Hellraisers Journal, Monday January 21, 1918
Indianapolis, Indiana – Mother Jones Speaks at U. M. W. Convention
The following is a transcript of the speech delivered by Mother Jones Thursday Afternoon, January 17th, to the Twenty-Sixth Convention of the United Mine Workers of America:
President Hayes:
I feel that the convention is very anxious to hear the distinguished visitor who has just come on the platform. She is a pioneer in our movement, a woman who has been with us for many years and has helped in all the great strikes that have occurred for years past. She needs no introduction to this convention of the United Mine Workers of America. I am now going to present the grandmother of the movement, a young lady of eighty-seven, Mother Jones.
ADDRESS OF MOTHER JONES.
I want to say, boys, that I am glad I have lived to see this gathering of the miners in this country in this hall today. Years ago no one ever dreamt that this great mass of producers would meet in the capital of a great state. I am not going to throw any bouquets at you—I am not driven to that at all. I did not expect to speak in this convention. I came here more to look it over until the officers of West Virginia came back. For the first time in the history of West Virginia we have good officers; that is, we have honest, clean, sober men. They don’t make any crooked deals with the high class burglars—and if I catch one of them doing it I will see that he is hung so he will not make another.
I want to call your attention, as I have often done, to a few illustrations of what is taking place the world over today. History tells us that away back in the days of the Roman Empire they were gathering in the blood of men who produced the wealth, just as they have been doing up to this time. Back in that time the Roman lords said, “Let us go down to Carthage and stop the agitation there.” They went down and all they arrested at that time they sold into slavery or held them. They do pretty much the same today, for the courts put you in jail, which is worse than any slavery.
The Roman courts said to one young man, “Why do you carry on this agitation? Don’t you know it is dangerous?” The young man said, “No, I didn’t know it was dangerous, but I will tell you why I carry it on. I belong to a class that has been robbed, plundered, murdered, maligned, vilified, jailed, persecuted all down the ages, and because I belong to that class I feel it is my duty to awaken that class to their condition. The earth was not made for a few, but for all God’s people.” I wish I could imbue every man in this hall today with the same spirit that had possession of that Pagan slave. Mind you/he was not a modern Christian, he was a Pagan slave, but he was teaching Christ’s doctrine to his brothers.
We are in a war today, the nation is facing a crisis and you must not look at it with indifference. Never in the history of the American nation has the government assumed such a responsibility as it has on its shoulders now. Don’t think this war will end tomorrow, not at all. And if we are going to have freedom for the workers we have got to stand behind the nation in this fight to the last man. There may be those who want peace. I don’t want peace on any terms, I am not willing to take it or concede it. Perhaps I was as much opposed to war as any one in the nation, but when we get into a fight I am one of those who intend to clean hell out of the other fellow, and we have got to clean the kaiser up. Now, mind you, I don’t mean the German people, I mean the kaiser, the dictator; I mean the grafter, the burglar, the thief, the murderer—the men of that type will have to be cleaned up.
I heard you talking about the responsibility for the shortage of coal. There is no shortage of coal. The miners of this country are willing to dig coal day and night if the nation needs it. But there is a shortage of common sense in making the other fellow give up the cars. The miners are willing to dig Sunday, Monday, or any other day, but they can’t get the cars. Without anybody knowing anything about it I took a trip from Charleston to Cincinnati I got an old sunbonnet, put it on and went into every yard. I looked over the yards and saw cars by the hundreds laid away instead of being given to the miners. The miners in Cabin Creek worked only six hours in one week, and in Paint Creek not an hour. And then somebody will come forward and blame the miners! Let me tell you the miner is the best citizen there is in America. The miners in the Fairmount region haven’t had cars, and the shortage of coal cannot be blamed on them. I counted sixty cars of coal this morning as I came along and they were all sidetracked. Why are engines not taken from other roads and attached to those cars to take them where they are needed?
You cannot do business up in Washington, you have got to do it out through the country. Sitting down blowing off steam in Washington won’t settle the question; you have got to have some people out to do the work. Not the fellow working for a dollar a year. That kind of gentleman don’t know anything about it. Pick men from among the coal miners who understand the situation and they will furnish the coal. The President has taken over the rail roads. Well, then, let us have cars. But cut out the watered stock, because if we own the railroads we are not going to stand for watered stock. They have been robbing us long enough and we will attend to that later on—we are not going to bother with it now.
Every miner in West Virginia is perfectly willing to work day and night if the government needs him. The miners cannot produce the coal if you don’t give them the cars to dump it into. The trouble lies with the railroads. What we must do is to settle down to one thing — no more strikes in the mines, not a single strike. Let us keep at one strike, a strike to strike the kaiser off the throne. Let us settle little grievances without conflicts, because the nation is in no condition to deal with those things today. Never in our history has the President had such things to contend with. Not Washington, not Lincoln, not a President who ever sat in the presidential chair has gone up against it like the man who is there today. I am not in the habit of paying tribute to public officials as a rule, but I will say that the first time in your his tory you have been recognized as good citizens of the United States has been by the present chief executive of the nation. When he wrote to you he at least recognized that you are the bone and sinew of this nation, for without you the nation would perish.
So I say I pay my respects to President Wilson. He took a stand that no President ever did before. He offered a proposition for the settlement of the Colorado strike when it looked very dangerous for the nation. I don’t believe even President Wilson realized how dangerous it was, but he sent out a proposition and the miners accepted it. You have been a little free from strikes since, but not from internal agitation and conflict. Now, boys, I want to tell you we have got to stop and bury all internal bickering and rise like men to meet the danger to our nation. This is no time to fight to see who will be officers. You know when there is wrong there is no one in your ranks who will fight it more openly than I will, but I feel this is a time to give an example to workers all over the world.
I congratulate you on this magnificent convention. Talking to a mine owner today we discussed a few questions. He said, “I want to show you what organization does. In 1902 we had a convention of miners in West Virginia. In 1918 we had another. I stood in that convention and surveyed the men who were there representing some 30,000 members. As I looked at them I saw the change that had come about. The men in the convention this year got down to business, discussed vital questions; there was no conflict, each brought out his views, he got a hearing and then all agreed finally. That is the outcome of organization, education and agitation. They were not drinking; they were attending to business.”
I was in that convention and we didn’t have any temperance cats howling around there; we didn’t need them. The men had learned self- respect since they got shorter hours, did away with the pluck-me stores and got their pay in Uncle Sam’s money instead of corporation scrip. They did not have to buy Armour’s rotten beef from the company store. At one time I was staying at a miner’s home after holding a meeting in 1901 with the enslaved army that was in the mines at that time. The mother got up in the morning and opened a can of Armour’s choice roast beef. She started to put it in the buckets of the boys and found three fingers in the can under a layer of beef. Farther down she found part of a hand. I got it and took it away with me. We were going to have a meeting in the opera house in Montgomery the next day. I showed the men what they had to pay for in the pluck-me store. It was Armour’s choice roast beef, mind you, and three fingers of the worker had been chopped off. They don’t have to do that now. If they got a can of that sort of stuff they would hit the pencil pusher over the head with it, but in 1901 they had to take it or they were blacklisted. They are not blacklisted now, they have an organization behind them.
Another thing they have now is schools for the children. That convention in Charleston last week taught me one great lesson. There were men there from along the Kanawha River that were in bondage fifteen years ago. Often I had to go around in those days to hold a meeting with them in the dead of night. Now I can go in the daytime in all but a few places. We cannot do that in the Pocahontas field yet, but we are going in there one of these days, and I tell you when we do there’ll be hell let loose. We want them to understand we are going out. America is fighting for democracy abroad and we are going to fight at home, so that when we lick the fellows abroad we will have here at home a nation with laws that will not be set aside by the Supreme Court. When that day comes the Supreme Court will not be telling you you are criminals. The Supreme Court doesn’t know what it is to suffer.
In Washington, where four or five of them were discussing the great issues of the day, an old fossilized fellow who had been dead forty years before he was born said, “You know that the miners and the workers spend their money in saloons.” I let him shoot off his hot air a while and said, “How much of your money did they ever spend? How much of their money did you spend? You spend-a lot of it, because you have a stomach four miles long and two miles wide. If the miners do take a drink once in a while they need it. They have to go into the mines and work in water day after day and watch the roof for fear it will come down on them, watch for poisonous gases, and in West Virginia in some places they have to spend fourteen hours a day, or did some years ago. You know nothing about these things. You have been living off the life blood of your fellow-man and you have no conception of what he has to contend with.”
To go back to the war. We will stay with Uncle Sam. He is the best uncle you ever struck. There is no other uncle in the world like Uncle Sam, and the convention must express its deep appreciation of President Wilson, who is the first President that ever sat in the executive chair of the nation who recognized this body of workers. It isn’t anything but what he should have done, but he is the first one that did it, and for that reason I want to pay my respects to him. If we are going to have any difficulties let us go to the national government and put our case before them before any strike is called. Let us dig the coal and let us demand that we get cars to fill with the coal. You know there is a game being played because Uncle Sam has taken over the roads. The pirates are onto the game and they are trying to embarrass the government. I will tell you what we will do. We will line up an army in West Virginia, capture the cars, get the engineers and firemen to run them down to the mines, load them and run them to Washington and New York.
You have a young president here; he is very young yet, but I want to tell you something. I want you to stand behind President Hayes and help him, and don’t harrass him any more than you can help. Let us stand together as one man behind him. There never was an hour in the history of organized labor when it was so essential for us to bury the hatchet, stand together and fight this battle of the nation to a finish as now. And when we have won, if they don’t give us a square deal we will fight then. I want you to stand behind your president and do everything you can. He is young now, but before he gets through he will grow old. You have got a secretary who is one of the most able men in America in the industries. I have been watching him carefully. I watch them all and I know them all from A to Z.
I was traveling all night and I was fussing all day yesterday. A fellow asked me if I didn’t think it was time for me to die, and I said “No, I have a contract to clean hell out of you fellows and I cannot go until I have helped civilize you.” Now, be good boys and let us make this fight of our nation a fight to the finish. Show the world there is one grand body of men in America that stands loyally for the flag. You must understand that the men who watered the clay for seven long years with their blood, with blistered feet, weary backs and throbbing heads, they did it in order to hand down to you the noblest emblem ever handed down during all the generations of man as an evidence of their belief in social justice and industrial freedom. I happened to be one of those who walked over the clay those men watered with their blood to give me a vision of freedom. Their memory is dear to me. Every star in that flag was bought with the blood of men who believed in freedom, industrial freedom, particularly. Now it is up to us to carry on the work. Organize, organize, organize.
There is a system of industrial feudalism in the State of West Virginia but before another year ends the backbone of that damnable system will be broken and men will rise beneath those stars and stripes as they should rise, free, for the first time. We propose to put the infamous gunmen there out of business. We will make them find other occupations. You are robbed and plundered to pay these gunmen that are hired to keep you in industrial slavery. If it takes every man of the 500,000 miners in this country to march into West Virginia we propose to drive out that feudal system that survives there. It is an outrage and an insult to that flag. They may as well prepare for business, for we are going to do it. The president of the Winding Gulf gang said in Washington, “Don’t you know that Mother Jones swears?” I was asked, “Do you swear, Mother Jones?” I said, “You don’t think I’m hypocrite enough to pray when I’m talking to those thieves!”
Now line up and stand with the government. No matter who says no, you fellows, every man of you, stand together, and when the fight is over across the water, if we have any kaisers at home we will line up. We will have the guns and our boys will be drilled. We will do business then and we will not ask to borrow money to buy guns. We will have the guns Uncle Sam paid for and we will use them on the pirates and put a stop to slavery. We will give the children of the future a chance to grow. We will teach the people of all the world what that flag stands for and we will not be betrayed by the workers. Let us pledge ourselves in this convention to stand beside the President until the battle is won. I would advise every one to join the Home Guards. Some one would ask why I recommend that. I recommend it because when they call out their army to crush the workers and destroy the future of the nation we will have the guns and we will turn them on the common enemy, not the workers. You have a chance today that has never come in the history of this country before and I want you to take advantage of it.
I had an appeal made to me that touched me more than anything has in years. A company of the boys were going abroad from Bentley, West Virginia. The mother of one of the boys fainted. Her boy, with tears in his eyes, gazed at her. In spite of that the last thing he said was, “Mother, keep up the union until we come back and then we will all be one.” There never was a grander appeal made by men who had been in slavery and bondage and had just accepted their chance. When they made that appeal I got a new light. I saw those boys going over the ocean to fight the battle for freedom, and they said, “Keep the boys together until we return and then we will all be one.” So I say to you, boys, keep up the education and the agitation.
I know there may be some who will find a little fault with what I am going to say, but let me make this appeal to you: Instead of going to poolrooms and playing poker with mine owners or with any one else, get a book and read and study and prepare yourselves for the future. When you have an idle time, when you feel your brain is rested, get food out of some economic work by some master mind. When you play poker with a mine owner and you win money from him it is a bribe and he gives it to you for that purpose. I know some of you will condemn me, but I am onto the game. Stay at home and bring up your children to be good citizens. Your wives and children are the best companions and home is the best place in the world.
I want to say to you, President Hayes, if you send any organizers into the field where I am and they play poker games, if you don’t take them out I will lick them and put them out. I complained about one and you took him out. The fellow lost $35 playing poker one night and I lodged a complaint against him. He wouldn’t lose that money, it would go in on the pay roll and you would pay it. Now, I am warn ing you, and I want to tell you, Mr. Hayes, if you send any leeches and bloodsuckers into West Virginia we will send them out. We won’t put up with them. We have got good men; there is no organization in the country that has as good men as the miners have, but they seldom get on the pay roll. Those men have got to work if they come into the field where I am or I will put them out.
A motion was made to print the speech made by Mother Jones.
President Hayes:
That will be done without a motion. I have known Mother Jones for a number of years, I have worked with her in various fields, and she has always had the respect of the international organization. For seven years she worked under my direction as an organizer and the only orders I ever gave her was to go where she pleased. She always did that and she always said what she pleased. She is a free lance in this movement and I think the “young president” will profit by her suggestion.
So far as the organizing staff is concerned, it compares favor ably -with any other organizing staff in the country. I don’t think Mother Jones intended to reflect upon the many good men on the organizing staff. If there is any man among the organizers who is not honest and who does not perform his duties, he goes off that staff. In the case she referred to the man went off the staff immediately when she reported to me. I want to make that clear so that there will be no misunderstanding in the minds of the delegates to this convention as to where I stand upon the question she brought to your attention. I appreciate the splendid work Mother Jones has performed in the interest of this movement. She has rendered valiant service and in behalf of the delegates I desire to thank her for her address this after noon.
Mother Jones:
I worked under President White from the time he became president until he resigned and never at any time did he tell me what to do or where to go. There was only one time in the whole history when he said to me, “Mother, would you go into West Virginia and see if you can straighten out the boys?” I went in, but that is the only time he ever said a word to me in all the years I worked under him. I want now to express my appreciation for the kindly and courteous manner in which he treated me. If other presidents who pre ceded him had done the same the miners would not have been required to spend the amount of money they did in organizing some of the States and fewer lives would have been lost. We have harmony in West Virginia and we are certainly indebted to President White for that.
[Photographs added.]
SOURCE
Proceedings of Convention of the
United Mine Workers of America
Indianapolis, Indiana
January 15 to 26, 1918
https://books.google.com/books?id=8fQUAAAAIAAJ
Third Day-Afternoon Session, Thursday January 17
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=8fQUAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA337
Address of Mother Jones
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=8fQUAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA359
IMAGES
Mother Jones from:
Illinois State Register
(Springfield, IL)
-Sept 1, 1917, p2
https://www.genealogybank.com/
Frank Hayes, UMWJ p3, Jan 10, 1918
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=OAxOAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PT332
See also:
Mother Jones Speaks: Collected Writings and Speeches
p 291: “Let Us Have a Strike-A Strike to Strike the Kaiser off the Throne.” Speech delivered at 1918 United Mine Workers convention.
-ed by Philip Sheldon Foner
Monad Press, 1983
https://books.google.com/books?id=T_m5AAAAIAAJ
The Speeches and Writings of Mother Jones
p 185: Speech at a convention of the United Mine Workers of America, Indianapolis, Indiana
-ed by Edward M Steel
University of Pittsburgh Press, 1988
https://books.google.com/books?id=vI-xAAAAIAAJ