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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday June 13, 1912
Charleston, West Virginia – Mother Jones Arrives, Visits Holly Grove at Paint Creek
From The Cincinnati Post of June 11, 1912:
CHARLESTON, W. VA., June 11.–(Spl.)—Mother Jones, who has devoted half of her 80 years to an effort to soften the lot of the coal miners, is here to remain until the miners of the Paint Creek section get some redress from the conditions which have made it necessary for them to appeal to Governor Glasscock.
Paint Creek is 18 miles long and is flanked by a score of mine operations, which usually employ thousands of miners. Idleness has reigned in the district since April 1. Now the operators have 100 guards patrolling the creek in an effort to crush out unionism among the West Virginia miners. It is only in this section that the miners have been strong enough to organize.
Condemns the System
“I am going to stay here all week and dig down to the bottom of this trouble,” said Mother Jones, who arrived Sunday from Colorado.
She began by addressing a mass meeting of miners Sunday at Holly Grove.
[She declared:]
It is not the individual we are after, it is the system.
In West Virginia the “system” has been to crush out organized labor by the bludgeon and rifle in the hands of guards, paid by the operators and sworn in by the State as Deputy Sheriffs.
[Said Mother Jones:]
To me the conditions mean industrial war. You may beat a slave, but after a time a slave will revolt. Sane men do not undertake to violate property law, but sane men may be driven insane when hunger comes, if they are forced to fight. They reach the stage where they feel they might as well die as try to live under the conditions they are forced to submit to.
Homes Are Saddened
[The aged friend of the toiler continued:]
We hear a great deal about the right of women to vote. You can’t improve such conditions as exist here by extending the ballot to women. One of the great troubles is the loss of sunshine in the home. When a man gets home from work he should be greeted by a smile, but the women can’t smile under these conditions. It’s no wonder the criminal class is chiefly made up of young people.
Sheriff Smith, under instructions from Governor Glasscock, is keeping in close touch with Paint Creek, where it is believed a crisis is at hand.
It is believed Governor Glasscock will order out the militia if there is further loss of life. One miner was killed and another seriously shot last week. Many have been beaten.
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[Emphasis added.]
From The Charleston Gazette of June 11, 1912:
Mother Jones…from the stump and through the press has shown a desire only to do something for the betterment of the great American laboring class. She is 80 years old. On the day of her arrival here she addressed a miners’ mass meeting for an hour and a half-and unassisted she climbed a steep hill to the speakers’ stand and made a stronger effort and a more telling address in every way than that of any of the others whose names appeared on the list of speakers, and most of whom were only half her years.
Some people never get old, and Mother Jones is one who, no matter how long she be spared to her stormy career, will be gathered to her ancestors in the bosom of youth.
[Interviewed in Charleston, Mother Jones said:]
I am simply a social revolutionist. I believe in collective ownership of the means of wealth. At this time the natural commodities of this country are cornered in the hands of a few. The man who owns the means of wealth gets the major profit, and the worker, who produces the wealth from the means in the hands of the capitalist, takes what he can get. Sooner or later, and perhaps sooner than we think, evolution and revolution will have accomplished the overturning of the system under which we now live, and the worker will have gained his own. This change will come as the result of education. My life work has been to try to educate the worker to a sense of the wrongs he has had to suffer, and does suffer-and to stir up the oppressed to a point of getting off their knees and demanding that which I believe to be rightfully theirs. When force is used to hinder the worker in his efforts to obtain the things which are his, he has the right to meet force with force. He has the right to strike for what is his due, and he has no right to be satisfied with less. The people want to do right, but they have been hoodwinked for ages. They are now awakening, and the day of their enfranchisement is near at hand.
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[Emphasis added.]
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SOURCES & IMAGES
Quote Mother Jones re Life Work, WV Cton Gz, June 11, 1912
-per ISR p648, Mar 1913
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v13n09-mar-1913-ISR-riaz-ocr.pdf
The Cincinnati Post
(Cincinnati, Ohio)
-June 11, 1912
https://www.newspapers.com/image/761240771
The Charleston Gazette
(Charleston, West Virginia)
-June 11, 1912
-per International Socialist Review, p648
of March 1913
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v13n09-mar-1913-ISR-riaz-ocr.pdf
See also:
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday June 5, 1912
Mother Jones Preparing to Leave Montana, Heading for West Virginia
Mother Jones Speaks
Collected Writings and Speeches
-ed by Philip S. Foner
Monad Press, 1983
(search: “my mission on earth”)
https://books.google.com/books?id=OE9hAAAAIAAJ
The Charleston Gazette (Charleston, W. Va.) 1907-2015
https://www.loc.gov/item/sn83045151/
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 – Ed Pickford