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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday May 25, 1913
Letter from Mother Jones Sent Out from West Virginia’s Military Bastile
From the Iola (Kansas) Co-Operator of May 24, 1913:
LETTER FROM MOTHER JONES
———-Pratt, W. Va., May 1, 1913.
Military Bastile.Lee J. Dock,
1502 N. Carson
San Antonio, Texas,Dear Comrade:
Your letter of the 8th reached me in due time but I was unable to answer it before owing to the fact that I was locked up in a military prison and had no chance to do any writing. Now that some of the militia has been taken away I am a little freer but still a prisoner.
I appreciate your letter very highly and wish I would have been able to reply to it earlier but owing to the fact that I was here under the militia and you know when the sewer rats are keeping guard on you day and night it is pretty hard to do as you would like to. We have had a hard fight of it here. It was the first time in history of industrial warfare in America, that we the workers, were pulled up and tried before a Military Court and it was a picture to look at. Those representatives of ancient warfare in the days of the Spanish inquisition never presented anything more brutal looking than that court did to me. It was a disgrace to America and every man in it.
There is not a man in America with any pride but what should blush with shame. Just think, a bunch of those guards dressed up as uniformed murderers, watching an old woman 80 year of age in the early dawn of the 20th century. I wonder what Victor Hugo would say if he were alive, how beautiful he would portray this great civilization. If our Socialists would act more and talk less we might get some results.
I wish you would call and see Dr. Zouck and give him my regards and tell him that I often think of him and that I have not forgotten him and never will, for he is a man, every inch of him, but I have been so rushed for the want of time that I have been unable get time to write him.
I hope some day soon to have the pleasure of seeing you in San Antonio, so good bye and believe me
Yours in the cause of Justice,
MOTHER JONES.
Per M. D.[Photograph, paragraph break and emphasis added.]
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SOURCES
Quote Mother Jones, WV Court Martial, No Plea to Make, Ptt Pst p3, Mar 8, 1913
https://www.newspapers.com/article/pittsburgh-daily-post-mar-8-1913-pittsb/123676845/
Iola Co-Operator
“Official Organ of Socialist Party of Allen Country”
(Iola, Kansas)
-May 24, 1913
https://www.newspapers.com/image/479064673/
IMAGE
Mother Jones, Cora Older, at Military Bastile WV, Colliers p26, Apr 1913
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pst.000068356118&view=2up&seq=152
See also:
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-May 24, 1913
-page 1: re Release of Mother Jones from West Virginia military bastile
-page 4: “Mother Jones-An Appreciation” by Eugene Debs
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/appeal-to-reason/130524-appealtoreason-w912.pdf
https://www.newspapers.com/image/67313716/?clipping_id=125337150
https://www.newspapers.com/article/appeal-to-reason-may-24-1913-appeal-to/125337363/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/appeal-to-reason-may-24-1913-appeal-to/125337426/
The Wheeling Majority
(Wheeling, West Virginia)
-May 22, 1913
page 7: “Mother Jones Tells The Story of Her Imprisonment”
-by Louis Ludlaw
(Letter to Senator Kern from Mother Jones re arrest in Charleston, confinement in martial law zone at Pratt, West Virginia, and trial before “drumhead court.”
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86092530/1913-05-22/ed-1/seq-7/
About Iola-Co-Operator, Socialist Newspaper of Kansas
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83040304/
Tag: West Virginia Court Martial of Mother Jones + 48 of 1913
https://weneverforget.org/tag/west-virginia-court-martial-of-mother-jones-48-of-1913/
Tag: Senate Investigation of Paint Creek Coal Fields of West Virginia of 1913
https://weneverforget.org/tag/senate-investigation-of-paint-creek-coal-fields-of-west-virginia-of-1913/
Tag: Paint Creek-Cabin Creek Strike of 1912-1913
https://weneverforget.org/tag/paint-creek-cabin-creek-strike-of-1912-1913/
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Mother Jones-No More Deaths for Dollars – Jim Sharp
Lyrics by Ed Pickford