Hellraisers Journal: Steel Strike Begins Monday; Mother Jones Back in Pittsburgh: “I CAME HERE TO RAISE HELL!”

Quote Mother Jones Raising Hell, NYT p1, Oct 6, 1916 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday September 20, 1919
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – Mother Jones Arrives to “Raise Hell”

From the Fairmont West Virginian of September 18, 1919:

———-

“I’ve Come to Raise Hell!”
Mother Jones Announces

Famous Labor Worker is
in Pittsburgh for the
Steel Strike.
—–

By LEE J. SMITS.
N. E. A. Staff Correspondent.

PITTSBURGH, Pa., Sept. 18.-The chief of police in a steel town said: “I’d rather see a mob of armed strikers marching down Main street than have that old lady arrive on the scene.”

He meant Mother Jones.

From mine fields of West Virginia and Colorado; from every field where labor and capital have battled, come the tales of this white-haired warrior, who has been in jail more times than she can remember, who is called a demon by her foes and an angel by her friends.

She says she is 89 years old, but her voice rings out like a bugle call and she expects to see labor triumphant, not only in the steel strike, but in every industry in the United States.

“I came here to raise hell,” said Mother Jones, as she looked up from her sewing to welcome me.

She looks as though she should be occupying a front seat in a prayer meeting, instead of pleading with a throng of smoke-blackened men on being dragged off to jail by policemen.

Mother Jones is given credit for holding the first union meeting in Homestead since the riots of 1892.

Union organizers had been working in the town for 11 months, but the authorities had been successful in preventing any speeches. So the unions brought in Mother Jones.

She was arrested, bat a mob trailed after her. It was in an ugly mood.

She was freed, and told the steel workers to disperse; that she was unharmed and would stick with them.

She called for three cheers for Uncle Sam before the throng broke up.

Since then Homestead is on the regular speech-making program.

Mother Jones is oratorical and patriotic.

“I’ve been strong for squabbles ever since I was a little girl,” she said. “I come of revolutionary stock and agree with Thomas Jefferson that it s the duty of true citizens to be always discontented.”

Mother Jones wins the admiration, if not the affection, of those who attempt to restrain her. The other Sunday she sat in a cell at Duquesne and tried to convert the mayor to trades unionism!

[Emphasis added.]