Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Deported from Trinidad; Chase States She Will Be Held Incommunicado Should She Return

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I’ll go back; they can’t keep me from my boys.
I am not afraid of all the troops in the State.
-Mother Jones, New York Times
January 5, 1914
—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday January 5, 1914
Trinidad, Colorado – Mother Jones Deported from Strike Zone by Militia

From The Washington Times of January 5, 1914:

Mother Jones Deported, WDC Tx p1, Jan 5, 1914

From The New York Times of January 5, 1914:

COLORADO TROOPS OUST MOTHER JONES
———-
Woman Strike Agitator Deported from Trinidad
Under Guard of Soldiers
———–

WARNED NEVER TO RETURN
———-
One Thousand Taxpayers Meet and Warn
Other Agitators to Get Out in Twenty-for Hours.
———-

Special to The New York Times.

TRINIDAD, Col., Jan. 4-“Mother” Jones was seized by the militia upon her arrival at Trinidad this morning from El Paso, taken from a Santa Fe train, held for two hours and deported from the strike district.

Capt. E. A. Smith, acting under orders from Gen. John Chase, met the train with a detachment of soldiers. The troops prevented a demonstration from the strikers at the station.

Mother Jones was held under surveillance until a Colorado & Southern train arrived from Denver. Then she was place aboard the train under guard of a lieutenant and four soldiers, and ordered never to return to the district. She had planned to spend several days among the coal strikers, and was to make a speech to-day at Walsenburg. The train on which she was being held under guard passed through Walsenburg.

Gen. Chase had been notified that she was on the way to Trinidad and acted so quietly that none of the strikers knew of his plans to deport her. When the soldiers took her in charge, she said:”I never had believed you would go this far.”

Contrary to her usual custom, she did not make any protest. While she was being held here she was not permitted to talk to any of the strikers or union leaders, the soldiers refusing to allow John McLennon, head of the mine workers, to speak to her.

At Walsenburg the train stopped for only a few minutes. Thousands of strikers, having been apprised by telephone of Mother Jones’s deportation, were at the station, but none was allowed to approach near enough to speak to her. However, she tried to make a speech.

The train pulled out just as she was assuring the miners that she would return to Colorado “as soon as it becomes a part of the United States.”

———-

Denver Col., Jan. 4-“The deportation of Mother Jones was the most disgraceful act ever perpetrated by supposed police officers in the Union,” said John McLennon [McLennan], President of the Colorado State Federation of Labor tonight.

“I’ll go back; they can’t keep me from my boys,” said Mother Jones on her arrival here to-night from Trinidad. “I am not afraid of all the troops in the State.”

“Gov. Ammons said: ” I do not care to express an opinion regarding the deportation of Mother Jones, because I am not fully aware of the circumstances, but I would not hesitate to express an opinion if the person concerned were a resident of Trinidad.”

After the deportation, Gen. Chase gave out this statement:

“Mrs. Jones was met at the train this morning by the military escort acting under instructions not to permit her to remain in this district. The detail took charge of Mrs. Jones and her baggage and she was accompanied out of the district under guard after she had been given breakfast. The step was taken in accordance with my instructions to preserve peace in the district. The presence of Mother Jones here at this time cannot be tolerated. She had planned to go to the Ludlow tent colony of strikers to stop the desertion of union members.

“If she returns she will be placed in jail and held incommunicado.”

Company G. First Infantry, Colorado National Guard, to-night was ordered to leave here tomorrow morning for Oak Creek to take charge of the strike situation in that district. In issuing the order Gen. Chase said that seventy-five men would leave on a special train.

[Emphasis added]

From the Trinidad Chronicle News of January 5, 1914:

Mother Jones Deported by Militia, TCN p1, Jan 5, 1914

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SOURCES & IMAGES

The Washington Times
(Washington, District of Columbia)
-Jan 5, 1914
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026749/1914-01-05/ed-1/seq-1/

The New York Times
(New York, New York)
-Jan 5, 1914
https://www.newspapers.com/image/20496466/

The Chronicle News
(Trinidad, Colorado)
-Jan 5, 1914
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn90051521/1914-01-05/ed-1/seq-1/
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn90051521/1914-01-05/ed-1/seq-3/

See also:

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday January 4, 1914
El Paso, Texas – Mother Speaks, Praises Pancho Villa and the Rebels

The Sun
(New York, New York)
-Jan 5, 1914
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030272/1914-01-05/ed-1/seq-1/

The Rocky Mountains News
(Denver, Colorado)
-Jan 5, 1914
https://www.genealogybank.com/doc/newspapers/image/v2:12C601A5C4B97518@GB3NEWS-1478F5FB206A33D8@2420138-1477664836CD28D8@0-1477664836CD28D8
https://www.genealogybank.com/doc/newspapers/image/v2:12C601A5C4B97518@GB3NEWS-1478F5FB206A33D8@2420138-14776648378C46A0@1-14776648378C46A0

Out of the Depths
The Story of John R. Lawson, A Labor Leader
-Barron B. Beshoar
Colorado Labor Historical Committee
of the Denver Area Labor Federation, 1942
https://archive.org/details/outofdepths0000unse
https://archive.org/details/outofdepths0000unse/page/128/mode/1up?q=%22mother+jones%22&view=theater
https://archive.org/details/outofdepths0000unse/page/129/mode/1up?q=%22mother+jones%22&view=theater

Tag: Colorado Coalfield Strike of 1913-1914
https://weneverforget.org/tag/colorado-coalfield-strike-of-1913-1914/

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