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Hellraisers Journal – Friday September 19, 1919
Cleveland, Ohio – Mother Jones Speaks at U. M. W. A. Convention, Part III
Mother Jones addressed the convention once again during the afternoon of Wednesday September 17th, the seventh day of the convention. She urged the miners to unite behind the steel workers in their upcoming battle against the Steel Trust:
I beg of you for the sake of the heroes that are going to break into the war Monday [September 22nd] for a better civilization, to bury the hatchet and come together, regardless of what may happen. Let the enemy see that we are a solidified army and ready for the war if they want it.
From Stenographic Report by Mary Burke East:
ADDRESS OF MOTHER JONES.
Now, boys, I have got to go; I am called away. I don’t know whether it will ever be my privilege to attend another of your conventions. The battle of ages is on; we have got to fight it and it has got to be won. In an hour or so I will leave for the steel strike in Pittsburgh. I have no doubt the bonds of those poor steel workers will be broken before we end. It has been a long struggle, but it is going to come to an end.
Now, I am going to say a few words to you, and I want you to pay attention to what I say. Don’t forget the men and women who gave up their lives for this movement in Utah, Colorado, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. This movement was founded on the blood of men who tramped the weary pathway at night, often hungry and cold, to carry the message of a better day to you. Some of you remember the awful day at McCray’s School House, when you walked forty miles, hungry and worn out, to attend that meeting. The fact of your meeting here today is due to the work of those men who are in their graves.
I remember one terrific strike on the Iron Mountain. There was no American Federation of Labor in those days. The organization wasn’t very strong and men had very little money. When they were about to call the strike I said to one of the men: “I don’t know whether it is safe or not; I question whether some of those aristocratic organizations will respond.” He was called by telegraph from Kansas City to St. Louis. When he registered at the hotel he was being taken to his room when two men said: “Come this way.” He went. They locked him in a room, put the strike call in his hand, and with two pistols at his head told him to sign it. He had to do it. The men were the secretary and treasurer of that organization, both detectives.
The strike went on, and of course it was lost. However. I think no strike is ever completely lost. We give the other fellows a fight and let them know we can come back. I met Martin Irons when he was going away with a little parcel under his arm. I asked him where he was going and he said: “God knows! I don’t. They have taken my wife, my home, my health—they have broken my heart. They have taken all I have—I don’t know where I am going.” “No, they haven’t,” I said “They have left you the greatest gift God ever gave to man, they have left you an honest name and that beats all the wealth of the world.”
I never saw Martin Irons again, but one day I got off the train at Bruceville, Texas, and asked the agent to take me to the cemetery where Martin Irons was buried. He took me to the grave of that warrior who paved the way for you. His only tombstone was the half of a broken shovel. I said: “This has ever been the fate of the heroes of the world.” In Memphis he was arrested as a vagrant. T. V. Powderly sent fifteen dollars to pay his fine and got him off. I wrote the matter up and showed how he was deserted by those he tried to save. You have done that all the way down through history. He did more than any man I know. He was maligned and persecuted. I wrote about his neglected grave and the State Federation of Missouri put a monument over his grave. I made arrangements with the miners of Illinois to give him a grave and raise money for a monument. I may do that before I die, for I don’t like to have him down there alone.
There are men lying in their graves today that marched through blinding snow storms, they slept in section houses, they got something to eat from section men. They went barefooted to pave the way for you to meet here today, and, boys, I know that every insidious method is going to be used to wreck the organization they founded. You make mistakes, we all do. We were born hungry, the brain was starved. We had to work and let the other fellow, live off us. Now I beg of you for the sake of your children, for the sake of the revolution that is on, I beg of you for the sake of the heroes that are going to break into the war Monday for a better civilization, to bury the hatchet and come together, regardless of what may happen. Let the enemy see that we are a solidified army and ready for the war if they want it.
I have got sore myself at times, but you all know you haven’t an officer I will not get after if I am convinced he is a traitor, and if he is I will get him down or die. There is more than one of them I got down. Now I am asking you to come together. Mr. Lewis, get those boys up here and make them shake hands, and you shake hands with them. Be friends.
Acting President Lewis: They are all friends of mine, Mother.
Mother Jones: Help your president to win the battle. Illinois was one State the powers that be were afraid of. Are you going to betray the boys that gave up their lives at Virden for this organization? No, I know you won’t. Bury the hatchet. Your conventions are getting too big and cost too much money. The money comes out of your pockets and when you need it, instead of giving it to hotels, the railroads and the pool rooms, save that money and raise hell with the powers that are on our backs. We need every dollar we can get to clean the other fellow up, because we are on the war path now. I have a picture here that was taken in New York. It is of Gary and Schwab, the two gentlemen that dictate to the government. We are going to move, and we are going to dictate to those two high class burglars.
Now, bury the hatchet, every one cf you. Shake hands with your president and secretary and say that you will be friends from now on. I wouldn’t have your job for a million dollars, Mr. Lewis. I learned ten months ago that a tremendous fund had been raised to destroy the United Mine Workers from within. They cannot succeed from the outside, but they are playing the game from within. I want you to get up and tell those pirates that they cannot destroy this organization, for it it founded on too solid a foundation and it is going on until we win.
A rising vote of thanks was tendered Mother Jones for her presence in the convention and for her inspiring address.
[Photograph, paragraph breaks and emphasis added.]
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SOURCE
Quote Mother Jones, UMWA Until We Win, Clv UMWC p618, Sept 17, 1919
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=-V5ZAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA618
September 17, 1919, Seventh Day-Afternoon Session, UMWC
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=-V5ZAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA598
Mother Jones Speaks
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=-V5ZAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA616
From:
Proceedings of Twenty-Seventh Consecutive and
-Fourth Biennial Convention of United Mine Workers of America,
Cleveland, Ohio, September 9-23, 1919
https://books.google.com/books?id=-V5ZAAAAYAAJ
Volume I-p1, Sept 9-15, 1919
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=-V5ZAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PP7
Volume II-p481, Sept 15-23, 1919
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=-V5ZAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA483
IMAGE
Mother Jones, Women in Industry, Eve Ns Hburg PA p2, Jan 6, 1919
https://www.newspapers.com/image/57884211
See also:
The Speeches and Writings of Mother Jones
-ed by Edward M. Steel
University of Pittsburgh Press, 1988
https://books.google.com/books?id=vI-xAAAAIAAJ
Mother Jones Speaks
Collected Writings and Speeches
-ed by Philip S Foner
Monad Press, 1983
https://books.google.com/books?id=T_m5AAAAIAAJ
Tag: Great Steel Strike of 1919
https://weneverforget.org/tag/great-steel-strike-of-1919/
Hellraisers Journal, Thursday June 13, 1907
Mother Jones News for May: Visits Grave of Martin Irons
They’ll Never Keep Us Down – Hazel Dickens