Hellraisers Journal – Thursday June 9, 1904
Summary of Miners’ Strikes in Colorado and Utah for May 1904
From The Salt Lake Herald of May 06, 1904:
Mother Jones with Delegates at Utah State Convention of Western Federation of Miners
From the San Francisco Chronicle of May 1, 1904
Southern Coalfields of Colorado – Union Organizer Beaten, Not Expected to Live
The strike zone of the southern coalfields of Colorado continues to be a dangerous place for union organizers working for the United Mine Workers of America. Brother Wardjon was brutally assaulted there and was not expected to live. The San Francisco Chronicle reported on that assault and other news regarding the labor situation in Colorado:
ASSAULT ON A LABOR LEADER
———-
Mine Union Organizer Wardjon Beaten on Head
in Colorado So Severely That He May Die
———-
DENVER, (Col.). April 30.-W. M. Wardjon, national organizer of the United Mine Workers of America wasterribly beaten on the head and shoulders with revolvers by three unknown men at Sargent, Col., to-day and lies in a critical condition at the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad Hospital at Salida. Wardjon was traveling eastward from Crested Butte, where he had been organizing the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company’s miners, and was attacked in a car while the train was standing at Sargent.
He is suffering from concussion of the brain, and the hospital physicians say his recovery is doubtful.
In a lengthy brief filed before the Supreme Court to-day by Attorney E. F. Richardson in the habeas corpus case of Charles H. Moyer, president of the Western Federation of Miners, who is held as a military prisoner at Telluride, Governor James H. Peabody is declared to be a usurper. Governor Peabody is compared by Richardson to a soldier drunk with power, and his acts in trying to suppress the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus compared to the acts of tyranny practiced on the people of England by the olden kings.
Richardson, in his brief, attacks the decision of the Supreme Court of Idaho in a similar case, and says it is the only court in the country that has said that the military was above the judiciary. He says that the decision does not follow precedent or commonsense, and that the Judges of the Supreme Court of Colorado should not consider it when deciding the present case.
The Legislature alone, Richardson says , has the authority to determine when the conditions require the suspension of the privilege of habeas corpus and then to suspend it.
PUEBLO (Col.).-April 30.-Because Charles Demolli, a former organizer of the United Mine Workers, failed to appear to-day as complaining witness against Oreste Pagnini, charged with being the ringleader of a gang whichassaulted the Italian labor leader several weeks ago, the case was dismissed by Justice McCallip. Pagnini, however, will be held on a complaint sworn to by William Gearhard, charging him with assaulting Demolli with intent to kill. Demolli is in the coal fields of Kansas and is in communication with friends here.
INDIANAPOLIS (Ind.), April 30.-The Colorado situation was again taken up at to-day’s session of the national executive board of the United Mine Workers of America……
President Mitchell has telegraphed to “Mother” Jones, who is being held in quarantine near Price, Utah, directing her to report to him in person in this city as soon as possible. He says that there is no significance attached to this, and that the order was issued because the work in the district 15 at the present time is scarcely suitable for a women.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday June 5, 1914 Excerpts from “Class War in Colorado” by Max Eastman
From The Masses of June 1914:
CLASS WAR IN COLORADO
Max Eastman
[Illustrated by M. H. Pancoast, John Sloan, and Art Young]
“FOR EIGHT DAYS it was a reign of terror. Armed miners swarmed into the city like soldiers of a revolution. They tramped the streets with rifles, and the red handkerchiefs around their necks, singing their war-songs. The Mayor and the sheriff fled, and we simply cowered in our houses waiting No one was injured here-they policed the streets day and night. But destruction swept like a flame over the mines.” These are the words of a Catholic priest of Trinidad.
“But, father” I said, “where is it all going to end?”
He sat forward with a radiant smile.”War!” he answered. “Civil war between labor and capital!” His gesture was beatific.
“And the church-will the church do nothing to save us from this?”
“Yes, this is Colorado,” he said. “Colorado is ‘disgraced in the eyes of the nation’-but soon it will be the Nation!“
I have thought often of that opinion. And I have felt that soon it will, indeed, unless men of strength and understanding, seeing this fight is to be fought, determine it shall be fought by the principals with economic and political arms, and not by professional gunmen and detectives.
Many reproaches will fall on the heads of the Rockefeller interests for acts of tyranny, exploitation, and contempt of the labor laws of Colorado-acts which are only human at human’s worst. They have gone out to drive back their cattle with a lash. For them that is natural. But I think the cool collecting for this purpose of hundreds of degenerate adventurers in blood from all the slums and vice camps of the earth, arming them with high power rifles, explosive and soft-nosed bullets, and putting them beyond the law in uniforms of the national army, is not natural. It is not human. It is lower, because colder, than the blood-lust of the gunmen themselves.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday June 2, 1914
“The Class War in Colorado” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part I
From the International Socialist Review of June 1914:
THE CLASS WAR IN COLORADO
By Leslie H. Marcy
“SOCIETY AS A WHOLE IS MORE AND MORE SPLITTING UP INTO TWO
HOSTILE CAMPS, INTO TWO GREAT CLASSES DIRECTLY FACING EACH
OTHER: THE CAPITALIST CLASS AND THE WORKING CLASS.”
[Part I of II]
FOR thirty years an industrial warfare has been going on in Colorado between the coal miners and the coal owners. In fact, in every state and country where coal is mined we find an irrepressible conflict of interests. Temporary truces are signed from time to time in the way of contracts mostly CON so far as the men are concerned-and again, there is open warfare as witnessed recently in England, West Virginia and South Africa.
Time was when the coal miners of this country worked 16 hours a day, but, by combining their strength into unions they have cut the hours of their slavery to eight and improved their working conditions. No wonder that their battle cry is “The Union Forever”! No wonder that the Coal Barons cry out for the standing army to protect them when all else has failed!.
The Battle of Ludlow was inevitable. For seven months the southern coal fields of Colorado have been divided into two hostile camps: the Owners organized into the Operators Association; the Workers organized in unions of the United Mine Workers of America, with interests diametrically opposed.
The main issue is the right of the miners to organize. The Colorado Statutes are very clear on this subject and the miners have the legal right of way, but, the “law is a dead letter in the section of Colorado 100 miles square,” or wherever the Operators own the land.
On September 23, 1913, the union miners went on strike to enforce their constitutional rights: to organize; to work an 8-hour day, to semi-monthly pay, to have their own Check-weighman, to trade where they pleased,-ALL OF WHICH WERE DEAD LAWS. Each proposition related to a law that was being violated. The whole proposal simmered down to a single statement is this: “If you coal diggers will give up your union, the operators promise to obey the state laws which have been passed for your protection.”
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday May 31, 1914 Seattle, Washington – Labor’s Memorial Day Honors Martyrs; Mother Jones Speaks
A grand parade, sponsored by the Central Labor Council and the local Socialist Party, was held yesterday in Seattle to honor those who have died as martyrs in the cause of Labor. Mother Jones was the honored guest and the featured speaker at the mass meeting held at the corner of Third and Blanchard Street where the parade ended. She rode at the head of the parade in an automobile which was followed by a thousand coal miners who had been invited to Seattle for that purpose. Following the miners, came marching members of all the various trade unions of Seattle. Some estimates are that six to eight thousand unionists marched in the parade.
LABOR’S MEMORIAL DAY PARADE
From The Seattle Post-Intelligencer of May 31, 1914:
Their banners and emblems draped in mourning, and each wearing a tag bearing a picture of Mother Jones, noted labor leader, who was the guest of honor and speaker of the day, in their coat lapels, thousands of members of organized and unorganized labor turned out yesterday in a monster parade and mass meeting to memorialize their fellow workers who have died in fighting industrial battles. It was the first observance of its kind ever held in the United States, and the huge success which it met prompted those in charge of the project to stamp it an annual affair…
The appearance of Mother Jones, familiarly called “the most devout friend of labor,” was the feature of the program. The aged labor leader addressed two large open air meetings at Third Avenue and Blanchard…
[Emphasis added.]
From The Seattle Daily Times of May 31, 1914:
The central figure of the parade was “Mother” Mary Jones, the noted coal strike leader who was the orator of the day. She rode in an auto with six children and A. Hutcheson, secretary of the joint [trade union and Socialist] committee.. and was cheered early and often along the line.
[Emphasis added.]
Three floats, covered in flowers, lead the three sections of the parade. One was dedicated to the memory of the “The Children of Calumet,” another honored “The Women and Children of Ludlow,” and a third remembered “The Heroes of Labor Who Have Lost Their Lives in Industrial Battles.”
THE SPEECH OF MOTHER JONES
Mother delivered the main address of the day; her speech, in part:
During the Civil War the emancipation of the slaves in the South was brought in as one of the leading measures. Today there is another war-a great war with a bunch of high-class burglars and looters, and the measure of this conflict is the emancipation of the mine workers and the nationalization of the mines. Why should we permit a bunch of burglars to own the mines? Nature did not put that mineral in the bottom of the earth for them. It was put there for the use of the people.
She spoke of that terrible day at Ludlow, of the machine-gun fire which tore through the tents, of the women and children whose bodies were taken from the death pit:
This happened right here in America, not in Russia or in Mexico, but right here under the American flag.
The peculiar thing about it all is that the public in general has not been aroused to a very noticeable extent. It seems that the public has to be struck by a cyclone before it will come to the realization of the actual state of affairs.
While I was down in Washington not very long ago, a Congressman asked me if I told the mine workers to buy guns. I replied that I certainly had told my boys to arm themselves and to do it in a hurry. And I am still appealing to mine workers and other workers all over the United States to arm themselves and be prepared to protect their families and their property. I would not be a fit woman to live in America if I did not tell my boys to be men and not cowards.
Get together, is my message to labor. The worker who has a label on him is not true to the working class. I was a member of the old Knights of Labor, and went into the American Federation of Labor when the Knights disbanded, and I will live and die in the Federation for it represents 2,500,000 workers.
I have been a Socialist for more than twenty-nine years, but I am not one of those who believe that individual freedom is going to drop down from the clouds-while we sleep. The fight can be won, and will be won, but the struggle will be long and education, agitation and class solidarity all must play a part in it. I have no patience with those idealists and visionaries who preach fine spun theories and cry down everybody but themselves. Let us keep our feet on the ground.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday May 30, 1914 Spokane, Washington – Mother Jones Talks with Reporter While Waiting for Train
From The Seattle Star of May 29, 1914 -Mother Jones Speaks on Christians and Savages:
A MODERN HEROD, “MOTHER” JONES CALLS ROCKEFELLER ———- Aged Angel of Organized Labor, En Route to Seattle, Talks to Star Correspondent of Colorado War
By Staff Correspondent.
SPOKANE, May 29-Mother Jones talked with a reporter during a short stop here today, while she waited for her train to speed on toward Seattle, where she will take part in the Memorial Day labor parade and exercises.
With the horror of the Ludlow massacre of women and children by the hired gunmen of the mine owners still noticeable in its effect on her, she is hurrying coastward to tell the story of the modern butchery.
She wants the Northwest to know the awful details of that terrible day at Ludlow.
[Said Mother Jones:]
I wish I could stop in every city and hamlet on the Coast and throughout the West and tell the story of Ludlow as I know it. The world outside of Colorado still fails to realize the full extent of Colorado’s red history.
This charming old lady of 80 comes to the Northwest fresh from her imprisonment in Colorado for participation in the miners’ strike there.
She has written to John D. Rockefeller, jr., asking him to see her when she returns East, and let her tell him the grievances of his former employes.
She has dreamed a dream of acting as an unofficial mediator between Rockefeller and the strikers in Colorado.
[She said sadly:]
I’ll never hear at all from the young man. He hasn’t even a polite excuse for an old woman. I might have known, though, that the man who would permit his gunmen to shoot down women and boil babies in oil wouldn’t want to hear the miners’ side.
Likens Him to Herod.
But you see I’ve just come from Colorado-from the strike zone.
I have a photograph of the little boy [Frankie Snyder] whose head was shot off while he was getting a drink of water for his dying mother. I haven’t been able to get my mind off the horror of Ludlow.
I thought just for a minute that perhaps Rockefeller was not as bad as he has been painted. But I’ll never hear from him. I know it now. Why, a mother might just as well have written to Herod to ask him why he ordered the slaughter of the innocents! THAT’S ALL ROCKEFELLER IS-ANOTHER BUT CRUELER HEROD!
[Mother Jones continued, in the deep, booming voice that shows the astonishing triumph of an ageless spirit over age:
They’re all alike, those capitalists.
They’re All Savages.
They’re all Christians in China and savages in their own country.
The reason they all give so much money to foreign missions is because they wast to keep Christianity where it can’t do any harm-where it can’t interfered with BUSINESS. BUSINESS IS THEIR GOD! They all worship it.
I tell John D Rockefeller and all others like him that the men Christ scourged from the temple, the money-changers, were men LIKE HIM and MORGAN and CARNEGIE.
And I warn them that another scourging of the money-changers is close at hand!
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday May 28, 1914 New York, New York – Mother Jones Speaks at Dinner of Wealthy Society Women
From The New York Times of May 23, 1914:
Speaking before a dinner of wealthy women in New York City on the evening May 22nd, Mother Jones encouraged women to be woman-like rather than lady-like. She encouraged them to take to the streets and make their voices heard. When one of the women of the comfortable class whined that she could not make her voice heard without the vote, Mother Jones replied, “I have no vote, and I have raised hell all over this country.”
While we at Hellraisers disagree with Mother Jones on the issue of woman’s suffrage, we will point out that many of the woman of the Colorado mining camps also have no vote for either they are non-citizens, or if they do have the right to vote, then their vote is stolen by coal companies, as are the votes of their husbands and fathers-for, in the closed company towns, they vote under the supervision of the company guards. The lack of a vote has not stopped these women from raising hell. Perhaps, these wealthy woman have something to learn from their less fortunate sisters of the Colorado strike zone.
500 WOMEN CHEER FOR MOTHER JONES
———- Not a Man Allowed at Dinner Given for Agitator by Six of Her Admirers. ———-
SUFFRAGISTS GET A SHOCK ———- Guest Says Colorado Mine Owner Ascribed Control Over the Workers to the Women’s Votes. ———-
Mother Jones, the agitator, gave women some lights on suffrage at a dinner given for her at the Café Boherne, Second Avenue and Tenth Street, last evening. Not a man was allowed at the gathering.
Mother Jones spoke an hour and a half, and then read a few facts. She told the women they must stand for free speech in the streets, that it was their right, and they must have it.
“But how can we get it, mother? We haven’t the vote,” cried a voice from the audience.
“I have no vote,” answered Mother Jones cheerfully, “and I’ve raised hell all over this country.”
The entire roomful of women shrieked with glee. The dinner was arranged by six women-Katherine Leckle, Marie Jenney Howe, Edna Kenton, Fola La Follette, Rose Young, and Florence Woolston– and the number of guests was limited to 500. There were writers, artists, women of wealth, a a few suffrage leaders, and women interested in labor movements and philanthropy.
Mother Jones was kept quietly in a rear room while the diner was in progress to conserve her strength, but she showed no weight of her 82 years when she went into the big dining room and stood on a chair to speak. The women, standing, gave cheers of welcome. Mother Jones is fond of the frills and accessories of dress. She wore a figured bodice with the dark skirt of her gown. There were ruffles at the neck and wrists, little dingley ornaments at the latter and her white hair was arranged in the style that was known some years ago as a “French twist.” In front it had been cut in something of a bang and fluffed over her forehead. There were two little side combs and a glittering ornament was at the base of the twist.
Behind her gold-rimmed, gold-bowed glasses, Mother Jones’s blue eyes twinkled. She likes to talk, and she does not mind using what she calls classic language. Her talk was more or less of a rambling description of different strikes in which she had taken part, with sometimes thrilling and often amusing descriptions.
“There is going to be no speaking,” said Miss Leckle, who introduced her, “and only one talk by the biggest woman in the world. She loves every man, woman, and child in it, and we love her.”
Mother Jones started in, beginning with Rome, so it was not surprising that it took her nearly two hours to tell the women all about it. The remarks on suffrage were an interlude, and a surprise to many, and she said things about the Colorado women to which some of the guests took exception.
“Some one says I’m an anti-suffragist,” said Mother Jones. “Well, that’s a horrible crime. I’ll tell you something, girls.”
The women smiled at that nice little familiar word.
“I’m not an anti to anything that will bring freedom. But I’m going to be honest with you about those women in Colorado. There is no use in throwing bouquets. They have had the vote for nineteen years, and this is what someone who was present at a meeting of mine owners told me. One of the men proposed disenfranchising the women and another jumped to his feet and shouted.
“‘For God’s sake, what are you talking about. If it hadn’t been for the women, the miners would have beat us long ago.’”
There was a gasp of horror from the women in the room, and one woman asked if Mother Jones would not explain that statement.
“You see,” said Mother Jones, “the women got the vote without knowing anything about the civic conditions, but now they are waking up, and when the women in America wake up there will be something done. A woman in a comfortable home who is reading her books and amusing her children says to me:
“‘Why really, we didn’t know anything about these terrible conditions.’
“‘Well,’ I answered, ‘I was 1,800 miles away and I knew all about it.’
“I don’t believe in the rights of women or the rights of men, but human rights. No country can rise higher than its women, and I don’t have to see the mother to know what she is. I can tell when I see the man she has raised. And there are not as many good mothers as there should be.”
In telling the women to go on with their work Mother Jones said:
“Never mind if you are not lady like, you are woman-like. God Almighty made the woman and the Rockefeller gang of thieves made the ladies.”
Speaking of Mexico, she told of her acquaintance with Villa. “I went over to see Villa, and I was wishing to God that we had two or three Villas in this country.”
Mrs. Havelock Ellis was one of the women at the speakers’ table with Mrs. John F. Trow, Dr. Gertrude Kelley, and Miss Livinia Dock. Among others present were Mrs. Frank Cothren, Mess Elizabeth Dutcher, Mrs. Mary Ware Dennett, Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Mrs. Calvin Tomkins, Mrs. Robert Adamson, Maria Thompson Davies, Lou Rogers, Miss Knox, and Maude Malone.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday May 27, 1914 Washington, D. C. – Judge Lindsey and Women of Ludlow Visit the White House
From the Washington Evening Star of May 21, 1914:
LINDSEY HAS PLAN TO MEDIATE STRIKE ———- Discusses Colorado Situation With President Wilson This Afternoon. ———-
FAVORS KEEPING TROOPS IN THE TROUBLE DISTRICT ———- “Survivors of Ludlow Massacre” To Tell of Sufferings at National Rifles’ Armory Tonight. ———-
Rep. Keating, Judge Ben Lindsey, Rep. Kent, Mrs. Lindsey, Pearl Jolly, Mary Petrucci, Mary Thomas, Mrs. Lee Champion, Rachel and Olga Thomas
With a plan to mediate the Colorado coal fields strike, which he believes will be successful if fathered by the President,Judge Ben B. Lindsey, who came to Washington with a delegation of women and children refugees from Ludlow, called at the White House this afternoon by appointment.
Judge Lindsey stated he is emphatically in favor of keeping the troops in the strike district. He hopes the President will hear the stories of the women “survivors of the Ludlow massacre” who can tell him what they personally suffered during the battle and fire.
Judge Lindsey declares that the people of the country are guaranteed a republican form of government; that no such government exists in Colorado at this time, and that it is fully within the power of the President, backed by public sentiment, to force a settlement of the troubles.
Judge Lindsey urged the President to keep the federal troops in the coal strife region under all circumstances, asserting that if they are not retained there bloodshed will continue and that there will be nothing like law in all that region.
Suggests U. S. Close Mines.
Judge Lindsey declined to go into details as to what his plans are, but in a general way he hinted that public opinion would justify the President, under the guarantee of a republican form of government to all citizens, to close down the mines and practically assume charge of them by federal troops, compelling the mine owners and the striking miners to mediate their differences. He recalled the steps taken by President Roosevelt in the great Pennsylvania coal strike some year ago, and believes it within the power of the President to do almost anything he wants in Colorado.
“The President may not think he has power to settle the strike, but we think he has,” declared Judge Lindsey. “He has gigantic powers under the law and under the reign of public opinion.”
Judge Lindsey bitterly criticized Gov. Ammons, declared him incompetent, and hinted that Ammons and Rockefeller are in agreement as to how the fight should be resolved.
Judge Lindsey has asked an interview with John D. Rockefeller, jr. He didn’t know today whether Mr. Rockefeller would grant this interview, in which he will seek to have the New York millionaire accept some plan of medication, but he intended to try. He was asked if the party with him would also see Mr. Rockefeller.
“I do not know,” he answered, “but Mr. Rockefeller is no bigger than the President of the United States. Mr. Wilson has seen us-all of us-and I think Mr. Rockefeller can afford to do the same thing.”
Judge Lindsey persisted in his view that the President should bump the heads of both sides together and bring about a settlement.
From The Socialist and Labor Star, February 13, 1914
Mother Jones, the angel of the miners, who has given almost every day of her 82 years to the fight for improved industrial conditions for the workers in all forms of trade and in all parts of the country, last night [May 18th] appealed to an audience of several hundred at the Masonic Temple to aid the striking miners in Colorado and based her appeal on a graphic and forcefully told tale of conditions in the mining district as she herself had seen them and taken part in.
Clad in a plain black dress, with a touch of color only, down the front, at her waist and around the end of the sleeves, Mother Jones by her earnestness moved the large audience to applause when she bade defiance to John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil owners and the “invisible government” which she held responsible for the sufferings of “her boys” and the cruel sacrifice of “her babes” in the Ludlow tent colony disaster; held them tense and with breath caught, while she pictured the horrible deaths from smoke and fire of the women and children in that catastrophe; and moved them to laughter by her caustic epigrams about the “uniformed rats” and their superiors who she declares “oppress her boys.”
“If I were that fellow’s mother I’d disown him,” she declared of Governor Ammons (Democrat of Colorado) after telling how he and the members of the Senate had only smiled after hearing the tale of a miner who because he had refused to leave the postoffice in the mining camp without his mail, had been taken out by the militia and made to dig his own grave until, weakened by their taunts and cruelty, he fell unconscious into it.
[She declared, while the audience cheered:]
The Revolution was not fought because of taxation without representation. It was fought because of military despotism on the part of King George III. And when King George only sneered at the warning of Benjamin Franklin that unless the despotism stopped there would be a revolution, the answer our forefathers gave was Bunker Hill and Yorktown. Let John D. Rockefeller take care lest we have another Bunker Hill and Yorktown. He says he won’t recognize the union. King George said he would never recognize the union but he had to. And Mr. Rockefeller will have to, too.
Says Pen and Brain, Not War, Must Settle Industrial Troubles.
Colorado, she said, was the key to the present industrial war in this country and she made an earnest appeal for its right and proper solution.
It must not be settled by the sword but by the pen and brain and I stand here today appealing for your assistance in the fight. We want to bury the bayonet. We are appealing to the mothers of the race, for no nation is ever greater than its mothers; and no man is more humane than his mother. If there were not among the women so much talk of temperance and foreign missionaries, if we did missionary work at home and let other nations do theirs, these conditions of which I speak would have been changed long since. The women of Colorado have had the ballot twenty-one years and yet see the horrible happenings that they have permitted in their State. It is because they have busied themselves too much with social settlements and other such things that are given to the industrial class to satisfy them and not with the real things in life about them.
Theodore Roosevelt, she said, refused to see a group of miners’ children she had once brought down to Oyster Bay so he could see for himself their maimed hands and the other effects work in the mines had on them.
Roosevelt, like Ammons, refused to see these children; Roosevelt, whom you think, is next to God Almighty, refused to see them because they were mine workers and not mine owners’ children.
[Speaking of the Ludlow catastrophe, she asked:]
Was it fair, was it fair of Rockefeller to burn up my babes so he could enslave those men?Can’t we find some other way of settling the question? Has this nation reached that stage in its history when babes have to pay the penalty-when on the altar of greed, we place the helpless infant and roast it to death for more coin?
Hellraisers Journal – Friday May 22, 1914 Brooklyn, New York – Mother Jones Speaks at Labor Lyceum
From The Brooklyn Daily Eagle of May 18, 1914:
Mother Jones spoke May 17th at the Brooklyn Labor Lyceum. She spoke out about the rule of the Rockefellers in Colorado, and called for government ownership of the mines. She took a stand against Women’s Suffrage, a stand which Hellraisers does not support. However, we will point out that it was a Democratic Governor in Colorado, lickspittle for the Rockefeller interests, elected with the help of Colorado’s women voters (as well as the Labor Vote), who was ultimately in command of the Colorado National Guard at the time of the Ludlow Massacre. This was the same Governor who allowed for the reign of Military Despotism which kept Mother Jones locked up in the Military Bastille of Colorado, including the cold cellar cell in Walsenburg which had already claimed the life of a striking miner.
DEMAND GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OF MINES ———- Labor Men Stirred to High Pitch of Enthusiasm by Mother Jones. ———-
DENOUNCES ROCKEFELLERS. ———- Blames Colorado Conditions Upon Mine Owners -Resolutions to Be Sent To President Wilson. ———-
Declaring that if Christ came to New York he would be kicked out church by John D. Rockefeller, ordered arrested by Mayor Mitchell and thrown into jail; decrying the present system of Government and murders by the militia of Colorado and emphatically denouncing Women’s Suffrage. “Mother” Jones held an audience that filled the Brooklyn Labor Lyceum yesterday afternoon, while she related the hardships miners and their families have been forced to undergo in Colorado and elsewhere. The white haired speaker of four score and two years told how the militiamen set fired to a tent colony inhabited by miners and their families, and stood ready to shoot down those who tried to escape from the flames and smoke that wiped out a score or more of lives.
Throughout her address, “Mother” Jones was wildly cheered. Following her speech resolutions were adopted denouncing the Rockefellers, father and son, of Colorado for ordering the militia to the miners camps, and demanding that President Wilson confiscate the coal mines there and operate them in the interests of the people, until Congress enacts Legislation providing for a government ownership of the natural resources of the country. A copy of the resolutions will be forwarded to the President and to congress by the Central Labor Union of Brooklyn, under whose auspices yesterday’s meeting was held.
It was shortly before 4 o’clock when President Maurice De Young introduced “Mother” Jones. Clad in purple silk waist and a black skirt, with a little bonnet covering her snowy hair, she was in striking contrast to the fashionably dressed women who surrounded her. Pathos and humor mingled throughout her address of two hours and forty minutes. She showed remarkable vitality for a woman of her years. Almost immediately she set about to denounce the present system of government, John D. Rockefeller and John D. jr. She blamed these two men for the conditions in the coal mine regions. She mocked the Rockefeller interests in foreign missions, saying that they spent money to educate the Chinese, while their employees were not even paid sufficiently to support a church.
[She said, while the crowd laughed:]
They send Jesus to China because they are afraid to face Him in this country.
If Jesus Christ came to New York today and went to the church of Mr. Rockefeller and told him of the manner in which his men are killing innocent men, women and children in the West, Mr. Rockefeller would grab him by the back of the neck and throw him into the street; then Mayor Mitchel would have a squad of police arrest him and throw him in jail.
The women of many states are crying out for the ballot. What are they going to do with it when they get it? I want to tell you men to do all in your power to discourage such a thing. The states where the franchise has been granted, despotism, grafting, murdering and crookedness reign. In Colorado, where women have had the ballot for twenty-one years, conditions are worse than any other state in the union. While the gunmen, whom you people call soldiers, shot down the people of that state the women there asked that more murderers be sent to mow down more mothers and babies.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday May 15, 1914 Trinidad, Colorado – Former Residents of Ludlow Mourn as Rockefeller Sr. Plays Golf
While the former residents of the Ludlow Tent Colony, 1200 men, women and children, mourn their dead-including twelve children ages three months to eleven years-and suffer the loss of their homes and all of their earthly possessions, we are pleased to report that the Rockefeller Family had a nice quiet day at Pocantico yesterday, undisturbed by any reminders of the Ludlow Massacre carried out in their interests.
From the Lebanon Daily News of May 12, 1914:
QUIET DAY FOR ROCKEFELLERS ———- Neither Mother Jones
Nor Other Agitators
Visit Pocantico.
Tarrytown, N. Y., May 12-Although the grounds were still heavily guarded no agitators appeared at the Rockefeller estate at Pocantico Hills. Mother Jones was expected to come here to try to make an appeal to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., but she did not appear. It is reported she will come today, but it is doubtful if she will get in the grounds.
John D. Rockefeller, Sr,. played golf yesterday morning, but John D., Jr, was not seen during the day.
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