Hellraisers Journal: Interview with Mother Jones On Her Way Back to West Virginia to Face Possible Prison Sentence, Part II

Quote Mother Jones, Going to Jail, Cnc Pst p6, July 23, 1902 —————-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday July 25, 1902
Cincinnati, Ohio – Mother Jones Interviewed on Her Way Back to West Virginia

From The Cincinnati Post of July 23, 1902:

[Part II of II]

QUOTES SCRIPTURE FREELY

Mother Jones is a very religious woman. Her conversation is interspersed with passages of Scripture, delivered with all the awe and reverence inherited from her Celtic ancestors.

“You are hopeful, Mother Jones, I ventured. “Many women would be dismayed at the magnitude of such an undertaking as you have shouldered.”

[She replied:

Yes, I suppose a great deal of my optimistic temperament comes from my Irish parents. I had the advantage of being born on the Emerald Isle, and try not to grow old.

She came to America in her teens, and one can easily imagine the courageous little woman was a very beautiful girl.

MARRIED AT EIGHTEEN

“Mother” Jones was married at 18, and her husband is dead. She rarely speaks of this chapter in her life, and is completely engrossed in her work.

She is “Mother” in name only, as no children blessed her married life. With no living relatives to care for, except a brother in Canada, she gives the love and sympathy necessary to every woman to the miners, their wives and children.

[She said:]

I think the most dramatic thing I ever saw in my whole life was the gathering of the miners’ wives and children to whom I spoke after the awful mine disaster at Coalcreek, Tenn.

There they stood staring me in the face-gaunt, wild-eyed and utterly paralyzed by the dreadful blows which took husbands, fathers and sons at one moment.

I felt like shrieking, “The operators murdered your dead.” Those women never saw their loved ones after they left in the morning for their daily work. The bodies were carried past their homes in coffins, and none saw the faces of the dead but the men who put them in the coffins. The 213 graves left gaps in the crowd where I was used to seeing men. There never was a mine disaster in the history of the world which could not have been prevented by the expenditure of money and effort on the part of the operators. Independence Day I helped the women of Coalcreek decorate the graves of their dead. There was wrath in my heart, but I could not add to their trouble by speaking my mind.

MOTHERLINESS RADIATES

An ample motherliness radiates from Mother Jones’ presence, which shows that men who live near to the earth-underground most of the time-have a well-defined sense of the fitness of things. When she speaks rapidly she mixes quaint Irish phrases with her usual good English.

The soft, coaxing “Ahs” and “Faith, childs” makes one love the venerable lady after only a brief conversation.

Her wit is nothing inferior to her earnestness, and makes her talk extremely interesting.

[She declared:]

Education is one thing which will bring better conditions for the laborer. We establish free schools, and then send the children to factories and mines for their education. While I believe that no better education can be obtained than that which comes from contact with the world, yet I would advocate college educations for girls.

A nation is never greater than its women. Patriots and statesmen are not born of narrow-minded women. The broad, strong, college girl will be the redemption of humanity.

[Replied Mrs. Jones to a query:]

I do not know how I first became interested in the miners. I first visited their homes, talked with their wives and played with the babies. It has been a home campaign all along. My influence with the miners comes from my knowledge of their home life and the good opinions of their wives.

“How long do you expect to remain in the work, Mother Jones?” I asked.

A WORK OF LIFE

My simple life has given me good health, and I will work until I become useless. When a girl I never went to dances and parties, and (with a pardonable glance of pride at her straight, well-formed figure in the mirror) I never laced.

“Mother” Jones is a wonderful woman. Dainty, feminine, daring and forceful, alternation between a reformer and a home-loving woman, she manages to keep the balance true,. There is nothing of the “poseur” about her. She does not rant.

MAYBE TO A PRISON CELL

“I am always hopeful,” said she, as, the instinct of housewifely neatness returning, she began to put away her purchases of the day. “I believe even the company store, where they sell three beans for a nickel, will be abolished in time.”

Following me into the hall, in her warm-hearted way, she said:

Good-by, my dear. I’ll go back tomorrow, and by Thursday I suppose I’ll be in jail, but I don’t let that worry me one bit.

JESSIE M. PARTLON.

[Emphasis added.]