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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday March 1, 1914
Trinidad, Colorado – Mother Jones Still a Military Prisoner, Held Incommunicado
From the International Review of March 1914:
The Latest from Trinidad
INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW,
Chicago, Ill.
Dear Comrades:Replying to yours of Feb. 5, regarding a letter to Mother Jones, I must say it is impossible. She is held absolutely “incommunicado”-no one having seen her since incarceration except Horace Hawkins, attorney for U. M. W. A., and his admission was since the Congressional investigation was approaching. I enclose you clipping from yesterday’s daily showing how even medical advice from outside was denied her. “Military discipline” and general conditions are softening down much since the investigation has become a certainty. This puts new hope and courage into us all.
Yours for Socialism,
GRACE B. MARIANS,
Local Secty., S. P.
Feb. 10, 1914Mother ]ones Parade
On January 22 a women’s parade was formed to make a demonstration protesting against the imprisonment of “Mother Jones.” The line of march was to proceed from Castle Hall up Commercial street, along Main to the postoffice, and then return to Castle Hall. One of the leaders was an Italian woman, who did not speak or understand English well. She was carrying an American flag in the form of a large banner. Not knowing that the parade was to turn at the postoffice, she led the parade towards the hospital where Mother Jones is held. A block from the postoffice the parade was met by a troop of cavalry commanded in person by General Chase. The soldiers immediately pulled the flag out of the woman’s hands. Other women ran up and demanded the return of the flag. This was finally returned to them amidst cheers.
On receiving the flag the paraders re-formed, turned around and started back to the hall. They had not proceeded a block when the troop of cavalry, who had now been reinforced by the infantry, charged at full gallop with drawn sabers. Women were rode down, others flocked to the sidewalks. The cavalry then charged the sidewalks, beating the people with the flat of their swords. One woman received a gash on the hand from the saber stroke. Mrs. Margaret Hammond was struck by a militiaman with his fist, cutting her forehead above the left eye and blackening both eyes. Any person objecting to the treatment was immediately seized and taken to jail.
The infantry backed up the charge with drawn bayonets, forcing the people before them. Private lawns were invaded and any persons standing on them were herded off. Even government property was not sacred. The troops drove people from the postoffice steps.
A number of people were injured in this charge, mostly women, and eighteen were taken to prison. The streets were then blocked by the militia and no person was allowed to pass up or down them without permission of an officer.
Governor Ammons upheld General Chase in his chivalrous attack upon the women of the community.
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Blood?
MARK TWAIN was not thinking of the revolution still to be won among his own people, when he wrote these words:
“All gentle cant and philosophizing to the contrary notwithstanding, no people in the world ever did achieve their freedom by goody-goody talk and moral suasion: it being immutable law that all revolutions that will succeed, must begin in blood, whatever may answer afterward. If history teaches anything it teaches that.”
He was not thinking of the Social Revolution. But he might well have been. For there is no question that much blood will be shed ere the working class wins its liberty.
There is no question that much blood is being shed. There is a question, how much! And the answer to this question is that the longer our “virtuous” people, our idealists, our enthusiasts for democracy, continue to tinker with the Reform Machine, and the longer our churches continue to sit on the necks of the people and sing “Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men,” the more blood will run before liberty is achieved.
For my part I would rather have a little red on my hands than have on my conscience a New Year’s prayer like that of Cardinal Gibbons. “We thank the Lord for the prosperity that abounds throughout the length and breadth of this great land of ours,” when more men are out of work and hunting for it hungry, than at any time before since the tragic weeks of 1907.
“We thank Him that we are particularly at peace within our own borders,” three days after the leader of that two months’ fight against tyranny in Calumet was knocked out and shot in the back by fifteen ruffians hired by the godly and respectable in alliance for the perpetuation of slavery in the copper mines.
The people who, when we say Revolution, gaze with unfocused eye into the dim future, and ask us if we expect violence, are the queerest fools in the world. Let them pick up their papers every morning and look for news of the beating up, or shooting, or forcible imprisonment of a striker, and if they look in the papers that carry truth, they will not be disappointed for one single morning in the whole year. The main trouble with the persons who are supposed to be thinking about these problems is that they have read history until they are half asleep.
-From The Masses.
“The Mine Guard” by a Paint Creek Miner
[Emphasis added.]
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SOURCES & IMAGES
Quote Mother Jones, Chase No Own State, RMN p3, Jan 12, 1914
https://www.genealogybank.com///image/v2:12C601A5C4B97518@GB3NEWS-1478F5FED1489F20@2420145-14776648A6574308@2
International Socialist Review
(Chicago, Illinois)
-Mar 1914, p517
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v14n09-mar-1914-ISR-riaz-ocr.pdf
See also:
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday February 21, 1914
Trinidad, Colorado – Sarah Slator, Age 16, Kicked, Foot Smashed, Jailed
for Crime of Marching in the s-So-Called “Mother Jones Riot”
Aug 15, 1914, Appeal to Reason, pages 1&4
-re Grace B. Marians of SPA Local Trinidad and SPA Local Las Animas Co.
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/appeal-to-reason/140815-appealtoreason-w976-wardeclared.pdf
Feb 1914, The Masses p6 – “Blood?”
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/masses/issues/tamiment/t35-v05n05-m33-feb-1914.pdf
When the Leaves Come Out, and Other Rebel Verses
-by Ralph Chaplin
Cleveland OH, 1917
https://archive.org/details/whenleavescomeou00chapiala/page/n1/mode/2up
p31: “The Mine Guard”
https://archive.org/details/whenleavescomeou00chapiala/page/31/mode/1up
Tag: Military Despotism Colorado 1914
https://weneverforget.org/tag/military-despotism-colorado-1914/
Tag: Colorado Coalfield Strike of 1913-1914
https://weneverforget.org/tag/colorado-coalfield-strike-of-1913-1914/
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I Am a Union Woman · Bobbie McGee