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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday May 16, 1914
Brooklyn, New York – Mother Jones to Seek Aid for the Colorado Strike
From The Brooklyn Daily Eagle of May 14, 1914:
Mother Jones to Speak to Women of Colorado Relief Committee
MOTHER JONES TO SPEAK HERE MONDAY
———-
Committee Meets at Home of Mrs. J. P. Warbasse
to Perfect Arrangements
———-FOR AROUSING SYMPATHY
———-
She Will Tell of Her Experiences in Colorado Strike,
Where She Was Arrested.
———-
Refugees of Ludlow Tent Colony at Trades Assembly Hall,
Trinidad, Colorado, photograph by Louis DoldThe committee in charge of the Mother Jones meeting, to be held at the Masonic Temple Monday evening met at the home of Mrs. James P. Warbasse [Agnes Dyer Warbasse], 386 Washington avenue yesterday afternoon, and discussed the arrangements. The object of the meeting on Monday is to arouse interest and sympathy for the wives and children of the Colorado mine workers who are suffering for want of food and clothing, and all who attend are requested to bring warm clothing blankets, etc., to be sent to Colorado.
Mother Jones who was in Colorado during the mine trouble, was asked to go to Washington to testify before the Senate in the investigation of the alleged massacre of women and children in the fight between the strikers and the militia. She has never spoken in Brooklyn before, and has come at the request of the women of Brooklyn, who formed the Colorado Relief Committee, to tell of her experiences in Colorado, where she was arrested on her way from Denver to Trinidad, and held by the military court for three weeks incommunicado not being allowed to employ a counselor or see a physician during that period and being released just before the serving of a writ of habeas corpus.
“This was all illegal, according to the laws of Colorado,” declared Mrs. James P. Warbasse to an Eagle reporter, at her home, yesterday afternoon. “A military court should not have been held when the civil courts were in session, and then think of an old woman like Mother Jones being held without the opportunity of consulting a physician. However, she is free now and she is going to tell the public just how things stand out there. She accepts no remuneration for her talks, and says it is payment enough to arouse the interest and sympathy of the public in the oppression and suffering of the Western miners.”
Mrs. Warbasse, who is actively interested in social work, was present in her automobile when Miss Elizabeth Dutcher was arrested on Tuesday evening, in front of Stern’s store on Forty-second street, Manhattan, where she had gone to speak to the employees on the unionization of clerks in department stores. Mrs. Warbasse furnished the bail.
Miss Dutcher is a member of the committee in charge of the meeting on Monday, as is also Mrs. Frank H. Cothren, who is acting as advisory counsel to Miss Dutcher, and Miss Hildegarde Kneeland, who was also present at the time of arrest.
“I think it a very significant thing that Mother Jones is coming here for the first time, at the request of the women of Brooklyn,” said Mrs. Warbasse, “and we think the time is ripe for bringing before the public some of the wrongs and oppressions suffered by the poor people in this country. I think this quotation will explain our attitude as well as anything. ‘He who would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression.’ We have tried to help the sufferers in Colorado by sending Miss Helen Schloss, a trained nurse, and at her request we are raising funds for clothing and food, for which these people are suffering. A collection will be taken up for their benefit on Monday evening.”…..
[Photograph and emphasis added.]
Letter sent by Mother Jones to John D Rockefeller Jr.
On May 14th, 1914 the New York Call printed the following letter, from Mother Jones to John D. Jr., stating that the registered letter was rejected when it was delivered at 26 Broadway:
John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Esq.
26 Broadway
Dear Sir-
As you may have noticed in the newspapers, I am visiting New York for the purpose of directing public opinion in mining conditions in Colorado.
Before going before the public in a series of meetings now being arranged before civic bodies, trade unions, single tax leagues and other representative societies, it occurs to me that, out of fairness, a personal visit to you for the purpose of laying before you the exact facts in the entire matter would be in order.
I feel quite sure that I have in my possession facts and data which you have not been provided with, and which I would take great pleasure in laying before you in the course of an interview, if you make an appointment within the next day or two.
No “demonstration” is intended, and I merely wish to preset to your fair minded consideration the entire truth of the Colorado situation.
As evidence of my intentions and good faith-should such be required-I will be accompanied by Hon. Alfred J. Boulton, a well known Brooklyn official, and Hon. William Lustgarten, the distinguished single taxer and real estate investor. I would like them to be present at our interview.
Trusting you will see fit to make this appointment, preferably for 11 o’clock Wednesday morning next, I remain very truly yours.MOTHER JONES
[Emphasis added.]
From The New York Times of May 14, 1914:
REGISTERED LETTER ‘REFUSED’
———-
Mother Jones Shows Unopened Envelope
Sent to 26 Broadway.Mother Jones, the eighty-two-year-old Socialist agitator, who came here several days ago from Trinidad, Col, to make an effort to interview John D. Rockefeller, Jr., exhibited to friends in her room at the Union Square Hotel yesterday an unopened registered letter which she had sent to Mr. Rockefeller at 26 Broadway. Across the face of the envelope was written the word “Refused.”
“Of course,” said Mother Jones, as she passed the unopened letter around, “I could hardly hope that John D. Rockefeller, Jr., would listen to a woman in her eighty-third year, who has given her whole life to the interests of the people he is exploiting, when he had already turned down the President of the United States through his representative, Congressman Foster.
“I personally knew many of the miners wives living in the tent colonies in Colorado, and having been intimately acquainted with the exact conditions I had reason to think that Mr. Rockefeller would gladly avail himself of an opportunity to receive information from other sources than those upon whom he has heretofore relied . However, it seems that he has decided to cast his lot with his officials in Colorado, who have broken the State labor laws, and invited armed conflict by their invasions of the rights of Man.”…..
[Emphasis added.]
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SOURCES
Quote Mother Jones Babes of Ludlow, Speech at Trinidad CO
UMW District 15 Special Convention, ES1 p154 (176 of 360)
https://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt%3A31735035254105/viewer#page/176/mode/2up
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle
(Brooklyn, New York)
-May 14, 1914
https://www.newspapers.com/image/54440833/
The Correspondence of Mother Jones
-ed by Edward M. Steel
U of Pittsburgh Press, 1985
https://books.google.com/books?id=EZ2xAAAAIAAJ
https://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt%3A31735057897435
May 12, 1914, Letter from Mother Jones to John D. Rockefeller Jr.
https://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt%3A31735057897435/viewer#page/178/mode/2up
The New York Times
(New York, New York)
-May 14, 1914
https://www.newspapers.com/image/20421806/
IMAGE
Refugees from the Ludlow Tent Colony in Trinidad
https://www.du.edu/ludlow/gallery4.html
See also:
Agnes Dyer Warbasse = Mrs. (Dr.) James P. Warbasse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Peter_Warbasse
Sept 1912, Life and Labor
“Budget of the Triangle Fire Victims” by Elizabeth Dutcher
https://books.google.com/books?id=bjeBAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA2-PA265&dq=Elizabeth+Dutcher+Triangle+Fire&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj2-aaJ75SGAxWo5ckDHfpYDUcQ6AF6BAgEEAI#v=onepage&q=Elizabeth%20Dutcher%20Triangle%20Fire&f=false
Category: Red Nurse Helen Schloss
https://weneverforget.org/category/red-nurse-helen-schloss/
Tag: Ludlow Massacre
https://weneverforget.org/tag/ludlow-massacre/
Tag: Colorado Coalfield Strike of 1913-1914
https://weneverforget.org/tag/colorado-coalfield-strike-of-1913-1914/
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