Category: Mother Mary Harris Jones

Hellraisers Journal: Mrs. Gertrude Lee, Chairman of Democratic State Committee of Colorado, Will Not Help Free Mother Jones from Military Confinement

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Quote Mother Jones, Chase No Own State, RMN p3, Jan 12, 1914—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday January 30, 1914
Sterling, Colorado – Mrs. Lee Refuses to Help Free Mother Jones

From The Cincinnati Post of January 28, 1914:

Mrs Gertrude Lee, Chair of CO Dem State Com, Will Not Help Mother Jones, Cnc Pst p3, Jan 28, 1914

(Will woman suffrage make good in Colorado?

That is the question all the United States is asking today. That question was put up to Mrs. Gertrude A. Lee, Chairman of the Democratic State committee in Colorado. The Governor and his militia Generals, who placed 82-year-old Mother Jones in solitary confinement in a military prison, are members of her party. The following is from the Denver correspondent of the Post, who went to Sterling to see Mrs. Lee.-Editor’s Note.)

STERLING, COLO., Jan. 28.-(Spl.)-Mrs. Gertrude A. Lee, head of the Democratic State central committee, doesn’t know officially that Mother Jones has been illegally imprisoned or that the Colorado state troops rode down and beat women and children paraders with swords in Trinidad.

So she won’t protest

“I want to do what is right for the party and the women,” said Mrs. Lee, who has been recuperating from a nervous attack on a farm near here.

“I don’t know that there is anything wrong in the coal strike fields. I want time.”

“Do you believe any citizen-man or woman-should be deprived of his constitutional right of personal liberty and free speech without due process of law?” she was asked.

Mrs. Lee evaded the question five times and finally said, “No.”

Mrs. Lee will not ask the State [Democratic Party] committee to do anything about the coal strike that will embarrass Governor Ammons.

[Emphasis added.

Note: Mrs. Gertrude A. Lee is married to Colonel George M. Lee who is next in authority to General Chase in the state militia now occupying southern Colorado and enforcing its military despotism upon the striking miners, their wives and their children.

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Hellraisers Journal: Trinidad, Colorado: Strikers’ Wives March with Protest Banners Held High, “Mother Jones Has Not Done Anything That We Would Not Do”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Ladies Women, NYT p3, May 23, 1914—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday January 26, 1914
Trinidad, Colorado – “Mother Jones Has Not Done Anything That We Would Not Do”

From The Rocky Mountain News of January 25, 1914:

Photos Jan 22 Women March for Mother Jones w Banner, RMN p12 Jan 25, 1914

Women March for Mother Jones with Banners:

MOTHER JONES HAS NOT DONE 
ANYTHING THAT WE WOULD NOT DO.

WE HAVE BUT TO SEEK AND 
SURELY GOD WILL SET US FREE

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Hellraisers Journal: Trinidad-Women March in Support of Mother Jones; Chase Orders, “RIDE DOWN THE WOMEN!”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Ladies Women, NYT p3, May 23, 1914—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday January 24, 1914 
Jan. 22-Trinidad, Colorado – General Chase Orders Cavalrymen:

“Ride Down the Woman!”

Jan 22 Trinidad CO Sabers Slash, Chase v Women, RMN p1, Jan 23, 1914

The women of Las Animas County gathered in Trinidad on Thursday afternoon to protest the military imprisonment of Mother Jones. They came marching with their children across the Picketwire River bridge and headed up Commercial Street passing by the Columbian Hotel. These were the women from the strikers’ tent colonies and they came singing the strikers’ song: “The Battle Cry of Union.”

Their banners proclaimed:

God Bless Mother Jones

We’re For Mother Jones

As they moved past Main Street, they were met by General Chase on his cavalry horse, and behind the General were his cavalrymen. Behind them were the infantry blocking the street. Nevertheless, the women and children continued singing as they marched toward the brave General and his troops. The General began to yell, “Don’t advance another step. You must turn back.”

The General spurred his horse forward and brushed against 16-year-old Sarah Slator. He berated her, raised his foot, and kicked her in the breast. His horse backed into a buggy and the General fell off. The women began to laugh at the site of the pompous General on the ground beneath his horse.

The General regained his feet, red-faced and furious, and shouted to his men:

“RIDE DOWN THE WOMEN!”

The cavalrymen spurred their horses forward, waving their sabers about and rode straight into the women and children. Several women were slashed: Mrs. Maggie Hammons received a gash across the forehead, Mrs. George Gibson nearly lost her ear, Mrs. Thomas Braley’s hands were sliced as she covered her face. Mrs. James Lanigan was knocked to the ground, and 10-year-old Robert Arguello was smashed in the face. A cavalryman chased the flag-bearer, Mrs. R. Verna, down the street, knocked her down with his horse, and tore the American flag away from her.

Young Sarah Slator showed great courage when she challenged a cavalryman who was threatening a mother with his bayonet as she struggled to run with her three-year-old child in tow. Sarah said, “You’re so low you could do anything.” Sarah was among the six women arrested. Twelve men were arrested later in the afternoon.

Colorado newspapers are full of derision for the victorious General and his triumphant cavalrymen. The Denver Express reported:

Great Czar Fell!
And in Fury Told Troops to Trample Women

A craven general tumbled from his nag in a street of Trinidad Thursday like humpty-dumpty from the wall. In fifteen minutes there was turmoil, soldiers with swords were striking at fleeing women and children; all in the name of the sovereign state of Colorado…The French Revolution, its history written upon crimson pages, carries no more cowardly episode than the attack of the gutter gamin soldiery on the crowd of unarmed and unprotected women.

Newsclip inset from above: The Rocky Mountain News of January 23, 1914

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Photographs from Trinidad Protest of January 22, 1914:

Jan 22, 1914 Trinidad CO Chase v Women Parade for Mother Jones 2, du edu, —–Jan 22, 1914 Trinidad CO Chase v Women Parade for Mother Jones, du edu, —–Jan 22, 1914 Trinidad CO Chase v Women Parade for Mother Jones 3, du edu, —–Jan 22, 1914 Trinidad CO Chase v Women Parade for Mother Jones 3, du edu,

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Hellraisers Journal: Kate Hilliard, Socialist and Suffragist, Defends Mother Jones after Vicious Attack Made by Polly Pry

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Dorothy Adams re Mother Jones asleep moonlight, Tammany Tx p10, Aug 12, 1901—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday January 23, 1904
Kate S. Hilliard Defends Mother Jones from Vicious Attack by Polly Pry

From Goodwin’s Weekly (Salt Lake City, Utah) of January 16, 1904:

Kate Hilliard Defends Mother Jones re Polly Pry, Goodwin's Weekly p5, Jan 16, 1904

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Hellraisers Journal: Scandal Monger, Polly Pry, Claims Mother Jones Could be Former Madam Who Once Ran Houses of Ill-Repute

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Dorothy Adams re Mother Jones asleep moonlight, Tammany Tx p10, Aug 12, 1901—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday January 22, 1904
Denver, Colorado – The Polly Pry Claims Mother Jones Could Be Former Madam

Mother Jones per Polly Pry, Florence CO Dly Tb p1, Jan 5, 1904

Leonel Ross Campbell, Denver journalist now turned scandal monger, writing under the name of Polly Pry, has recently directed her prying gaze upon Mother Jones. In her magazine, The Polly Pry, Campbell claims to have evidence, supplied by the Pinkertons, that “proves” that Mother Jones once ran various houses of ill-repute in Denver, Omaha, Kansas City, Chicago, and San Francisco. The file, it is claimed, dates back to 1889.

According to the report, Mother Jones could be the madam who hired the “best looking girls on the row” for her house on Market Street in Denver where she went broke after her paramour, “Black-leg,” supposedly ran off with one of her girls. She then began drinking and was arrested and jailed several times. The Prying Polly further reported that this woman was:

…an inmate of Jennie Rogers’ house on Market street, Denver, some twelve years ago. She got into trouble with the Rogers woman for bribing all of her girls to leave her and go to a house in Omaha-for which act she was paid a procuress fee of $5 to $10 apiece for the girls.

She was a confidential servant in Rose Lovejoy’s private house on Market street, Denver, and with her several years. …

Lived in Eva Lewis’ house on Market street at the time the Coxey Army passed through here, and took a prominent part in the Denver preparation for their care.

Is known to Harry Loss, a piano player at 1925 Market street, who says he knew her first in Omaha in 1894, when she lived in a house at tenth and Douglass.

She was then selling clothes to the girls. A sewing woman for the sporting class living on Lawrence street…says it was commonly reported that she was a procuress by trade.

[Emphasis added.]

The Pinkerton report goes on to claim that a Mary Harris (using her maiden name) was a “vulgar, heartless, vicious creature, with a fiery temper and a cold-blooded brutality rare even in the slums.”

Now, in the slander sheet which bears her pen name, Miss Polly Pry is careful to maintain a distance from her lurid charges by reporting on a supposed report on Mother Jones. Very clever of her, and also in keeping with her usual style of reporting on labor leaders who are the often made the targets of her attacks. She has previously defamed U. M. W. District 15 President Howells, U. M. W. National Organizer William Wardjon, and U. M. W. National Executive Board Member John Gehr. Anti-union newspapers across the country see fit to pick up these sordid stories from The Polly Pry and reprint them.

For her part, Mother Jones refuses to give dignity to the charges by responding to them in any way. U. M. W. attorneys doubt that a law suit would be successful since the charges made by The Polly Pry are implied rather than made directly.

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Hellraisers Journal: Gertrude A. Lee, Suffragist and Chairman of Democratic State Committee of Colorado, Could Help Free Mother Jones from Military Bastile

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Chase No Own State, RMN p3, Jan 12, 1914—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday January 21, 1914
Mrs. Gertrude Lee of Colorado’s Democratic Party Could Help Free Mother Jones

From The Cincinnati Post of January 20, 1914
-Write or Wire Mrs. Lee, of Colorado’s Democratic Party, to Help Free Mother Jones:

Gertrude Lee, Suffragist n Chair of CO Democratic Committee, Cnc Pst p1, Jan 20, 1914

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Hellraisers Journal: Wives of Strikers and Strike Sympathizers Invade Hotel of Gen. Chase, Demand Release of Mother Jones.

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Chase No Own State, RMN p3, Jan 12, 1914—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday January 17, 1914
Trinidad, Colorado – Chase: Mother Jones is “an Inciter of Violence and a Disturber”

From the Trinidad Chronicle News of January 15, 1914
-200 Women Invade Hotel, Demand Gen. Chase Release Mother Jones:

HdLn Women v Chase re Mother Jones, TCN p1, Jan 15, 1914

From The Day Book of January 16, 1914
-Mother Jones on Mexican “Bandits” and Colorado Soldiers:

Mother Jones re Mexican Bandits n CO Soldiers, Day Book p15, Jan 16, 1914

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Hellraisers Journal: Colorado Federation of Labor Holds Convention to Consider Ways and Means of Supporting Ongoing Strikes of Miners-U. M. W. A. and W. F. M.

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Quote Mother Jones, CFI Owns Colorado, re 1903 Strikes UMW WFM, Ab Chp 13, 1925—————-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday January 14, 1904
Denver, Colorado – Delegates of Convention of State F. of L. Consider Miners’ Strikes

News from Special Convention of the Colorado
State Federation of Labor

Monday January 11, 1904 Denver, Colorado
-Colorado Federation of Labor Holds Convention To Support Strikes

J. C. Sullivan Prz CO FoL, EFL p194, 104 Edition

More than 350 delegates are assembled today at the Waiters’ Hall in the Club Building in Denver. This is a Convention of the Colorado Federation of Labor called in order to consider ways and means of supporting the ongoing strikes of the Western Federation of Miners and the United Mine Workers of America. These courageous striking miners are now facing unprecedented Military Despotism at the hands of Generals Bell and Chase under the orders of Governor Peabody.

J. C. Sullivan, President of the C. F. of L. opened the Convention with these words:

Friends and Fellow Citizens, I Greet You:

An industrial condition that makes necessary the assembling of labor’s hosts in special convention is certainly significant, and, if the facial expressions of firm determination that are stamped on the countenances of this magnificent audience correctly reflects its feelings, there is still hope that “liberty” and “justice,” though banished from this centennial state of ours, “by order of a political accident,” and citizens forced to leave their homes and firesides at the bayonet point in the hands of “our” modern “Hessians,” for the sole and only reason that they refuse to join forces with our “modern Tories,” and say they will not sell their manhood on mammon’s greedy altar nor bow the knee in cringing sycophancy to the aristocratic anarchist, though he be clothed with brief official authority.

This, my friends, is a gathering that, if each and every delegate here assembled does his full duty to his country, to his fellow man, to himself and to the posterity of mankind, this meeting will go down in the annals of history as the most important gathering that has ever been held in Colorado up to this time. But if, for any reason, you fail to do your duty, you will, by that failure, assist the modern Tories and the mine operators’ hired Hessians to banish the lovers of liberty from their homes and firesides, and establish in their stead willing corporate vassals, to whom manhood is an unknown quality, to whom justice is a myth and liberty an illusion. The time is now, my friends, when not only labor’s voice must be heard, but labor’s hosts must act, if necessary, if justice is to be again enthroned in the fair State of Colorado.

[Emphasis added.]

Tuesday January 12, 1904 Denver, Colorado
-C. F. of L. Convention Receives Greetings from Mother Jones

Mother Jones, who is recovering from a serious illness in Trinidad, nevertheless sent her greetings to the Special Convention of the Colorado Federation of Labor now in progress in Denver. At the afternoon session yesterday, H. B. Waters, secretary of the Convention, read the following:

Trinidad, Colo.,
January 11, 1904

State Federation of Labor, Convention Hall, Denver, Colo.
To the Delegates of the State Federation of Labor:

Greeting-Let your deliberations be tempered with a high sense of justice for all mankind-malice toward none, for you are the bulwark of the nation. The day dawneth when you shall get your own.

Fraternally in the cause of labor,
MOTHER JONES

The chairman and the secretary of the Convention were instructed unanimously to answer Mother Jones:

To Mother Jones, Trinidad:

The greatest labor convention ever held in the state sends you greeting and wishes you health and God-speed.

J. C. SULLIVAN, President
H. B. WATERS, Secretary

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Colorado Federation of Labor Holds Convention to Consider Ways and Means of Supporting Ongoing Strikes of Miners-U. M. W. A. and W. F. M.” →

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones, Miners’ Friend, Critically Ill in Trinidad, Colorado-Taken to Hospital as Safety Precaution

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Quote Mother Jones, CFI Owns Colorado, re 1903 Strikes UMW WFM, Ab Chp 13, 1925—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday January 10, 1904
Trinidad, Colorado – Mother Jones Critically Ill, Taken to Hospital

From the Harrisburg Telegraph (Pennsylvania) of January 9, 1904:

Drawing Mother Jones Ill in Trinidad CO, Harrisburg Tg PA p9, Jan 9, 1904

From The Denver Post of January 9, 1904:

TAKEN TO HOSPITAL
———-

Safety Precaution Taken for
“Mother” Jones.
———-

Trinidad, Colo., Jan. 9.-“Mother” Jones, national organizer for the United Mine Workers of America, who has been lying ill at the Coronado hotel in this city for the past three days from typhoid fever, was removed to the hospital at 1:45 this afternoon on advice of her physician, Dr. White. “Mother” Jones is threatened with pneumonia and while the disease has not yet developed, it was deemed best to prepare for the worst. “Mother” Jones is 63 years old and up to her present illness has been in fairly robust health.
 
[Emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: San Francisco Bulletin: “The Stormy Petrel of the Strikers”-Mother Jones Deported from Trinidad, Colorado

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Quote Mother Jones, re Chase Deportation Will Return to Trinidad, Carbondale Dly Fr Prs p1, Jan 6, 1914—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday January 8, 1914
Denver, Colorado – Stormy Petrel of the Strikers States She Will Return  

From the San Francisco Bulletin of January 7, 1914:

Mother Jones, Stormy Petrel, SF Bltn p6, Jan 7, 1914

From the Chicago Day Book of January 5, 1914:

MOTHER JONES DEPORTED

Denver, Col., Jan. 5.-“Mother” Jones, the “angel” of the miners, was forcibly deported from the coal strike district at Trinidad on orders of General Chase, who had her met at the depot “when she arrived from El Paso and kept under surveillance of a detachment of military until the arrival of a train for Denver, when she was put aboard.

Lieut. H. O. Nichols and four soldiers guarded her to Denver. When the train reached Walsenburg, where “Mother” Jones had expected to make a speech to the strikers, she tried to talk to a group gathered around the station, but was prevented.

As the train pulled out of the station, she shouted: “I expect to visit you again, when Colorado is made part of the United States, but now-”

General Chase has ordered that she be sent out of the district never to return so long as the strike lasts. He says she will be deported every time she comes back. Mother Jones says she will return in two weeks. 

[Emphasis added.]

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