Category: Mother Mary Harris Jones

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for October 1919, Part I: Found with Steel Strikers in New York, West Virginia, & Pennsylvania

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones GSS American Liberty, Bff Eve Tx p4, Oct 3, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday November 20, 1919
Mother Jones News for October 1919, Part I
Found with Steel Strikers of New York, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania

From the New York Daily News of October 1, 1919:

GSS Mother Jones, WZF, NY Dly Ns p2, Oct 1, 1919

From the Buffalo Courier of October 4, 1919:

USES DISCRETION IN HER UTTERANCES
AT LACKAWANNA
—–
‘Mother’ Jones Heeds Warning and
Refrains From Fiery Words.
—–

COUNSELS STRIKERS TO BE CALM
—–
Companies Say More Men Are
Reporting For Work.
—–

“Mother” Jones’ visit to Lackawanna yesterday afternoon was the occasions for a display of the police and state constabulary which watched all her movements and never let her get out of their sight.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for October 1919, Part I: Found with Steel Strikers in New York, West Virginia, & Pennsylvania” →

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for October 1909, Part II: Reports Found of Mysterious Disappearance in San Antonio

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones Save Our Mexican Comrades, AtR p3, Feb 20, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday November 15, 1909
Mother Jones News Round-Up for October 1909, Part II:
-Reports Found of Mother’s Mysterious Disappearance in San Antonio, Texas

From The Buffalo Enquirer of October 18, 1909
-the following story was reported by newspapers from coast to coast:

SECRET SERVICE MEN ARE ACTIVE
—–

SOCIALISTS AND ANARCHISTS APPREHENDED IN
ADVANCE OF PRESIDENT TAFT’S ARRIVAL
-MOTHER JONES GONE.
—–

(By the American News.)

Mother Jones, Elkhart IN Dly Rv p2, Crpd, July 19, 1909

San Antonio, Oct. 18.-The failure of a half dozen or more Socialists in this city to show up at their homes and a search instituted by local newspaper men, revealed the fact that the Secret Service authorities had taken into custody quietly a number of Socialists and Anarchists just before the visit of President Taft to this city.

Mother Jones, the friend of the miners, who was in the city Sunday it has been learned to day, also mysteriously disappeared. Friends of Mother Jones assert that she too was taken into custody and her whereabouts kept secret until after the departure of President Taft.

Activity among Anarchists and Socialists in this vicinity is thought to have been the cause for the arrests.

———-

[Photograph added.]

From the Shenandoah (Pennsylvania) Evening Herald of October 21, 1909:

“Mother” Jones Heard From.

Charles Gildea, a national organizer of the United Mine Workers at Hazleton, has received a letter from “Mother” Jones, who took a prominent part in miners’ strikes here, that she intends to be at the meeting between President Taft, of the United States, and President Diaz, of Mexico, near El Paso, Texas. Whether she was among those present or not has not yet been learned, as the letter was posted before the time of the meeting.

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for October 1909, Part I: Found in Girard & Texarkana

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Poem for Mother Jones, SL Hld p4, Apr 25, 1904———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday November 14, 1909
Mother Jones News Round-Up for October 1909, Part I:
-Found in Girard, Kansas and Texarkana, Texas

From Pittsburg [Kansas] Daily Headlight of October 9, 1909:

Mr. Debs Entertains.

Mother Jones, Elkhart IN Dly Rv p2, Crpd, July 19, 1909

Eugene V. Debs entertained a few friends last evening [in Girard] at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Fred D. Warren, giving some of his fine readings, which were highly appreciated. The following named guests were present, others invited not being able to attend on account of the rain: G. H. Shoaf and daughters, Dr. J. T. Alexander, Mr. and Mrs. E. N. Richardson, Mr. and Mrs. L. J. Tubbs, Mrs. Josephone Kaneko [Josephine Conger-Kaneko], Miss Pearl Busby, Mrs. Helen Unterman, of Idaho, S. Barrett, J. S. Cassin, Mother Jones, Mrs. Molkey, Mrs. S. P. Nichols and children, Charles and Gladys, Mr. and Mrs. Geo. D. Brewer, J. E. Snyder, Mr. and Mrs. F. H. Fuller and son Floyd, Miss Maud Swan and Miss Margaret Simpson….

[Photograph added.]

From the Appeal to Reason of October 9, 1909:

AtR p3, SW Edition TX, Oct 9, 1909

[…..]

Mother Jones will be filling appointments in Texas before you read this unless she again fails us by being called to some strike center or to the rescue of some imprisoned comrade, and you will then have the opportunity of hearing this great soul. Comrades and locals are asked to write state headquarters and renew their calls for Mother.

———-

From The Shreveport Times of October 13, 1909:

[Mother Jones in Texarkana]

Mother Jones, the most beloved woman in the United States among laboring men, spent yesterday in Texarkana, leaving last night for Dallas and Fort Worth, from where she will go to Del Rio, In connection with the recent arrest and detention there of a number of Mexican political refugees. Mother Jones is not interested in the case of the refugees as it applies to the political matters involved, but is deeply concerned over the labor questions involved and from which it is said the real cause of their arrest sprang.

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Hellraisers Journal: “Closed Towns” by S. Adele Shaw for The Survey: Pittsburgh Steel District Contrasted with Ohio

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Strikes are not peace Clv UMWC p537, Sept 16, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday November 13, 1919
Intimidation in Pittsburg Steel District Contrasted with Ohio

From The Survey of November 8, 1919:

Closed Towns

Intimidation as It is Practised in the Pittsburgh
Steel District:—the Contrast in Ohio

By S. Adele Shaw

[Parts III-V of V]

GSS, Mother Jones, WZF, Organizers, Survey p64, Nov 8, 1919

III

THIS interlocking of mill and town officials explains not only the ease with which normal civil rights have been shelved, but the ease with which, under the guise of law enforcement, deputies and troopers get away with reckless action in the streets and alleys, and with which the petty courts turn trumped-up grounds for the arrest of labor organizers and strikers into denials of justice.

In Allegheny county Sheriff Haddock had, according to his own statement on October first, deputized 300 men for service under control of his central office and 5,000 mill deputies. Newspapers placed the figure early in the strike at 10,000. The mill police who in ordinary times are sworn in under the state provision for coal and iron police for duty in the mills only, are, since the strike, sworn in by the sheriff at the request of the companies. They have power to act anywhere in the county. They are under the direction of the mill authorities. Companies are required to file a bond of $2,000 for each man so deputized and are responsible for his actions.

It is the state constabulary, however, who have set the pace for the work of intimidation in the mill towns of Allegheny county. Responsibility for calling them in is difficult to fix. Since last February squads had been stationed at Dravosburg within easy reach of the steel towns; and the Saturday before the strike patrols were brought down into them. The sheriff denies that he called on the state for the troopers. The burgess of Braddock and the chiefs of police in Homestead and Munhall professed ignorance of the responsibility for their coming.

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Hellraisers Journal: “Closed Towns” by S. Adele Shaw for The Survey: Intimidation in Pittsburgh Steel District

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Strikes are not peace Clv UMWC p537, Sept 16, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday November 12, 1919
Intimidation as Practiced in the Pittsburgh Steel District

From The Survey of November 8, 1919:

GSS Arrests at Homestead, Survey p58, Nov 8, 1919

Closed Towns

Intimidation as It is Practised in the Pittsburgh
Steel District:—the Contrast in Ohio

By S. Adele Shaw

[Miss Shaw spent the first two weeks of the strike in the Pittsburgh district for the SURVEY, and then crossed from Pennsylvania to the steel centers of Ohio, where civil liberties are preserved in the midst of the industrial conflict. A native of Pittsburgh, member of the staff of the Pittsburgh Survey, Miss Shaw brings experience as a social worker and as a journalist to her task of interpretation. The first draft of her article was submitted for criticism to public officials, strike leaders and mill executives. Facts were then checked up and incidents carried to their sources, and her narrative can be depended upon as the findings of a trained observer.—EDITOR.]

[Parts I-II of V]

I ARRIVED in Pittsburgh the evening of the third day of the steel strike [September 24th]. Through a gate to one side of me, as I stood in the Union Station, a line of foreigners perhaps twenty-five in number, Slavs and Poles, dressed in their dark “best” clothes, with mustaches brushed, their faces shining, passed to the New York emigrant train. Each man carried a large new leather suitcase, or occasionally the painted tin suitcase—a veritable trunk—appeared in the line. And there, not quite concealed by its wrapping, was the unmistakable portrait which one could picture in its setting over the mantle in the boarding-house just left. Men and baggage were leaving, as every night they leave from that station on that same train for New York and the “old country.”

Scarcely had the gate closed on the emigrant workers when a guard threw open an entrance gate through which marched, erect and brisk, a squad of state constabulary “Cossacks” they are called in the mill towns. Young men they were in perfect training—men with great projection of jaw developed, it almost seemed, to hold the black leather straps of their helmets firmly in place.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “Closed Towns” by S. Adele Shaw for The Survey: Intimidation in Pittsburgh Steel District” →

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones, William Z. Foster and Speakers for Pittsburgh District of Great Steel Strike

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones GSS American Liberty, Bff Eve Tx p4, Oct 3, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday November 10, 1919
Pittsburgh District Organizers of Great Steel Strike with Mother Jones

From The Survey of November 8, 1919:

Mother Jones and William Z. Foster with Steel Strike Speakers

GSS, Mother Jones, WZF, Organizers, Survey p64, Nov 8, 1919

Close-Up of Mother Jones and William Z. Foster:

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for September 1919, Part III: Found Wherever a Good Fight For Freedom Is Going On

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Home Good Fight Going On, Ptt Prs p17, Sept 24, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday October 31, 1919
Mother Jones News for September 1919, Part III
Her Home? “Wherever there is a good fight for freedom going on.”

From The Pittsburgh Post of September 24, 1919:

Mother Jones, crpd, Chg Tb p120, Oct 26, 1919

‘Mother’ Jones Heard
in Labor Trial
—–

“Mother” Jones, aged organizer for the United Mine Workers, appearing yesterday as a witness before Judge Richard H. Kennedy, gave her address as “wherever there is a good fight for freedom going on.”

She testified in the hearing of a large number of appeals from fines imposed by Mayor James S. Crawford in connection with a meeting held in Duquesne last September 7.

After leaving the stand “Mother” Jones declared that had been her first experience as a witness in “a regular court trial.” She was one of the organizers arrested, but was not fined. That was the first time, she said, that she had been placed behind bars, although she had been arrested more than once.

———-

[Photograph added.]

From The Pittsburgh Press of September 24, 1919:

“MOTHER” JONES FREED FOR LABOR ACTIVITY.
—–

“Mother” Jones was freed today following her arrest in the steel mill districts Sept. 7. She came before Judge Kennedy and was permitted to go without a fine.

“What is your age?” queried the court.

“Ninety on the first day of next May.”

“Where is your home?”

“Wherever there is a good fight for freedom going on,” replied the old lady, vigorously.

“You may go.”

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for September 1919, Part III: Found Wherever a Good Fight For Freedom Is Going On” →

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for September 1919, Part II: Found in Cleveland Addressing Mine Workers’ Convention

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Strikes are not peace Clv UMWC p537, Sept 16, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday October 30, 1919
Mother Jones News for September 1919, Part II
Cleveland, Ohio – Mother Speaks at Convention of United Mine Workers 

From the New York Tribune of September 17, 1919:

Mine Workers Urged To Aid Steel Strike
—–
Appeals Made to Convention by Fitzpatrick
and “Mother” Jones, Who Oppose Delay

Mother Jones Crpd Women in Industry, Eve Ns Hburg PA p2, Jan 6, 1919

CLEVELAND, Sept. 16.-John Fitzpatrick, chairman of the national committee for organizing the iron and steel workers, and “Mother” Jones, the aged mine worker representative, appealed to-day to the convention of the United Mine Workers of America to support the steel workers in the projected steel strike. “Mother” Jones argued openly against any postponement, telling the miners to pay no attention to contrary reports, because the strike would come off as arranged next Monday. Rescinding of the strike call, she declared, would wreck the confidence of the steel workers in their organization.

Fitzpatrick refrained from mentioning the question of possible postponement, except indirectly, in his speech, but in conversations with delegates he declared himself firmly opposed to postponement of the walkout beyond Monday as weakening the chances of success.

———-

[Photograph added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for September 1919, Part II: Found in Cleveland Addressing Mine Workers’ Convention” →

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for September 1919, Part I: Arrested for Organizing Steel Workers at Duquesne, Pennsylvania

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Kaiser n Steel Barons, Clairton PA Aug 10, Ptt KS Wkrs Chc p5, Sept 5, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal –Wednesday October 29, 1919
Mother Jones News for September 1919, Part I
Duquesne, Pennsylvania – Mother Jones Arrested for Organizing Steel Workers

From the New York Sun of September 8, 1919:

RAID ENDS MEETING OF STEEL WORKERS
—–
Mother Jones and Other Organizers
Seized in Duquesne.
—–

Special Dispatch to THE SUN.

PITTSBURG, Sept. 7.-Duquesne was the scene of much excitement on the part of the police and union organizers this afternoon when Police Chief Thomas Flynn and a squad of patrolmen appeared at an open air meeting at Linden and River avenues, where more than 1,000 steel workers had assembled, and arrested four labor organizers, including “Mother” Jones, the veteran organizer, and forty steel workers. The organizers were charged with holding a public meeting without a permit and the workmen were charged with illegal congregating. After staying in the Duquesne police station four hours they were released on forfeits for a hearing to-morrow.

Mother Jones n WZF Couple of Reds, Chg Tb p120, Oct 26, 1919
Mother Jones with William Z. Foster

The organizers arrested besides “Mother” Jones were William Z. Foster, secretary of the national committee for organizing iron and steel workers; J. L. Beaghen, president of the Pittsburg Bricklayers Union, and an American Federation of Labor organizer, and J. M. Patterson, vice-president of the Brotherhood of Railway Car Men.

The organizers said the meeting was being held on a vacant lot, the owner of which had given permission.

———-

[Photograph added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for September 1919, Part I: Arrested for Organizing Steel Workers at Duquesne, Pennsylvania” →

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks to Steel Strikers at Gary, Indiana: “Fight for Righteousness and Justice on Earth.”

Janet RayeFannie Sellins
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Quote Mother Jones, Raise Hell in Jail, Gary IN Oct 23, NYT p2, Oct 24, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday October 25, 1919
Gary, Indiana – Mother Jones: “Fight for Righteousness and Justice on Earth”

Mother Jones at Gary, Indiana, October 23, 1919:

Christ himself would agitate against [the Steel Barons]. He would agitate against the plutocrats and hypocrites who tell the workers to go down on their knees and get right with God. Christ, the carpenter’s son, would tell them to stand up on their feet and fight for righteousness and justice on the earth.

[Emphasis added.]

From The New York Times of October 24, 1919:
-The kept press is suddenly concerning itself with strike violence. Not a word, have they, of course, for the strikers and organizers (including Mrs. Fannie Sellins) slaughtered thus far, before and during the strike. But should the strikers decide to get off their knees and stand up and fight for their lives, well, that’s another matter altogether.

MOTHER JONES URGES STRIKERS TO VIOLENCE
—–
Col. Mapes Says Situation in Gary Is Serious
and Orders Troops to Shoot Rioters.
—–

Special to The New York Times.

CHICAGO, Oct. 23.-Making the first public appeal for violence since the steal strike started in the Calumet region and declaring herself a Bolshevik, Mother Jones stirred to enthusiasm some twelve hundred strikers and their wives in Turner Hall, Gary, Ind., today following the refusal of the authorities to permit her to speak in East Side Park.

GSS Mother Jones w WZF, NY Dly p2, Oct 1, 1919
Mother Jones with William Z. Foster -from New York Daily News of October 1, 1919

[Said Mother Jones, who was cheered for five minutes:]

So this is Gary. Well, we’re going to change the name and we’re going to take over the steal works and were going to run them for Uncle Sam. It’s the damned gang of robbers and their political thieves that will start the American revolution and it won’t stop until every last one of them is gone.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks to Steel Strikers at Gary, Indiana: “Fight for Righteousness and Justice on Earth.”” →