression in the world-wide Socialist movement.
For “Mother” Jones is, above and beyond all, one of the working class. She is flesh of their flesh, blood of their blood. She comes of them, has lived their lives, and, if necessary, would die to make their lives happier and better. She loves the workers with a passionate love stronger than the love of life itself. Her advent marks the stage of their progress towards emancipation.
It is the recognition, unconscious perhaps, of this affinity with them that constitutes the real source of her strength with the working people. Instinctively they feel she is one of them. When she speaks they listen to one of their own kind. Thus she becomes a veritable magnet that draws them together, ofttimes in spite of themselves.
For “Mother” Jones is no orator, in the technical sense of the term. Her rhetoric might be more rounded, her phrases more polished, and even her voice gentler than years of indiscriminate speaking, in and out of doors, have left it. But if they were, she would probably be less successful in her work. Her apparent weaknesses are really aids, rather than hindrances. Her language is plain, her illustrations crude but vivid, and she has a facile wit. And her voice is the more effectual because it is not sweet nor silvery, but rather harsh at times. Nevertheless, I have known that voice to arouse working men to frenzy and again soften them into tears. It is the soul that speaks.
So the working people understand and trust her. Only the demagogue or shyster among them fear her keen eye and ready tongue. She has the faculty of ferreting out such as these, and sooner or later they feel it. She is seldom deceived in her judgment of men or women. Absolutely sincere herself, she quickly detects insincerity in others. She is as impatient of hypocrisy as she is free from it. Her face tells its own story.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday August 3, 1912
Brotherhood of Timber Workers Organizing Campaign in Louisiana
From the International Socialist Review of August 1912:
[Part II of II]
Before the campaign of organization [Brotherhood of Timber Worker] now inaugurated by the Industrial Workers of the World is closed the lumber barons of Dixieland will have learned that it is impossible to fell trees with rifles and saw lumber with six shooters.
It should be mentioned here that of the nine men arrested four are non-union men, two of them, John and Paul Galloway, being owners of the Lumber Company. All are charged with murder. This, perhaps, indicates that the Trust has not entirely corralled the officialdom of Louisiana. It is certain that they are in bad repute with the business element in nearly all of the towns as their commissaries have been the means of controlling nearly the entire earnings of their employees, who are compelled to trade with the companies or lose the only means they have of making a living.
To maintain their absolute control of the camps the lumber companies, with the aid of their thugs, patrolled the towns, in some places inclosures were built around the mills and shacks. Notices were posted warning away union men, peddlers and Socialists.
Only a few days ago, H. G. Creel, one of the Rip-Saw editors on a lecture tour, was roughly handled at Oakdale and DeRidder, La. He was compelled to leave the first-named place, being threatened and intimidated by gun-men.
The small merchant realizes that if the workers are allowed to trade where they choose some of their money would pass over their counters and they know if wages are increased there would be a corresponding increase in their day’s receipts. This will account for the fact that the small business man and farmer have given their sympathy and a measure of support to the growing union of timber workers.
Arthur L. Emerson and Jay Smith, both Southern born, are the men around whom interest centers. They are the men who organized the Brotherhood of Timber Workers. Emerson had made two trips to the West-one to the Lumber District to the Southwest and the other to the Northwest. It was during the time that he worked with the lumber jacks of the Pacific Coast that he learned the need of organization. This thought was especially developed when he came in contact with the Lumber Workers’ Union of St. Regis and other points in the Bitter Root Range of Mountains. Being a practical lumber jack and saw mill hand and mill-wright himself, he saw at once the discrepancy in wages between the Pacific Coast and the Gulf States and upon his return to Dixieland he immediately took up the burden of organizing the workers as the only possible means of bringing up their wages and conditions to the level of the already too-low Western scale.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday August 2, 1912 Lake Charles, Louisiana – A. L Emerson, President of B. T. W., in Jail
From the International Socialist Review of August 1912:
[Part I of II]
A. L. EMERSON, President of the Brotherhood of Timber Workers, is in jail at Lake Charles, La. He was arrested following the shooting at Grabow, La., where three union men and one company hireling were killed outright and nearly two score of men were more or less seriously wounded.
The shooting is the outcome of the bitter war waged against the members of the Brotherhood of Timber Workers by the Lumber Trust for the last eighteen months. The scene of the tragedy that occurred on Sunday, July seventh, is a typical Southern lumber camp. The mill at this place is operated by the Galloway Lumber Company. In common with all others, it is surrounded by the miserable houses where the workers find habitation, the commissary store of the Company being the largest place of business in the towns. A strike has been on at this place since the middle of last May. The single demand on the part of the union men was for a bi-weekly pay day. Heretofore the pay days have been at long intervals-usually a month apart.
During the intervening weeks, when the men were in need of money to meet the necessities of life, they could secure advances on their pay but not in real money. They were compelled to accept Company Scrip payable only in merchandise and exchangeable only at the company commissary. If accepted elsewhere it is uniformly discounted from 10 to 25 per cent on the dollar.
In the commissary stores where the cash prices are always from 20 to 50 per cent higher than at the independent stores, the company has established another means of graft by making two prices-the coupon or scrip price being much higher than that exacted for real cash.
The conditions at Grabow can be used as an illustration of nearly all of the other lumber camps of the South.
The commissary store is not the only iniquity imposed upon the Timber Workers. For miserable shacks they [are] compelled to pay exorbitant rents; sewerage there is none; there is no pretense at sanitation ; the outhouses are open vaults. For these accommodations families pay from $5 to $20 a month. In one camp worn-out box cars are rented by R. A. Long, the Kansas City philanthropist, for $4 a month. Insurance fees are arbitrarily collected from every worker, for which he receives practically nothing in return, but whether his time be long or short-one day or a month-with the company, the fee is deducted. The same is true of the doctor fee and the hospital fee, which, in all places, is an imaginary institution. The nearest thing to a hospital that the writer saw was an uncompleted foundation at DeRidder, the place visited a few days prior to the Grabow tragedy. The gunmen and deputy sheriffs are an expensive innovation in the manufacture of lumber. These miserable tools are to be found everywhere and are used to browbeat and coerce the workers.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday July 31, 1912 Mucklow, West Virginia – Striking Miners Battle Company Gunthugs
From The Wheeling Intelligencer of July 27, 1912:
From The Pittsburgh Post of July 30, 1912:
Top, left to right: Troop train arriving at Mucklow, W. Va. Every man on Paint Creek goes armed, and the excitement is intense. General view of Mucklow, showing the company store and tipple on the left, and troops beginning their encampment on the right.
Bottom, left to right: Prisoners accused of murdering mine guards. Twenty-two of these were taken on Saturday by Baldwin men, who surrounded them with an armed guard. Tent and family of one of the destitute and evicted miners.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday July 30, 1912 Cascade Park, New Castle, Pa. – Debs and Seidel Speak at Interstate Socialist Picnic
From The Coming Nation of July 27, 1912:
Note: Photograph was taken June 22, 1912 at Cascade Park, New Castle, Pennsylvania, at the Grand Interstate Socialist Picnic. Speakers included Eugene Debs and Emil Seidel, candidates for President and Vice-President, Socialist Party of America. Transportation was provided from as far away as Pittsburgh.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday July 29, 1902 Parkersburg, West Virginia – Judge Jackson re “Organizers” and “Agitators”
From The Pittsburg Press of July 24, 1902:
JUDGE WAS SEVERE ON MINERS […]
Parkersburg, W. Va., July 24.-There was the most intense interest in the crowded room of the United States District Court this morning when Judge Jackson began reading his lengthy decision declaring “Mother” Mary Jones, the angel of the miners, and seven other organizers of the United Mine Workers and four Hungarians to be guilty of contempt of disregarding his injunction of June 19, against holding a meeting or creating a demonstration at or near the Pinnickinnick mine of the Clarksburg Fuel Co., or near the residence of miners at work. Judge Jackson, after concluding his decision, sentenced the defendants as follows:
Thomas Haggerty, 90 days in jail; Wm. Morgan, Bernard Rice, Peter Wilson, Wm. Blakeley, George Bacon, Thomas Laskavish, 60 days each.“Mother” Jones’ sentence was passed till afternoon. It is said she will receive a stiff fine and will not be jailed. Albert Repake, Joseph and George Roeski and Steve Teonike, Hungarians, passed until the afternoon session……
[Photograph and emphasis added.]
Ruling of Judge Jackson, July 24, 1902:
UNITED STATES ex rel. GUARANTY TRUST CO. of NEW YORK v. HAGGERTY et al. (Circuit Court, N. D. West Virginia. July 24, 1902.)
[Part II of II]
In the case we have under consideration the bill alleges that there is a combination of persons who are known as “organizers,” “agitators,” and “walking delegates,” who come from other states for the purpose of inducing a strike in the soft coal fields of the state of West Virginia; that their object and purpose is to induce persons who are not dissatisfied with the terms of their employment, and who are not asking any increase in their wages, to cease work for their employers, thereby inflicting great damage and injury upon them. It is to be observed that a very large portion of the miners in the employ of the Clarksburg Fuel Company do not want, in the language of one of the agitators who is enjoined, “to lay down their picks and shovels and quit work.” I do not question the right of the employes of this company to quit work at any time they desire to do so, unless there is a contractual relation between them and the employer which should control their right to quit. At the same time I do not recognize the right of an employer to coerce the employes to continue their work when they desire to quit. But can it be said that where a conspiracy exists to control the employes, as in this instance, either by threats, intimidation, or a resort to any other modes usually accompanying the action of strikers, that such action upon their part is not only illegal, but a malicious and illegal interference with the employer’s business? The question is its best answer.
While I recognize the right for all laborers to combine for the purpose of protecting all their lawful rights, I do not recognize the right of laborers to conspire together to compel employes who are not dissatisfied with their work in the mines to lay down their picks and shovels and to quit their work, without a just or proper reason therefor, merely to gratify a professional set of “agitators, organizers, and walking delegates,” who roam all over the country as agents for some combination, who are vampires that live and fatten on the honest labor of the coal miners of the country, and who are busybodies creating dissatisfaction amongst a class of people who are quiet, well-disposed, and who do not want to be disturbed by the unceasing agitation of this class of people.
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Parkersburg, W. Va., July 24.-There was the most intense interest in the crowded room of the United States District Court this morning when Judge Jackson began reading his lengthy decision declaring “Mother” Mary Jones, the angel of the miners, and seven other organizers of the United Mine Workers and four Hungarians to be guilty of contempt of disregarding his injunction of June 19, against holding a meeting or creating a demonstration at or near the Pinnickinnick mine of the Clarksburg Fuel Co., or near the residence of miners at work. Judge Jackson, after concluding his decision, sentenced the defendants as follows: