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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday June 5, 1912
Mother Jones Preparing to Leave Montana, Heading for West Virginia
From The Sacramento Star of June 3, 1912:
Mother Jones has forwarded $800 from Montana to the Harriman shop strikers. Seven hundred of this was donated, in response to her earnest appeal, by unions of coal miners, and the remainder came from mill and smeltermen, machinists and other crafts. How persistent has been her work tor the System Federation is seen in her statement that she refused to accept less than $250 from the union of miners at Roundup, and their $100 donation was sent through their international office. Butte metal miners gave $300 some time ago.
[She writes in a characteristic letter to President E. L. Reguin and Secretary John Scott of the System Federation:]
If the men had been working regularly in the coal mines, I could have gathered up very much more. However, the whole thing shows the disposition of the men to aid each other in the struggle, which counts to me very much more than the finances,
I shall leave in a few days for West Virginia, to take up the battle there. It is a dangerous field, and many of us who go in there are more than likely never to come out, but what difference does that make so long as we are carrying on the industrial battle, and flaunting in the face of the foe the red flag of industrial freedom? There must be sacrifices made, and there must be martyrs. That state and Alabama must be organized within the next few years.
Tell my boys of the Federation it matters not where I go, I shall keep up the fight against oppression and wrong. Men, women and children must be free, and sentiment will never free them. Those who are grounded in the philosophy of the class struggle must go forth and give battle to the well-entrenched foe.
Tell the boys to keep up the fight. It is far better to die fighting and suffering than to remain slaves.
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[Emphasis added.]
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SOURCE & IMAGES
The Sacramento Star
(Sacramento, California)
-June 3, 1912
https://www.newspapers.com/image/607129196
See also:
Tag: Illinois Central and Harriman Lines Strike of 1911 to 1915
https://weneverforget.org/tag/illinois-central-and-harriman-lines-strike-of-1911-to-1915/
Railway Age Gazette, Volume 51
Simmons-Boardman Publishing Company, 1911
(search: “demands of the western shopmen”)
https://books.google.com/books?id=tqVMAAAAYAAJ
Paint Creek-Cabin Creek Strike
https://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/1798
Tag: Paint Creek-Cabin Creek Strike of 1912-1913
https://weneverforget.org/tag/paint-creek-cabin-creek-strike-of-1912-1913/
Never Justice, Never Peace
Mother Jones and the Miner Rebellion at Paint and Cabin Creeks
-by Lon Savage and Ginny Savage Ayers
West Virginia University Press, 2018
https://books.google.com/books?id=hApBswEACAAJ
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She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain -Ken Carson and the Choraliers