Category: Mother Mary Harris Jones

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for January 1901, Part II: Found Speaking at Convention of United Mine Workers of America

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Love Each Other, UMWC Ipl IN, Jan 25, 1901———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday February 12, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for January 1901, Part II
Found Speaking in Indianapolis at Mine Workers’ Convention

From The Indianapolis Journal of January 26, 1901:

“Mother” Jones Heard

Mother Jones, at Her Lecture Stand, Detail, Phl Iq p1, Sept 24, 1900At the opening of the afternoon session [January 25th, United Mine Workers Convention], Henry J. Skifington [Skeffington], of the Boot and Shoe Makers’ Union, addressed the convention and urged the delegates to buy none but union made shoes. Following his address, “Mother” Jones spoke. The work of Mrs. Jones among the miners is known to every miner in the country and her appearance was the signal for loud and prolonged applause. She addressed the delegates as “fellow-toilers.” She said the miners had wisely chosen the month of January for holding their convention, as it is the intermediate month between the closing of the year and the opening of spring. It was appropriate, she said, to use this opportunity to look behind and to the front.

The review of experiences of the past should be applied to preparations for the future, and the work of the miners should not be entirely for the present, but foundation should be laid for coming generations. Her pointed and witty expressions caused many outbursts of laughter and her ability to appeal to the deeper feelings was equally as effective with the delegates. When “Mother” Jones wished to say something she said it and spared none, but even members of the organization to whom she said: “if the shoe fits you must wear it.” Mrs. Jones is a Socialist and an ardent admirer of Eugene V. Debs, and she could not refrain from paying a tribute to both.

PATRICK DOLAN’S REMARKS.

At the close of her speech Patrick Dolan, of Pennsylvania, sought the floor to take objections to what Mrs. Jones had said about Debs. He said while he had the highest respect for “Mother” Jones, he did not think Debs was the only man who ever did anything for labor. So slow was he in making his point that many delegates arose to a point of order and tried to have him seated, but President Mitchell was lenient and gave him further time to express himself. The convention became noisy in an attempt to force him to his seat, but it was some time before it could be accomplished……

By vote an invitation was extended to Eugene V. Debs to address the miners while in session here, and it was later announced he will speak Monday afternoon.

———-

[Photograph, emphasis and paragraph break added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for January 1901, Part I: Found Visiting Philadelphia and at Mine Workers’ Convention in Indianapolis

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote re Mother Jones, None too low or high, Ipl Jr p3, Jan 21, 1901———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday February 11, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for January 1901, Part I
Found in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Indianapolis, Indiana

From the Wilkes-Barre Weekly Union Leader of January 11, 1901:

What Mother Jones Has to Say
Regarding the Conditions.

Mother Jones, at Her Lecture Stand, Detail, Phl Iq p1, Sept 24, 1900

“Mother” Jones, of coal strike fame, dropped into Philadelphia Monday night and hunted up a few congenial spirits at the Trades Assembly Hall, 931 Callowhill street, says the Philadelphia Times. She is on her way to West Virginia, where she will report to President W. C. Stephenson, of the West Virginia United Mine Workers, for organization work.

The miners of the Mountain State are to be organized during January and February, and the national organization is lending the state organization all possible assistance. The miners along the Kanawha and New rivers are to be unionized first, Mrs. Jones said, after which the organizers will go into the Fairmount district. In regard to conditions in the anthracite field of Pennsylvania Mrs. Jones said:

The miners in the anthracite region are now well satisfied and everything is going along smoothly. The semi-monthly pay law is being gradually put into effect, and other conditions are being rectified. The miners are all joining the unions and new locals are being formed all through the region.

The girls employed in the silk mill at Freeland are still on strike and have formed a union. They are determined to win. At Carbondale and Wilkes-Barre the silk mill operatives are also on strike, and sent for me in both places. I did what I could do to help them, but was not successful. In Wilkes-Barre they struck because the boss demanded that they give up their union cards to him, which they refused to do.

———-

[Photograph added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: “Mother Jones on Deck” -Speaks on Behalf of Striking Miners of Greensburg, Pennsylvania

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Hell, Greensburg PA Jan 14, AtR p2, Jan 28, 1911———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday February 1, 1911
Greensburg, Pennsylvania – Mother Jones Speaks for Striking Miners

From the Appeal to Reason of January 28, 1911:

Mother Jones on Deck
———-

Mother Jones, WDC Tx p5, June 18, 1910

The papers of Greensburg, Pa., are filled with accounts of the great speech delivered there by Mother Jones in behalf of the striking miners on January 14th. Mother Jones appears to have been in perfect form and to have electrified the audience of three thousand people assembled to hear her. Below will be found brief extracts:

Thrusting aside hands proffering assistance, Mother Jones mounted the speakers table. Holding up her hands for silence, when the wave of applause swept over the audience, she burst out into a fierce invective against the business men of Greensburg. With her expressive hands gesticulating, she said;

“They are so full of greed that they won’t take a day off to find out what is the matter. The business men furnish the scabs with Armour’s rotten beer and swill whiskey. Then they blame disorder on the miners. It’s the changing order of economics. The small business man is put to the wall and he scratches his head and wonders what the hell is the matter.”

Turning around in partial apology to Rev. Mr. Schultz. she said:

“You ministers think you are the only ones who can talk about hell. I live in hell and I have a right to talk about it.”

Assuring them that she did not get into the labor movement yesterday, she said:

“The class who owns the industries, owns the governments, the newspapers and all.”

Turning to Mr. McGinley, Mother Jones spit out:

“You may like the constabulary, but I don’t-no true American would belong to the constabulary.”

Then in a bitter tirade against the state police she said:

“Their little gray cap covers the outside of their skull, buy they have nothing inside.”

Constantly throughout her invective, the state police were referred to as “dogs of war” and “bloodhounds.”

Notwithstanding the radical speech of Mother Jones and her unmerciful flaying of the coal company and its hirelings and lackeys the papers treated her with great regard. The following description of her as a she took her place upon the platform is interesting:

With firm tread, keen old eyes peering out at the crowds from behind spectacles set determinedly on her nose, Mother Jones advanced through the crowds and took her place at the speakers table. A modest bonnet covered her wealth of soft gray hair, soft laces appeared at her throat and wrists, and her strangely youthful face broke into smiles and her eyes twinkled in a roguish Irish way as she acknowledge greetings.

The seventy-seven years of Mother Jones sit lightly upon her venerable features. She is just as active and quite as revolutionary as at any time in her life. If only the great mass who are in their prime were imbued with her spirit and nervous energy what a great change there would be in this world. There would be no question about the social revolution in our time. We are glad this great effort of Mother Jones was made in behalf of the miners and earnestly hope they will stand solidly together to the end. If they do this they are sure to win and they certainly ought to win, for never was there a strike more justified than this, nor more deserving of the support of the working class and those who sympathize with it.

———-

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks at Convention of United Mine Workers: We must learn to bear each other’s burdens.

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Love Each Other, UMWC Ipl IN, Jan 25, 1901 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday January 29, 1901
Indianapolis, Indiana – Mother Jones Speaks to Miners, Part II

January 25, 1901-Convention of United Mine Workers of America:

Mother Jones, at Her Lecture Stand, Detail, Phl Iq p1, Sept 24, 1900In New York they are going to give a charity ball. I suppose it is a kind of restitution to the people they have been robbing for years. They will spend thousands and thousands of dollars for decorating their old carcasses, and they go into a hall and admire one another; and if we were to sit up in the gallery and venture to look at them they would wonder what such a lot of Wops wanted in the world anyhow. Then some smart newspaper man will take his gilt pen and sit down and write of the beautiful Mr. So and So who was there, and of the beautiful Mrs. So and So who was there, and how they were dressed, and how splendid it all was.

Splendid! Yes, my friends, but they are dancing on the minds and hearts of the men and women they have robbed, dancing on the hearts of the little children who are working in their factories and of the boys and girls working everywhere.

In Freeland [Pennsylvania] I held a meeting for the boys and girls from the silk mills. They were on a strike and one morning they tried to keep the scab children from working. The children went into the factory to work, and the poor little outside ones entered a protest and called them “Blackleg,” and “scab,” and a burly policeman took one girl by the hair of the head and dragged her to the police station and she was put under three hundred dollars bond. The bond was furnished and they took her home, but the fright and ill treatment had made her ill, and she had three hemorrhages of the lungs. There was not a dollar in the house to get food or medicine or a doctor for her. Think of that.

When the children stood on the platform of a hall we had hired for them to expose the corporations one little boy of twelve came to the front and told us that he worked thirteen hours at night, that they paid him one cent an hour; but that these same people had gone to the church and put in a magnificent stained glass window in it. Did you ever hear a minister say one word about the condition of these children? We did not find one minister to defend these children.

In the Scriptures they can see where the Master said, “Suffer little children to come unto me.” My friends, I believe we should clasp our hands and come out together in defense of these little children. I can see an appeal in their eyes which seems to ask what they have done that they should be battered and knocked about as they are. There are children under age in those factories.

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks at Convention of United Mine Workers: “You have traveled over stormy paths.”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Stormy Paths, UMWC Ipl IN, Jan 25, 1901 ———–

Hellraisers Journal – Monday January 28, 1901
Indianapolis, Indiana – Mother Jones Speaks to Miners, Part I

January 25, 1901-Convention of United Mine Workers of America:

Mother Jones, at Her Lecture Stand, Detail, Phl Iq p1, Sept 24, 1900

President Mitchell: Ladies and gentlemen: There are few persons in the Industrial movement who have impressed themselves upon the toilers as has the one who will address you this afternoon. During the long years of struggle in which the miners engaged they have had no more staunch supporter, no more able defender than the one we all love to call Mother. I don’t believe there is a Mine Worker from one end of the country to the other who does not know her name. It gives me great pleasure to pre- sent to you this afternoon Mother Jones.

Mrs. Mary Jones: Fellow toilers, it seems strange that you should have selected the month of January for your conventions. It has a lesson by which you may well profit, and no craft needs more to profit by that lesson than the miners. The month of January represents two seasons, a part of the dead winter and a part of the beautiful coming spring. I realize as well as you do that you have traveled over stormy paths, that you have rubbed up against the conflict of the age, but I am here to say that you have come out victorious, and in the future you will stand as the grand banner organization. My brothers, we are entering on a new age. We are confronted by conditions such as the world perhaps has never met before in her history.

We have in the last century solved one great problem that has confronted the ages in the mighty past. It had ever been the riddle of the people of the world. The problem of production has been solved for the human race; the problem of this country will lie with the workers to solve, that great and mighty and important problem, the problem of possession. You have in your wisdom, in your quiet way, with a little uprising here and a little uprising there solved the problem of the age. You have done your work magnificently and well; but we have before us yet the grandest and greatest work of civilization.

We have before us the emancipation of the children of this nation. In the days gone by we found the parents filled with love and affection. As the mother looked upon her new-born boy, as she pressed him to her bosom, she thought, “Some day, he will be the man of this nation; some day I shall sacrifice myself for the education, the developing of his brain, the bringing out of his grander, nobler qualities. But, oh, my brothers, that is past, that has been killed! Today, my friends, we look into the eyes of the child of the Proletariat as it enters into the conflict of this life, and we see the eyes of the poor, helpless little creature appealing to those who have inhabited the world before it. Now when the father comes home the first question he asks is “Mary, is it a boy or a girl?” When she answers, “It is a boy, John,” he says, “Well, thank God! he will soon be able to go to the breakers and help earn a living with me.” If it is a girl there is no loving kiss, no caress for her for she cannot be put to the breakers to satisfy capitalistic greed.

But my friends, the capitalistic class has met you face to face today to take the girls as well as the boys out of the cradle. Wherever you are in mighty numbers they have brought their factories to take your daughters and slaughter them on the altar of capitalistic greed. They have built their mines and breakers to take your boys out of the cradle; they have built their factories to take your girls; they have built on the bleeding, quivering hearts of yourselves and your children their palaces. They have built their magnificent yachts and palaces; they have brought the sea from mid-ocean up to their homes where they can take their baths—and they don’t give you a chance to go to the muddy Missouri and take a bath in it.

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Hellraisers Journal: “The One We All Love to Call Mother” Speaks at Convention of United Mine Workers of America

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote John Mitchell, re Mother Jones, UMWC PM Session, Jan 25, 1901———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday January 27, 1901
Indianapolis, Indiana – Mother Jones Speaks at Mine Workers’ Convention

From The Indianapolis Journal of January 26, 1901:

“Mother” Jones Heard

[U. M. W. of A. Convention, January 25th]

Mother Jones, at Her Lecture Stand, Detail, Phl Iq p1, Sept 24, 1900At the opening of the afternoon session Henry J. Skifington [Skeffington], of the Boot and Shoe Makers’ Union, addressed the convention and urged the delegates to buy none but union made shoes. Following his address, “Mother” Jones spoke. The work of Mrs. Jones among the miners is known to every miner in the country and her appearance was the signal for loud and prolonged applause. She addressed the delegates as “fellow-toilers.” She said the miners had wisely chosen the month of January for holding their convention, as it is the intermediate month between the closing of the year and the opening of spring. It was appropriate, she said, to use this opportunity to look behind and to the front.

The review of experiences of the past should be applied to preparations for the future, and the work of the miners should not be entirely for the present, but foundation should be laid for coming generations. Her pointed and witty expressions caused many outbursts of laughter and her ability to appeal to the deeper feelings was equally as effective with the delegates. When “Mother” Jones wished to say something she said it and spared none, but even members of the organization to whom she said: “if the shoe fits you must wear it.” Mrs. Jones is a Socialist and an ardent admirer of Eugene V. Debs, and she could not refrain from paying a tribute to both.

PATRICK DOLAN’S REMARKS.

At the close of her speech Patrick Dolan, of Pennsylvania, sought the floor to take objections to what Mrs. Jones had said about Debs. He said while he had the highest respect for “Mother” Jones, he did not think Debs was the only man who ever did anything for labor. So slow was he in making his point that many delegates arose to a point of order and tried to have him seated, but President Mitchell was lenient and gave him further time to express himself. The convention became noisy in an attempt to force him to his seat, but it was some time before it could be accomplished……

By vote an invitation was extended to Eugene V. Debs to address the miners while in session here, and it was later announced he will speak Monday afternoon.

———-

[Photograph, emphasis and paragraph break added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks at Convention of United Mine Workers of America, Held at Columbus, Ohio

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Grow Big Great Mighty Show CFnI, UMWC p269 Jan 21, 1911———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday January 23, 1911
Columbus, Ohio – Mother Jones Speaks at Miners’ Convention

From the Washington Sunday Star of January 22, 1911:

LIE IS PASSED FREELY AT MINERS’ CONVENTION
—–
“Mother Jones” Makes Address Calling
Supreme Court Judges Real Anarchists.
———

Mother Jones crpd ed, WDC Tx p5, June 18, 1910

COLUMBUS, Ohio, January 21.-Control of the United Mine Workers’ convention came to a severe test in the contest for the seating of delegates from nine locals of district No. 2 of central Pennsylvania. Charges of falsehoods were made freely by each side and the convention finally adjourned to continue the fight Monday.

Expected contests over the seating of President Francis Feehan of the Pittsburg district did not materialize and he was seated without final objection.

“Mother” Jones spoke before the convention. She classes members of the United States Supreme Court and Gov. Harmon of Ohio among “the real anarchists of the country.”

[…..]

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Without Husband or Children, Mother Jones Chooses as Her Family the Toilers from Coast to Coast

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Husband Children, WDC Tx p5, June 18, 1910

———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday January 22, 1911
Columbus, Ohio – Mother of the Toilers Speaks to Miners’ Convention

From Ohio’s Marion Daily Mirror of January 21, 1911:

Talks to Miners.

Mother Jones, ed Cameron Co PA Prs p1, Apr 7, 1910

Columbus, O., Jan. 21.-“Mother” Jones, whose name and fame is known throughout the country as the friend of laborers, addressed the miners’ convention [United Mine Workers of America] this morning and was given a rousing ovation when she appeared on the stage. “Mother” Jones claims the United States as her only home and registers on the hotel registers accordingly. She is 67 years old, and her hair is as white as snow. Without husband or children, she has chosen as her family the thousands of toilers from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

———-

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for December 1910: Found Standing with Striking Miners and Their Families in Pennsylvania

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote Mother Jones, Greensburg PA Cmas 1910, Steel 2, p83———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday January 15, 1911
Mother Jones News Round-Up for December 1910:
–Praised by Max Hayes and Eugene Debs for Work in Pennsylvania

From the International Socialist Review of December 1910:

THE WORLD OF LABOR 

BY MAX S. HAYES.

[…..]

Mother Jones, Latest Picture, Ft Wayne Dly Ns p9, Apr 9, 1910

MOTHER JONES has been busying herself during the past few weeks in trying to bring cheer and comfort to the poor miners in the Irwin-Greensburg soft coal district of Pennsylvania [Westmoreland County], and assisting those unfortunate victims of one of the most heartless lockouts in American industrial history (as has been shown in THE REVIEW) to gain a semblance of humane working and living conditions. Mother is never so happy as when helping “the boys” in the mining fields, and, as every officer and member of the U. M. W. knows, she has gone into districts in Colorado, Alabama, West Virginia and other places where many of the bravest of men have feared to tread. She has faced injunction judges, served time in jail, lived on bread and water and has undergone a thousand hardships where others have hesitated or flunked, and never a word of complaint as to her own sufferings escape her lips. In fact she is as jolly and happy-go-lucky as a girl of sixteen and always refers to her direful experiences as humorous escapades.

Mother Jones only grows sorrowful and indignant when she discusses the fool factionalism among the miners and the sufferings endured by “the boys” and their wives and children, whom she knows and loves and for whom she has done organizing work in past campaigns. She has little patience with the penny-ante politics of this or that alleged leader who aspires for place or power, and when in a reminiscent mood she can relate some wonderful stories.

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Addresses Congress of Pan-American Federation of Labor at Mexico City

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones PAFL Congress, p72, Jan 13, 1921———-

Hellraisers  Journal – Friday January 14, 1921
Mexico City – Mother Jones Speaks at Pan-American Labor Congress

From the Washington Evening Star of January 13, 1921:

LABOR CONGRESS HEARS TALK
BY ‘MOTHER’ JONES
———-
Thirty More Questions Likely to Be
Brought Up in Mexico City.

By the Associated Press.

Mother Jones, NYC Dly Ns p12, May 7, 1920

MEXICO CITY, January  13.-Delegates to the Congress of the Pan-American Federation of Labor, in session here, listened today to an address by “Mother” Jones, the radical labor leader, who arrived here last week from the United States. She has been a regular attendant at sessions of the congress, although not a delegate, and yesterday was granted special permission to appear this morning before the federation.

The resolutions committee was busily engaged yesterday receiving motions to be brought before the congress, and when the committee adjourned, John P. Frey, its chairman, announced that a score of resolutions dealing with pan-American activity had been received and that the recommendations contained in the report of the executive committee would provide thirty more questions to be brought before the congress for final disposition.

The congress proper enjoyed a virtual holiday yesterday, the day’s session lasting only thirty minutes.

———-

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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