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Hellraisers Journal – Friday June 12, 1914
Mother Jones Invades Canada to Support Miners of Ladysmith and Nanaimo
From The Winnipeg Tribune of June 5, 1914
-Called to Aid Nanaimo Strikers, Mother Jones Insists, “I’ll go in spite of you!”
The coal miners of Nanaimo, British Columbia put out a call to Mother Jones to come and assist them with their strike. They are members of the United Mine Workers of America who have been on strike since August of last year. They have suffered all the usual consequence of the striking coal miner: military despotism and mass arrests. In March, many of those arrested were sentenced, some to six months, and some to four years in prison.
Mother Jones was labeled a “disturbing element” by the chief of the provincial police of British Columbia and was prevented, from boarding a steamer for Victoria by Canadian immigration officers and told that she was barred from Canada.
Labor Secretary William B. Wilson, former official of the U. M. W. of A., was contacted by Frank Farrington, western representative of the mine worker’s union, and Wilson sent a message requesting that Mother Jones “be accorded every right she is entitled to as an American citizen.
“Mother Jones made this statement regarding her status as a “disturbing element” threatening the peace of the citizens of Canada:
I am past 80 years and have never been charged with a crime, and so I cannot understand why I am prevented from entering a friendly nation. I never quarrel and I believe in law and order, and I do not blame the man who stopped me, for he had his order from higher up. He is merely carrying out a policy that means “You shall not educate my slaves,” but it is a mistaken view and is bound to fall finally. I had been invited to go to British Columbia and did not know that I was committing any wrong in accepting the invitation of the mine workers there.
Efforts continued on behalf of Mother Jones to enable her to go to the aid of her boys in Nanaimo.
From the Daily Capital Journal (Salem, Oregon) of June 4, 1914:
CANADIAN AUTHORITIES REFUSE ADMISSION
Seattle, Wash., June 4. “Mother” Jones, labor organizer, was stopped this morning by Canadian immigration authorities when she attempted to take passage on the steamer Princess Victoria to Vancouver Island, where she intended to take an active part in the strike of 4,000 coal miners. According to Frank Farrington, of Seattle, western representative of the United Mine Workers of America, “Mother” Jones was stopped by instructions of the chief of provisional police. Farrington has taken the matter up with Canadian immigration authorities, who say that they will not admit “Mother” Jones without instructions from Ottawa.
Farrington this morning sent a telegram to William B. Wilson, United States secretary of labor, asking that the proper machinery be set at work at once to see that “Mother” Jones is accorded every right she is entitled to as an American citizen.
Under an agreement between the Canadian and American governments, the Canadian immigration inspectors pass upon persons going aboard steamers leaving Seattle for British Columbia ports and the Americans upon persons going aboard steamers at Vancouver and Victoria for Sound ports. In that way “Mother” Jones was held up at the Seattle dock before she had an opportunity to actually reach the British Columbia border.
From the Everett Labor Journal of June 5, 1914
-Mother Jones Speaks with Vigor in Everett, Washington:
“Mother” Jones addressed an audience at the People’s theatre Wednesday night that filled every available foot of space. Crowds stood in the aisles and everywhere they could press in, and many had to go away because they were unable to get near enough to hear. This most militant of the champions of labor stood erect and addressed her audience with vigor although she is 82 years of age, and her hold upon her hearers was so strong that she held them in any mood she chose. Every minute a burst of applause expressed approval of what she said, and she said again all the things she has many times asserted regarding the methods of employers in the mining camps in which she has been a factor in times of strikes. With a few exceptions her statements were made calmly, but in times when she related some of her experiences with the “armed murderers,” as she terms the militia, she became excited and raised her voice to shrillness. Her audience frequently manifested its regard for her as well as its interest in her talk.
Naturally she dwelt most upon the recent strife in Colorado, asserting that the influence of Rockefeller is so great that courts and the militia are his servants and any appeal for justice is consequently futile. The seat of government, she said, was at 26 Broadway (Rockefeller’s office) instead of at Washington. She said she had always worked to bring employers and employes together, realizing that the longer they stood apart in antagonism the farther apart they would get. But results had not been encouraging. Capitalism has gone mad, she said, and when she saw the misery of men and women and children in the mining camps she was impelled to do what she could to lead them to fight for better treatment.
“Mother” Jones has a rather poor opinion of women who, as she put it, “work for Jesus and every auxiliary of capital” and neglect humanity. She counseled women to be careful in voting for “good fellows,” saying they were “good fellows before election but damn bad ones afterwards.”
According the Everett Daily Herald of June 5, 1914:
A parade that had been planned in Everett to honor Mother Jones, was cancelled due to rain, and the speech of Mother Jones that had been planned as an open-air event in City Park, was moved to the People’s theatre which, sadly, was “all to small to accommodate the hundreds who wanted to see and hear the well-known woman.” The Herald describe the speech of Mother Jones:
Her voice seldom rose above a calm pitch, though occasionally when the scenes she described were of unusual order, the old lady’s tones rang shrilly through the theater as she told of the deeds of “armed murderers,” as she termed the militia…
The Herald reported that Mother referred to 26 Broadway in New York City, the headquarters of the Rockefeller interests, as the “seat of government, the real working head of the nation which some people supposed to be located in Washington, D.C.” The Herald further noted this statement made by Mother Jones during her speech:
The Rockefellers and others of the plutocrats were the men really responsible for the horrors of West Virginia, Calumet and Colorado, while the government and soldiers who enforce their laws are more to be pitied than blamed. No gunman or soldier ever lived who had not had a mother, and the mothers of the future must do a better job of educating their boys so they do not grow up to be soldiers or company gunmen.
Not all of the militia in Colorado or in other states where I have fought were inhuman. I fact, I met some real nice boys among them, and they told me that they saw how they had been misled. But the gunmen are the hounds of the system.
From the Daily Capital Journal (Salem, Oregon) of June 6, 1914:
“MOTHER” JONES TO BE ADMITTED INTO CANADA
Seattle, Wash., June 5.,-Word was received here today by “Mother” Jones, the noted mine workers’ organizer that the immigration department at Ottawa has ordered the local Canadian immigration officials to pass her if she applies for admission into Canada.
“Mother ” Jones also received a telegram to the effect that Secretary of Labor Wilson has taken up with the state department at Washington the refusal of the Canadian government to let her take ship to Victoria yesterday.
The Ottawa officials permit her to enter the country if she goes as “a tourist or lecturer.”
“They evidently think I wanted to stay in the king’s country forever,” she declared laughingly , this morning, “and by declaring myself a tourist or lecturer they undoubtedly must feel that I will stay only as long as I have to.”
“Mother” Jones will leave tonight. She plans to speak to the coal mine strikers at Nanaimo, B. C., near Victoria.
MOTHER JONES INVADES CANADA
From The Vancouver World of June 6, 1914:
Mother Jones to Lecture-On Monday night at Labor Hall, Mother Jones, organizer of the U. M. W., is expected to deliver an address under the auspices of the Vancouver Trades and Labor council. Tonight and tomorrow the lady is speaking to the miners at Ladysmith and Nanaimo. She reached Victoria this morning from Seattle, the ban of the immigration department having been lifted.
From The Vancouver World of June 9, 1914:
“Mother” Jones Coming
“Mother” Jones redoubtable leader of the copper miners at Calumet, Mich., is expected to arrive in Vancouver tomorrow morning to give a lecture on labor topics in the Labor Temple tomorrow night. The lady got through the lines of Canadian immigration officers at Seattle after some little trouble and got as far as Victoria. She tarried too long in the calm, salubrious atmosphere of that sedate city and missed the boat which was to have brought her to this commercial metropolis this morning. She wired over to local leaders that she would sleep on board the gulf ferry tonight and would most certainly arrive early on tomorrow’s morn.
Wednesday June 10, 1914 – Vancouver, British Columbia
-Mother Jones Speaks at Vancouver Labor Temple
Excerpts from reports on speech follow:
Mr. W. E. Walker, president of the Trades and Labor Council, presided, and Mr. George Pettigrew, international organizer of the United Mine Workers, introduced “Mother Jones in a brief address in which he said that she had addressed six very successful meetings on Vancouver Island.
Her address sparkled both with humor and pathos…
“If the capitalists rob us to buy guns for their hired assassin,” she remarked in the course of one of her bitter tirades against the military system, “we will have to buy guns ourselves!”…
That was not an industrial war,” she said referring to the Colorado conflicts. “It was a civil war. For the first time in the history of trades unionism in America the various organizations, among them some of the most conservative branches of industry, talked of buying arms and donated sums for that purpose. But it is not guns that we need in the fight – but brains. We will use the pen, not the sword; the head, not the arm. We will put men in the Legislature who will protect our rights as citizens.”…
She touched but lightly upon the Nanaimo [strike] situation, merely stating that similar tactics to those adopted in the States had been employed to cope with the strike on Vancouver Island, and expressing sympathy with the men involved. She urged the cooperation of all of the unions and spoke of the powerful weapon within the grasp of organized labor by calling a general strike of all trades.
“You have to fight the same battle in British Columbia,” she said. “Clasp hands, help the striking miners, join forces, read, study, and think.”…
Note: Emphasis added throughout.
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SOURCES & IMAGES
Quote Mother Jones, Stick Together, MI Miners Bulletin p1, Aug 14, 1913
Copy in possession of JR
The Winnipeg Tribune
(Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada)
-June 5, 1914
https://www.newspapers.com/image/43259211/
Mother Jones Speaks
-ed by Philip S. Foner
NY, 1983
Pages 250-257
(search: nanaimo)
(search: everett herald)
(search: (labor temple vancouver)
https://books.google.com/books?id=OE9hAAAAIAAJ
The Daily Capital Journal
(Salem, Oregon)
-June 4, 1914
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn99063957/1914-06-04/ed-1/seq-3/
-June 6, 1914
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn99063957/1914-06-06/ed-1/seq-5/
The Labor Journal
(Everett, Washington)
-June 5, 1914
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88085620/1914-06-05/ed-1/seq-2/
The Vancouver World
(Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada)
-June 6, 1914
https://www.newspapers.com/image/64559482/
-June 9, 1914
https://www.newspapers.com/image/64559665/
See also:
The British Columbia Federationist – June 12, 1914
“The Mother Jones at the Labor Temple” (June 10, 1914)
https://newspapers.lib.sfu.ca/bcf-1354/british-columbia-federationist?search=%2522mother%2520jones%2522
Map:
Nanaimo to Ladysmith, British Columbia, Canada
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Ladysmith,+BC,+Canada/Nanaimo,+BC,+Canada/@49.2979765,-128.7568667,6z/data=!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x5488ad9574c8a4d9:0x50135152a7b0e40!2m2!1d-123.8161!2d48.99534!1m5!1m1!1s0x5488a15e20ac1c5b:0x50135152a7b0fd0!2m2!1d-123.9400648!2d49.1658836?authuser=0&entry=ttu
More on the Invasion of Canada by Mother Jones:
In her Autobiography Mother Jones described her interaction with the Canadian immigration officials who attempted to bar her from Canada. She also gave a brief description of her trip to the strike zone:
The miners of British Columbia were on strike. They sent for me to come and address them. I went with J. G. Brown. As I was about to go on the boat, the Canadian Immigration officers asked me where I was going.
“To Victoria,,” I told them.
“No you’re not,” said an officer, “you’re going to the strike zone.”
“I might travel a bit,” said I.
“You can’t go,” said he, like he was Cornwallis.
“Why?”
“I don’t have to give reasons,” said he as proudly as if the American Revolution had never been fought.
“You’ll have to state your reasons to my uncle,” said I, “and I’ll be crossing before morning.”
“Who is your uncle?”
“Uncle Sam’s my uncle,” said I. “He cleaned Hell out of you once and he’ll do it again. You let down those bars. I’m going to Canada.”
“You’ll not put a boot in Canada,” said he.”You’ll find out before night who’s boss on this side the water,” said I.
I returned to Labor Headquarters with Brown and we telegraphed the Emigration Department, the Labor Department and the Secretary of State at Washington. They got in touch with the Canadian Government at Ottawa. That very afternoon I got a telegram from the Emigration Department that I might go anywhere I wanted in Canada.
The next morning when I went to get on the boat, the Canadian official with whom I had spoken the day before ran and hid. He had found out who my uncle was!
I addressed meetings in Victoria. Then I went up to the strike zone. A regiment of Canadian Kilties met the train, squeaking on their bagpipes. Down the street came a delegation of miners but they did not wear crocheted petticoats. They wore the badge of the working class-the overalls. I held a tremendous meeting that night and the poor boys who had come up from the subterranean holes of the earth to fight for a few hours of sunlight, took courage. I brought them the sympathy of the Colorado strikers, a sympathy and understanding that reaches across borders and frontiers.
Men’s hearts are cold. They are indifferent. Not all the coal that is dug warms the world. It remains indifferent to the lives of those who risk their life and health down in the blackness of the earth; who crawl through dark, choking crevices with only a bit of lamp on their caps to light their silent way; whose backs are bent with toil, whose very bones ache, whose happiness is sleep, and whose peace is death.
[Emphasis added.]
SOURCE
The Autobiography of Mother Jones
-by Mother Jones
-ed by Mary Field Parton
-introduction by Clarence Darrow
Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Company, 1925
From chapter 22: “You Don’t Need a Vote to Raise Hell”
https://archive.iww.org/history/library/MotherJones/autobiography/22/
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A Miner’s Life – Kilshannig