Category: Mother Mary Harris Jones

Hellraisers Journal: From The Labor World: Mother Jones Leads Babes in Crusade to Expose Manifold Evils of Child Labor

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Mother Jones , March of Mill Children, fr whom Wall Street Squeezes Its Wealth, Lbr Wld p6, July 18, 1903—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday July 20, 1903
Mother Jones Leading Babes to New York in Crusade Against Child Labor

From the Duluth Labor World of July 18, 1903:

LITTLE BABES IN A CRUSADE
———-

MOTHER JONES IS TO STORM WALL STREET.
———-

HEADED FOR NEW YORK CITY.
———-
Wishes to Give the Country a Great Object Lesson
on the Manifold Evils of Child Labor.
———-

Mother Jones, March of Mill Children, NY Eve Wld p3, July 8, 1903

PHILADELPHIA, Pa., July 16.—Many years ago a great crusade was started in Europe for the discovery of Jerusalem and the Savior’s tomb from the Infidels. A hermit rushed through the country calling upon all parents to allow their children to join the Holy crusade which would surely have the help of all the guardian angles in Heaven.

And so a great army of children of rich and poor was gathered together and set out upon a journey, the dangers of which had been sadly misjudged. They died by the way sides by thousands and gradually the great multitude appeared. Jerusalem was still held by the Infidels, while in the homes mothers mourned for their dear little ones who never returned.

“Mother” Jones’ Crusade.

“Mother” Jones believes it is time for another crusade of children. This one, however, is to be directed to storming the hearts of the people by showing them living examples of what child labor does for childhood. So she started for New York one day last week with 400 textile working men, women and children on strike for shorter hours and a wagon load of little girls to show the “sharks of Wall Street,” as she puts it, and the people generally the evils of child labor through these living examples of a child slavery system which seems so firmly fixed on the little ones of Pennsylvania.

On Wednesday morning [Tuesday July 7th] with the fife and drum preceding them, some carrying umbrellas, while others plodded along under the blazing sun, the procession started for New York City. It was a miserable looking lot of babes that strung out over several miles of dusty road.

At Cedar Hill Cemetery the first big defection took place. Nearly 100 footsore and tired men and women sat still when the order was given to resume the march. The girls in the wagon kept singing the entire time. The fife and drum corps played at intervals. Stragglers by twos and threes kept dropping out until Torresdale Park was in sight twelve miles from the starting point. Thus ended the first day’s march.

The fife and drum, especially when “Marching Through Georgia” was being played, cheered the children up a bit, and the arrival of the commissary wagons loaded with canned goods and bread was a welcome sight. “Mother” Jones will be a leader indeed if she succeeds in keeping a quarter of them together by the time she arrives in New York. An immense meeting of workers is planned to be held in Madison Square Garden when the children, reach there.

Plan Great Show.

Part of “Mother” Jones’ plan consists in the use of an assortment of costumes, glass diamonds, megaphones, phonographs and motto-inscribed banners. “Mr. Capital” is to be exhibited dressed in costly raiment. “Mrs. Mill Owner” is to sit beside him, wearing her jewels. Tableaux, charades, plays and dialogues are to be arranged, all bearing on the textile strike. Frequent stops will be made, exhibitions given, and donations asked for.

“Mother” Jones, as commander-in-chief, has full charge of the campaign. After at first opposing it the strike leaders became convinced that it was an excellent plan to stir up the workers and the general public of the United States to lend a hand in the fight for shorter hours. “Mother” Jones has therefore obtained their co-operation, though her power is somewhat restricted.

[Said Mother Jones:]

The sight of little children at work in mills when they ought to be at school or at play, arouses me. I found the conditions in Philadelphia deplorable, and I resolved to do what I could to shorten the hours of toil of the striking textile workers so has to gain more liberty for the children and women. I had a parade of children through, the city—the cradle of liberty—but the citizens were not moved to pity by the object lesson.

No Pity Here, She Says.

The curse of greed so pressed on their hearts that they could not pause to express their pity for future men and women who are being stunted mentally, morally and physically so that they cannot possibly become good citizens. I cannot believe that the public conscience is so callous that it will not respond. I am going out of Philadelphia to see if there are people with human blood in their veins.

When I think of the present and future I fear for my country. The criminal classes keep increasing. Large sums of money are being poured out for almshouses, or refuge, reformatories and schools for defectives, but they are only a drop in the bucket. The disease cannot be cured unless the cause is removed. Keen, unrestrained competition, rivalry for commercial supremacy and lust for wealth tramples on humanity and feels no remorse.

May Visit Roosevelt.

I am going picture capitalism and caricature the money-mad. I am going to show Wall street the flesh and blood from which it squeezes its wealth. I am going to show President Roosevelt the poor little things on which the boasted commercial greatness of our country is built. Not one single Philadelphia minister of Christ’s Gospel has so much as touched on the textile strike in this city. I shall endeavor to arouse sleeping Christians to a sense of their duty toward the poor little ones. 

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The Labor World: Mother Jones Leads Babes in Crusade to Expose Manifold Evils of Child Labor” →

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones and Her Army of Child Textile Workers Enjoy the Hospitality of the Unionist of Elizabeth, N. J.

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Mother Jones , March of Mill Children, fr whom Wall Street Squeezes Its Wealth, Lbr Wld p6, July 18, 1903—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday July 19, 1903
Elizabeth, New Jersey – Mother Jones and Her Army Treated to Great Hospitality

From The New York Times of July 17, 1903:

HdLn Mother Jones, March of Mill Children, at Elizabeth NJ, NYT p5, July 17, 1903

From The Cincinnati Post of July 17, 1903:

Mother Jones, March of Mill Children, Signs, Cnc Pst p6, July 17, 1903

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones and Her Army of Child Textile Workers Enjoy the Hospitality of the Unionist of Elizabeth, N. J.” →

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones and Her Army of Child Textile Workers March from New Brunswick to Elizabeth, New Jersey

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Mother Jones to TR, These Little Children, Phl No Am July 16, 1903, Foner p552—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday July 18, 1903
Mother Jones’ Army Marches from New Brunswick to Elizabeth, New Jersey

From the New York Tribune of July 15, 1903:

HdLn Mother Jones MMC, July 14 at Rahway NJ, NY Tb p6, July 15, 1903

From the New York Tribune of July 16, 1903:

Mother Jones MMC, July 15 at Elizabeth NJ, NY Tb p4, July 16, 1903

From The New York Times of July 16, 1903:

Mother Jones MMC, July 15 at Elizabeth NJ, July 16, 1903

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones and Her Army of Child Textile Workers March from New Brunswick to Elizabeth, New Jersey” →

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Writes to President Roosevelt: “These little children, raked by cruel toil beneath the iron wheels of greed, are starving in this country…”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Mother Jones to TR, These Little Children, Phl No Am, Foner p—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday July 17, 1903
Elizabeth, New Jersey – Mother Jones Writes to President Roosevelt

From the Hazleton Plain Speaker (Pennsylvania) of July 16, 1903:

Mother Jones at Elizabeth NJ, Writes to Prz Roosevelt, Hzl PA Plain Spker p5, July 16, 1903

From the Philadelphia North American of July 16, 1903:

Elizabeth, New Jersey
July 15, 1903

Theodore Roosevelt
President of the United States
Dear Sir:

Being citizens of the United States of America, we, members of the textile industry, take the liberty of addressing this appeal to you. As Chief Executive of the United States, you are, in a sense, our father and leader, and as such we look to you for advice and guidance. Perhaps the crime of child slavery has never been forcibly brought to your notice.

Yet, as father of us all, surely the smallest detail must be of interest to you. In Philadelphia, Pa., there are ninety thousand (90,000) textile workers who are on strike, asking for a reduction from sixty to fifty-five hours a week. With machinery, Mr. President, we believe that forty-eight hours is sufficient.

If the United States Senate had passed the eight-hour bill, this strike might not have occurred. We also ask that the children be taken from the industrial prisons of this nation and given their right of attending schools so that in years to come better citizens will be given to this republic.

These little children, raked by cruel toil beneath the iron wheels of greed, are starving in this country which you have declared is in the height of prosperity-slaughtered, ten hours a day, every day in the week, every week in the month, every month in the year, that our manufacturing aristocracy may live to exploit more slaves as the years roll by.

We ask you, Mr. President, if our commercial greatness has not cost us too much by being built upon the quivering hearts of helpless children? We who know of these sufferings have taken up their cause and are now marching toward you in the hope that your tender heart will counsel with us to abolish this crime.

The manufacturers has threatened to starve these children, and we seek to show that no child shall die of hunger at the will of any manufacturer in this fair land. The clergy, whose work this really is, are silent on the crime of ages, and so we appeal to you.

It is in the hope that the words of Christ will be more clearly interpreted by you when he said “Suffer little children to come unto me.” Our destination is New York City, and after that Oyster Bay. As your children, may we hope to have the pleasure of an audience? We only ask that you advise us as to the best course.

In Philadelphia alone thousands of persons will wait upon your answer, while throughout the land, wherever there is organized labor, the people will anxiously await an expression of your sentiments toward suffering childhood.

On behalf of these people, we beg that you will reply and let us know whether we may expect an audience.

The reply should be addressed to “Mother” Jones’s Crusaders, en route according to the daily papers.

We are very respectfully yours,
“Mother” Jones, Chairman

Committee–Charles Sweeney, Edward A Klingersmith, Emanuel Hanson, and Joseph Diamond.

[Emphasis added.]

Note: John Lopez was assigned by the Philadelphia North American to cover the March of the Mill Children, and he has been traveling with them every step of the way.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Writes to President Roosevelt: “These little children, raked by cruel toil beneath the iron wheels of greed, are starving in this country…”” →

Hellraisers Journal: John Spargo on the Struggle of the Kensington Textile Workers; Mother Jones’ Army Enters New Brunswick

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Mother Jones, Child Labor Silk Mills, WB Dly Ns p1, May 11, 1901—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday July 15, 1903
John Spargo on Kensington Textile Strike; Mother Jones’ Army Enters New Brunswick

From the New York Worker of July 12, 1903:

Mother Jones MMC Spargo, Philly Textile Strike, NY Worker p1, July 12, 1903

From The Washington Times of July 13, 1903:

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: John Spargo on the Struggle of the Kensington Textile Workers; Mother Jones’ Army Enters New Brunswick” →

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Marches On With Her Army of Striking Children from the Textile Mills of Kensington

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Mother Jones, Child Labor Silk Mills, WB Dly Ns p1, May 11, 1901—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday July 14, 1903
Mother Jones and Her Army March from Trenton to Princeton, New Jersey

From The New York Times of July 10, 1903:

“MOTHER” JONES’ MARCHING ON
———-
Army of Mill Workers Camped Near Trenton
on Its Way to New York to Air Grievance.

Special to The New York Times.

Mother Jones, March of Mill Children, NY Eve Wld p3, July 8, 1903

TRENTON, N. J., July 9.- Mother Jones and her textile army, composed of workers from the mills of Kensington, Penn., is encamped to-night on the Delaware River in Morrisville, Penn., just across from Trenton.

“Mother” Jones to-night visited the meeting of the Plumbers’ Union and made a speech. She received a donation. Her assistants visited other union meetings, and as Trenton is one of the most solid union cities in the United States quite a sum of money was collected to aid “the army” on its march to New York, where a mass meeting in Madison Square Garden is projected. “Mother” Jones expects to reach the metropolis by the end of the week.

Mayor Katzenbach of Trenton has granted a license  for mass meeting be held here in the shadow of Battle Monument to-morrow night, when the grievances of the strikers will be aired and where Mother will tell her plans against the New York millionaires’ hearts and pocket books. This meeting will be preceded by a concert by the “army band.”

This morning at Bristol sixty men and girls deserted, going back to Philadelphia. There are about 280 left, however.

In the army are ten or twelve boys who are not more than thirteen years old. These little fellows stand up under the great heat and the hard march with commendable bravery. With the marchers there is a band comprised of six fifes, four snare drums, and a bass drum.

[Photograph and emphases added.]

From the New York Tribune of July 11, 1903:

Mother Jones MMC, Rest at Delaware Rv, MJ at Morrisvl PA, Drummers and Banners, NY Tb p1, July 11, 1903

ARMY CROSSES DELAWARE
———-

YOUNG GIRLS SENT HOME
———-
“Mother” Jones Says Her Crusade Is Against Child Labor.

[On the evening of July 10th the Army crossed the Delaware River and entered Trenton. Mother Jones spoke at a meeting of the Central Labor Union of Trenton, and later spoke at an open-air meeting near Battle Monument. On the afternoon of July 10th, a reporter visited the camp at Morrisville Point and described the meal served there. The boy-strikers, all under fifteen, were described by the reporter as “veritable little old men, with stooped shoulders and a serious expression of countenance far beyond their years.” The reporter was able to interview Mother Jones who described Kensington as “one of the worst places in the world for child labor.” She described the hard life of the girls working in “that hellhole.” Mother denied that there had been any “desertions,” stating that some would turn back at various points along the march.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Marches On With Her Army of Striking Children from the Textile Mills of Kensington” →

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones and the Mill Children March from Torresdale to Bristol and Parade Through the Town

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Mother Jones, Blood of Children n Christian Society Women, Toledo Mar 24, 1903—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday July 10, 1903
Bristol, Pennsylvania – The Army of Mother Jones Parades With Banners Flying

From The Philadelphia Inquirer of July 9, 1903:

Crusaders Reorganized

Mother Jones and Mill Children March into Bristol Pa July 8th, NY Eve Wld p5, July 9, 1903

When “Mother” Jones’ band of marching strikers, en route to New York, awoke in Torresdale Park yesterday morning [July 8th], Charles Sweeney and other members of the strikers’ Executive Committee decided that there should be a reorganization of the crusaders before the march was resumed. The twenty-two girls in the party and five of the boys were sent back to their homes in Kensington, as it was feared that they would not be able to withstand the rigors of the proposed advance upon New York. The strike leaders next turned their attention to the camp followers. After a half hour’s inspection seventy-five men and seven boys, the latter to act as a bodyguard to “Mother” Jones, were selected as most fitted to continue the march, to New York. The rest were sent home. Each man was equipped with a tin cup, dinner plate and a spoon and large supplies of pork and vegetables were placed in the wagon in which “Mother” Jones is making the journey. The marchers left Torresdale about 9 o’clock in the morning, and arrived at Bristol late in the afternoon, where they encamped.

Dinner in Camp

A dinner of corned beef and cabbage and vegetable soup was hastily cooked, and over a field on the outskirts of the town the marchers spread themselves as though they were on a picnic. With flags, banners and music furnished by the fife and drum corps that accompanied them from this city, the marchers, led by “Mother” Jones, paraded through the mill district of Bristol in the evening and then held an open-air meeting, at which “Mother” Jones delivered a lengthy address on the strike situation in Philadelphia. A tour of the town will be made this morning for the purpose of soliciting provisions and funds for the strikers. The marchers will then proceed toward Trenton, where they will try to hold a mass meeting of union workers in that city for the purpose of raising more funds for the striking textile workers. They will halt at various towns between Trenton and New York and hold similar meeting to arouse interest in their cause.

[Photographs and emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones and the Mill Children March from Torresdale to Bristol and Parade Through the Town” →

Hellraisers Journal: From Philadelphia North American: Mother Jones to Lead Child Workers on March to New York

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Mother Jones, Children Build Nations Commercial Greatness, Phl No Amn, Foner p487—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday July 9, 1903
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – Interview with Mother Jones

From the Philadelphia North American of July 7, 1903:

“Mother” Jones Will Lead Textile Child Workers
Through Country to Win Sympathy.
———-

Army of 400 Boys and Girls in Living Appeal for Aid.
———-

Mother Jones, March of Mill Children, NY Eve Wld p3, July 8, 1903

“Mother ” Jones will lead a second “children’s crusade” from this city today. It will be composed of 400 striking juvenile textile workers and an equal number of adult strikers. It starts from the Kensington Labor Lyceum, Second Street, above Cambria, at 11 o’clock this morning.

The object of the “crusade” is to appeal to the people of the country to support the 75,000 textile strikers in their “demand” for a 55-hour-work-week. Sufficient money to support the strikers indefinitely is expected to come in as a result of taking the children throughout the country. So far as possible, parents will accompany their children. Two members of the strikers’ executive board and their wives will help in caring for the “crusaders.”

“Mother” Jones, as commander-in-chief, has full charge of the campaign. After at first opposing it, the strike leaders have become convinced that it is an excellent plan to stir up the workers and the general public of the United States to lend a hand in the fight for shorter hours. “Mother” Jones spoke about the project to this reporter last night:

I desire the textile strikers of Philadelphia to win their fight for shorter hours, so that more leisure may be obtained, especially for children and women.

The herding of young children of both sexes in textile mills is the cause of great immorality.

As the result of the competitive and the factory systems, the nation is being stunted, physically, morally, and mentally.

I do not blame the manufacturers individually, but I do blame the community at large for making no effort to abolish these evils.

The employment of children is doing more to fill prisons, insane asylums, almshouses, reformatories, slums, and gin shops than all the efforts of reformers are doing to improve society.

I am going to rouse the Christian fathers and mothers of this country if there is human blood in their veins.

If the manufacturers cannot afford to give their employees a living wage and shorter hours of work, then the system of making goods for profit is wrong and must give way to making goods for use.

The sight of little children at work in mills when they ought to be at school or at play always rouses me. I found the conditions in this city deplorable, and I resolved to do what I could to shorten the hours of toil of the striking textile workers so as to gain more liberty for the children and women. I led a parade of children through the city-the cradle of Liberty-but the citizens were not moved to pity by the object lesson.

The curse of greed so pressed on their hearts that they could not pause to express their pity for future men and women who are being stunted mentally, morally, and physically, so that they cannot possibly become good citizens. I cannot believe that the public conscience is so callous that it will not respond. I am going out of Phiadelphia to see if there are people with human blood in their veins.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From Philadelphia North American: Mother Jones to Lead Child Workers on March to New York” →

Hellraisers Journal: “The Betrayal of the West Virginia Red Necks” by Fred Merrick, Editor of Pittsburgh Justice, Part I

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
Share

Quote Ralph Chaplin, WV Miners Longing for the Spring, Leaves, Paint Creek Miner, ISR p736, Apr 1913————–

Hellraisers Journal – Monday July 7, 1913
Socialist Editor Fred Merrick on the Betrayal of the West Virginia Miners, Part I

From the International Socialist Review of July 1913:

HdLn WV Betrayal by SPA by Merrick, ISR p18, July 1913

[Part I of II]

IT WILL be hopelessly impossible within the narrow confines of this brief article to give the reader more than a skeleton of the real “inside” story of the great strike raging in West Virginia, which the greed of coal operators, subserviency of political officials, especially the courts and sheriffs, brutality of heartless degenerates known as “Baldwins” or “mine guards,” drum-head court martial of the militia, duplicity of their own attorneys, misrepresentation by newspapers, treachery of many officials of their own union and the crowning act of all, the betrayal or misrepresentation of their cause to the Socialists of America by a committee elected by the National Committee to investigate conditions in West Virginia-all have utterly failed to break.

WV Gunthugs w Machine Gun, ISR p18, July 1913

To all the horrors which a strike of a year’s duration in tents on the bleak winter mountains of “Little Switzerland” means, was added the base conduct of those labor and so-called “Socialist” parasites who today make their living as advisors of the toilers without themselves undergoing the privations incident to toil and revolution. Volumes could and undoubtedly will yet be written on this phase of the West Virginia struggle which is far more vital than the spectacular battles which have been described again and again.

It is not unfair to say that the facts merely suggested here will never find publicity through the orthodox labor or Socialist press, but if the reader has his class conscious curiosity sufficiently aroused by this brief resume to thoroughly investigate the sordid tale of the betrayal of the West Virginia “red necks” as many of the officials and organizers of the U. M. W. of A. contemptuously refer to the West Virginia miners, the purpose of this story will have been accomplished. Before passing judgment on the harshness of some of the terms used in this article examine each statement of fact carefully and see if such conduct should not be described in terms calculated to arouse the militant toilers of America, whether the object be our formerly “beloved ‘Gene,” who seems to have fallen by the wayside, or our genial friend from Milwaukee.

The West Virginia strike may roughly be divided into three distinct stages:

1. The unorganized strike stage when the miners aided by the local Socialists made their valiant fight at a time when the officials of the U. M. W. of A. did absolutely nothing to help. Towards the latter part of this period “Mother” Jones appeared and helped her “boys” to “fight like hell.” The method of breaking the strike employed during this time was confined entirely to the physical brutality of Baldwin mine guards and the less efficient National guard or militia. The miners were able to handle this sort of “suppression” with some first-class “direct action.” During this period the miners scored a decisive victory.

WV Child of Martyr Estep, ISR p19, July 1913
[Correction: The orphan child of Cesco Estep
was a son, not a daughter. ]

2. Immediately following election in November different tactics were employed. Certain treacherous officials of the union deliberately asked for martial law. Following this they attempted to compromise the strike which the militia was unable to break alone. The climax of this period dominated by the officials of the U. M. W. of A; came with Hatfield’s notorious deportation ultimatum of April 27th, which was endorsed and supported enthusiastically by the officials of the U. M. W. of A. from President White down through Frank Hayes, Thomas Haggerty and Joe Vasey. However, the tactics employed of attempting to break the strike with the machine of the U. M. W. of A. failed miserably and another trick was employed.

3. This period is marked by the advent of the Socialist National Investigating Committee which endorsed the conduct of Governor Hatfield for the most part thereby giving a clean bill of health to the officials of the U. M. W. of A. who had accepted Hatfield’s “settlement,” thereby becoming the agents through whom the operators hoped to accomplish a “settlement” which police brutality, the diplomacy of Hatfield and the treachery of U. M. W. of A. officials had failed to accomplish. Due to the splendid common sense education on Socialism the miners had received for two years through the columns of the Charleston Labor Argus, edited by fearless Charles H. Boswell, the miners and local Socialists received the committee not as heroes, but as ordinary human beings. They refused to accept the “settlement” because its sponsor had been whitewashed by the committee, just as before.

The first period has been adequately dealt with by the capitalist magazines where it received more attention than was ever given it by the Socialist press, who seemed afraid of it for some reason.

The second period is marked by successive steps of compromise which are a disgrace even to the black record of the U. M. W. of A., who have so often betrayed the West Virginia miners that it has become an old story. Let us get a birds-eye view of how the machine of this organization pulled the sting out of the demands of the miners so gradually that the miners themselves did not realize that it was being done. 

1. In the early Spring of 1912, a convention of miners was called at Charleston, here it was understood the demands of the miners would be the same as elsewhere in the United States and were to include an EIGHT-HOUR DAY. As West Virginia coal is mined cheaper per ton than any other coal there is less reason for working more than eight hours than there is in other states.

2. Another convention of miners was held in Charleston in April, 1912. In the interim the Cleveland scale had been adopted and at this convention the local officials, with the acquiescence of the national organization, persuaded the miners to modify their demands to ONE-HALF the Cleveland scale and, from an EIGHTHOUR to a NINE-HOUR DAY. Following the strike, the miners kept up such a hot fight that the union officials were apparently afraid to attempt any more compromises until following the court martialing of “Mother” Jones, Brown, Boswell and other Socialists.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “The Betrayal of the West Virginia Red Necks” by Fred Merrick, Editor of Pittsburgh Justice, Part I” →

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Leads Parade of Tender Babes in Philadelphia; Speech Heartens Textile Strikers

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Mother Jones Quote ed, Suffer Little Children, CIR p10641, May 14, 1915—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday June 29, 1903
Mother Jones Speaks to Philadelphia Textile Strikers

From the Duluth Labor World of June 27, 1903:

TENDER BABES IN LARGE PARADE.
———-

BURNING DISGRACE OF PENNSYLVANIA
MANUFACTURERS.
———-

TEXTILE WORKERS FIRM FOR 55 HOURS.
———-
Mother Jones Makes Many Impassioned Speeches
and Heartens Her Hearers.
———-

Mother Jones Leads Child Workers in March to City Hall, Phl Iq p2, June 18, 1903

Philadelphia, June 26.- The events of the week here, in the textile strike, were the speeches of “Mother” Jones to crowds and the parade of the men, women and children who are heroically striving for a shorter work-day. In one day Mother Jones addressed three large meetings of textile workers, and she did much to put heart into the movement and cheer the men and women engaged in the struggle. Her impassioned addresses are just what these workers need. They hang on to her sentences, and one cannot listen to a group of strikers without hearing her terse sentences repeated.

To Strike is Honorable.

[She told them in one of her speeches:]

Americans are strikers by inheritance. The Pilgrim Fathers and the Colonists were strikers. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were the great strikers of their day, and you workingmen and women of Philadelphia need not be ashamed to strive and struggle for what is yours by right, and what must be won by you if you expect to be worthy of the inheritance handed down by your fathers.

[She continued:]

This is a city of “Brotherly Love,” indeed. There’s a whole lot of that here. Rather, it’s a city of brotherly thieves! Yes; I came here to hammer you, and I am going to do it. It serves you right that you are on strike today to get a reduction in your working hours. You elect the same old crowd year after year.

I sat in the Senate Chamber in Washington not long ago, and in one hour seven bills were passed conferring still greater powers on railroad corporations. Compare that incident with the action of some of your own representatives when the poor miners went to them to see if they couldn’t do something for the cause of labor. You should have seen the looks of cold disdain with which they were treated. They were told plainly that it was no use for them to come there and were advised strongly to go back to work.

While 147,000 miners were strike in Pennsylvania and 40,000 in West Virginia the last Congress went into the pocket of the American workingman and took $45,000-think of it, $45,000-to defray the expenses of a six weeks’ tour of a prince around the country, just because he was of royal blood! How greatly Senators Quay and Penrose and all the rest of them venerate royal blood! Fifty thousand dollars offhand for the entertainment of a prince, but not a single piece of legislation that would be likely to better the condition of the American workingman.

But it’s your own fault. Whenever you get tired of these things you’ll remedy them.

Mother Jones closed by advising the strikers to remain idle until their demands had been granted.

[She said:]

You need not fear starvation. They thought to starve the miners out, but they didn’t succeed. You are going to have plenty to eat, even if you are on strike.

Thomas Fleming, chairman of the executive committee, who, with several other strike leaders, accompanied Mother Jones to Frankford, in introducing her referred to her as “the old lady.”

Mother Jones, in reply, said:

I am not so old that I do not expect to live long enough to see you and your wives and children live as free men should, not as slaves.

Parade of Striking Children.

The parade of the strikers, Wednesday, was an object lesson that will long be remembered by those who saw it. There may have been 25,000 in line, but this was not so remarkable as was the sight of regiment after regiment of little children, some of them so small that they had to be provided with conveyances, for they could not otherwise have been in the procession. All kinds of vehicles had been tendered from the stylish coupe to the common express wagon. Many of the poor little tots were not old enough to realize what all the excitement was about. They were the living representatives of a system so cruel and merciless that future generations will wonder what sort of beasts employers were in the beginning of the twentieth century that they could for a single moment allow their machinery to be manipulated by the wan and immature flesh of what were not much better than suckling babes.

Banners That Mean Something.

The transparencies carried were plentiful and appropriate. Many touched on the question of shorter hours and of child labor. One elderly man staggered along with a banner reading:

Let God’s curses dwell with employers or parents who consign
little children to the living death of factory life.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Leads Parade of Tender Babes in Philadelphia; Speech Heartens Textile Strikers” →