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Hellraisers Journal – Monday January 13, 1913
Washington, D. C. – Mother Jones Speaks on Behalf of West Virginia Miners
From the Washington Evening Star of January 11, 1913:
TELLS OF INHUMANITY
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“Mother” Jones Scores Treatment of
the West Virginia Coal Miners.
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“Mother” Jones, the “angel” of the United Mine Workers and a prominent figure in the coal mining regions for the last forty years, was the principal speaker at a meeting at National Rifles’ Armory last night, the meeting being held under the auspices of the Central Labor Union.
In her address Mother Jones pronounced conditions in the coal mining regions of West Virginia worse than that of the slaves in the darkest days of the antebellum period. She declared that she had seen twenty-one innocent men out of a party of thirty miners slain while they slept by a posse made up of deputy sheriffs and detectives, and that of her own knowledge women and children of striking miners had been thrown out of their cabins, in evil weather, by the hired officers of the mine owners and forced to seek shelter under trees and in eaves of the mountains, without food for four days and nights.
“Were these things to occur in Russia or Mexico,” declared Mother Jones, “the American people would rise up in protest, as they have done on several occasions, forcing Congress to take action to prevent further murders and violence.”
Representative W. B. Wilson of Pennsylvania, for many years a high official of the United Mine Workers, presided at the meeting, and declared that he knew personally that the things of which Mother Jones told were actually true. Other speakers were J. W. Brown of the U. M. W., and Frank Hayes, a vice president of that organization. Resolutions were adopted reciting at length the alleged conditions in the West Virginia coal fields and petitioning Congress to rectify them by adopting a pending of Representative Wilson’s calling for a thorough investigation.
[Photograph and emphasis added.]
From The Coming Nation of January 11, 1913
-weapons taken from company gunthugs of the West Virginia strike field:
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SOURCES
Quote Mother Jones, Howling Anarchy, Cton WV, Sept 6, 1912
-Steel Speeches p107
https://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt%3A31735035254105/viewer#page/128/mode/2up
The Evening Star
(Washington, D. C.)
-Jan 11, 1913
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1913-01-11/ed-1/seq-5/
The Coming Nation
(Girard, Kansas)
-Jan 11, 1913
https://www.newspapers.com/image/487678523/
IMAGE
Mother Jones, NE State Jr p2, Sept 19, 1912
https://www.newspapers.com/image/313903955/
See also:
Tag: Paint Creek-Cabin Creek Strike of 1912-1913
https://weneverforget.org/tag/paint-creek-cabin-creek-strike-of-1912-1913/
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