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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday July 15, 1903
John Spargo on Kensington Textile Strike; Mother Jones’ Army Enters New Brunswick
From the New York Worker of July 12, 1903:
From The Washington Times of July 13, 1903:
From the Baltimore Sun of July 13, 1903:
From the New Brunswick Daily Home News of July 14, 1903:
MOTHER JONES LEAVES US.
———-
Her Army Starts on Its Walk to Oyster Bay.
———-ROASTED NEARLY EVERYTHING.
———-
She Ridiculed Capitalists, Clergymen,
Churches and Merchants and Called
Non-Union Men Monkeys.
———-“Mother Jones” and her depleted army left Highland Park this morning at 8 o’clock afoot for Rahway, by way of Metuchen. To speak more correctly, the army left afoot and Mother Jones rode. The men marched out of the Rock Spring Brewery lane, with banners flying and drums beating.
The army spent two days and three nights in this vicinity. The first two nights they slept in the Rock Spring Grove, and were nearly eaten with mosquitoes. Mother Jones slept at the City Hotel. Last night she provided a hall for the men and they slept indoors, having had enough experience with the Jersey mosquitoes.
Mother Jones addressed a large crowd at the corner of Albany and George streets last evening after the army had paraded the streets. The meeting had been arranged by the Federation of Labor. Atwell Bartholomew presided. Seated upon the wagon with him was Alderman Michael Casey and W. F. Wilson, both labor union men.
The woman spoke for an hour and a quarter and the crowd enjoyed her immensely. After assuring the audience that she did not care who she hurt she ridiculed and denounced the capitalists, the clergy, the Christian churches, the merchants and all workingmen who do not belong to unions. She referred to the last class as monkeys who do not know their own power. She defended strikes.
She declared that this talk about labor and capital shaking hands is all bosh. They will never shake hands, she insisted, until capital gets off the back of labor. She held that labor produces the wealth of the land and that capital takes two-thirds of it, with the result that the capitalist rides in his automobile and drinks champagne and the laborer walks and drinks five cents’ worth of swill beer.
She found fault with the churches because they did not raise their protest against child labor. She held that children were gathered into Sunday schools and taught to give thanks to the rich men who provided places for them to work in, and that the collection plate was passed around and they had to give back the money that they had saved from their scanty earnings.
I’ve seen children in the South work as chattel slaves never worked for fourteen hours a day, then on Sunday they were called to the Sunday Schools that the rich men had provided and they had to sing “All for Jesus, All for Jesus.” And the next day they went back to work, and it was all for the other fellow.
[She said further:]
Rockefeller goes to his Sunday school on Sunday, and asks the children to pray for him. He tells them that he is weighted down with financial cares and that he wants them to help him bear up under them. The next day there are a million of us ready to help him carry those burdens, but he is not looking for help then.
Mother Jones scored the local ministers because while she had been in town none of them had offered her help or had looked after the comfort of her men. She said that the hotel man who gave her a place where her men could wash and wash their clothes showed a better spirit.
The bulk of the address was directed against child labor. She declared that she had seen children going to work in the factories here at 6.30 who were not over twelve years of age, but who seemed bent with age. She asked what kind of women they are going to make.
Mother Jones started from Philadelphia with an army of 200 to march to Oyster Bay to ask the president what is the meaning of prosperity and incidentally to arouse public sympathy for the textile workers who are on strike in Philadelphia. She is at her wits’ end to keep her army together.
“It’s all right for Mother Jones,” said one of them, she sleeps in a hotel. I would rather work sixteen hours a day than endure this torture. We seem to be a sort of sideshow to help her get some notoriety.”
[Emphasis added.]
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SOURCES & IMAGES
Quote Mother Jones, Child Labor Silk Mills, WB Dly Ns p1, May 11, 1901
https://www.newspapers.com/image/423352018/
The Worker
“An Organ of the Socialist Party
(Known in New York State as the Social Democratic Party)”
-July 12, 1903, page 1
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/the-people-the-worker/030712-worker-v13n15.pdf
The Washington Times
(Washington, District of Columbia)
-July 13, 1903
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026749/1903-07-13/ed-1/seq-5/
The Sun
(Baltimore, Maryland)
-July 13, 1903
https://www.newspapers.com/image/371408708/
The Daily Home News
(New Brunswick, New Jersey)
-July 14, 1903
https://www.newspapers.com/image/313859794/
See also:
Tag: March of the Mill Children
https://weneverforget.org/tag/march-of-the-mill-children/
7/12-From Princeton to Rock Spring Grove, Highland Park, East Brunswick
7/13-at New Brunswick
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Princeton,+NJ/New+Brunswick,+NJ/@40.4360827,-74.4303474,11z/data=!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x89c3e6c172d059f1:0x3fcd49934a13d6c2!2m2!1d-74.6672226!2d40.3572976!1m5!1m1!1s0x89c3c355f06a92a5:0x25925506798e230c!2m2!1d-74.4518188!2d40.4862157?authuser=0&entry=ttu
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