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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday July 30, 1903
Mother Jones Speaks on Child Labor While Lions Roar at Bostock’s on Coney Island
From The New York Times of July 27, 1903:
MOTHER JONES SPEAKS TO
CONEY ISLAND CROWD
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Delivers Address in a Menagerie
and Lions Interrupt.
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Anti-Child Labor Crusader Rebukes Young Man in the
Audience Who Smiled-On to Oyster Bay This Week.
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“Mother” Jones and her army were the central attraction yesterday afternoon [Sunday July 26th] at Bostock’s trained animal show at Coney Island. Mme. Morelli and her cage full of snarling leopards, reluctantly obeying her at the persuasion of a horse whip skillfully wielded by scarred arms, did not excite half the interest there was in “Mother” Jones and her army. Even the baby elephant that wanders about in the crowd at the entrance of the animal show excited little interest, to the intense mortification of the massive infant. The monkey tribe huddled dejectedly in the corners of their cages, and the animals indulged in long siestas with their backs turned to those who had come to admire them. They went through their performances in the steel-barred stage sullenly, with occasional exhibitions of savagery, at the idea that they were eclipsed by “Mother” Jones and her army.
The “barker” who raps a cane on his elevated desk to attract attention to the wonders of the show early in the afternoon grew hoarse in his announcements that “Mother” Jones would deliver an address at 4:30 o’clock. The building was well filled some time before the scheduled address of “Mother” Jones.
At the conclusion of the performance of the animals the stage scenery was shifted so that it was meant to represent the Colosseum, the populace high above all danger of the animals, and an Emperor on either side, with forearms extended and thumbs pointing downward, the two Emperors within easy striking distance of any beast, not suffering with rheumatism, which might prefer royal to other meat.
“Mother” Jones offered no objection to the stage setting; on the contrary, she expressed her approval. They were typical of aristocracy and her crusade is aimed against what she designates as “the aristocracy of employers.”
The official announcer heralded the coming of “Mother” Jones and her army, and they appeared in the Colosseum surrounded by bars. The idea of being caged was disagreeable to the speaker, and she positively refused to talk from “behind the bars.” A platform was therefore arranged for her outside of the cage, she standing on a board resting on two chairs. She had scarcely begun to talk when the largest lion, known as “the King of the Beasts,” set up a horrible roar, the others joining in his protest against attacks on aristocracy, even if it was of the human kind. During her remarks “Mother” Jones was constantly interrupted by the discourteous beasts. In the course of her address she said in part:
After a long and weary march, with more miles to travel, we are on our way to see President Roosevelt at Oyster Bay. We will ask him to recommend the passage of a bill by Congress to protect children against the greed of the manufacturer. We want him to hear the wail of the children, who never have a chance to go to school, but work from ten to eleven hours a day in the textile mills of Philadelphia, weaving the carpets that he and you walk on, and the curtains and clothes of the people.
Fifty years ago there was a cry against slavery, and the men of the North gave up their lives to stop the selling of black children on the block. To-day the white child is sold for $2 a week, and even by his parents to the manufacturers.
Fifty years ago the black babies were sold C. O. D. To-day the white baby is sold to the manufacturer on the installment plan. He might die at his tasks and the manufacturer with the automobile and the yacht and the daughter who talks French to a poodle dog, as you can see any day at Twenty-third Street and Broadway when they roll by, could not afford to pay $2 a week for the child that might die, except on the present installment plan. What the President can do is to recommend a measure and send a message to Congress which will break the chains of the white children slaves.
He indorsed a bill for the expenditure of$45,000 to fill the stomach of a Prince who went gallivanting about the country. We will ask in the name of the aching hearts of these little ones that they be emancipated. I will tell the President that I saw men in Madison Square last night sleeping on the benches, and that the country can have no greatness while one unfortunate lies out at night without a bed to sleep on. I will tell him that the prosperity he boasts of is the prosperity of the rich wrung from the poor.
At this point “Mother” Jones broke away from her address to ask a stylishly dressed young man to stop his smiling and go home to beg the mother who had borne him to give him brains and a heart. She referred to the children again, and the young man grinned again, to receive further advice from the speaker. The army was in the cage, clinging to the bars behind “Mother” Jones and peering out eagerly looking for the offender. Continuing, the speaker said:
The trouble is that the fellers in Washington don’t care. I saw them last Winter pass three railroad bills in one hour, but when labor cries for aid for the little ones they turn their backs and will not listen to her. I asked a min in prison once how he happened to get there. He had stolen a pair of shoes. I told him that if he had stolen a railroad he could be a United States Senator. One hour of Justice is worth an age of praying.
You are told that every American-born male citizen has a chance of being President. I tell you that the hungry man without a bed in the park would sell his chance for a good square meal, and these little toilers, deformed, dwarfed in body, soul, and morality, with nothing but toil before them and no chance for schooling, don’t even have the dream that they might some day have a chance at the Presidential chair.
You see those monkeys in the cages. They are trying to teach them to talk. The monkeys are too wise, for they fear that then the manufacturers might buy them for slaves in their factories. In 1860 the workingmen had the advantage in the percentage of the country’s wealth. To-day statistics at Washington show that with billions of wealth the wage earners’ share is but 10 per cent. We are going to tell the President of these things. To-morrow we meet in Madison Square and Thursday we start for Oyster Bay.
Mother Jones and her army will quarter in the loft of the Bostock Building to-night as they did last night. They will then go to New York. The small boys are delighted with their quarters. They said yesterday afternoon that they would be willing never to go back to the mills if they could only live with the show and see the sights of Coney Island.
[Photograph and emphasis added.]
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SOURCE
The New York Times
(New York, New York)
-July 27, 1903
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-new-york-times-july-27-1903-new-yo/129415544/
IMAGE
Mother Jones, March of Mill Children, NY Eve Wld p3, July 8, 1903
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030193/1903-07-08/ed-1/seq-3/
See also:
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday July 29, 1903
Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York – Mother Jones and Her Army Guests of Bostock
Tag: March of the Mill Children
https://weneverforget.org/tag/march-of-the-mill-children/
-7/26 -Army at Coney Island as guests of Frank Bostock;
Mother Jones Speaks on Evils of Child Labor, Wants Pres. Roosevelt’s Help
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/64+East+4th+Street,+New+York,+NY/Coney+Island,+Brooklyn,+NY/@40.5790668,-73.9856975,14.29z/data=!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x89c25984cb6ac3bb:0x12d39ba99e901a48!2m2!1d-73.9906473!2d40.7264384!1m5!1m1!1s0x89c24448979d75cb:0x54745adc3c8f1179!2m2!1d-73.9707016!2d40.5755438?authuser=0&entry=ttu
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Babies in the Mill – Daria
Lyrics by Dorsey Dixon