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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday September 10, 1902
Mother Jones News Round-Up for August 1902, Part II
Mother Jones Describes Judge Jackson; “Mother Jones” by O. L. Ford
From The Scranton Times of August 8, 1902:
POOR OLD MAN WITH OLD IDEAS
———-SO “MOTHER” JONES SPEAKS WHEN REFERRING
TO JUDGE JACKSON, OF WEST VIRGINIA.
———-HE MEANS ALRIGHT BUT HE’S
OLD FASHIONED
———-The Distinguished Woman Arrived in the City at Noon Today to Address a Meeting in North Scranton-Will Leave for West Virginia Tomorrow, Where She is Positive Miners Will Score a Victory.
“Mother” Jones, probably the second strongest force in the United Mine Workers’ organisation, arrived in the city at noon today. “Mother” Jones came from West Virginia, where she has been a conspicuous figure in the labor troubles in that state. This afternoon she is making an address to a mass meeting of strikers in St. Mary’a hall, North Scranton.
John Fallon, of Wilkes-Barre, a member of the executive board of the Miners’ union, accompanied “Mother” Jones. He was also one of the speakers at the North End meeting this afternoon.
When seen at the Delaware & Hudson depot by a Times reporter “Mother” Jones expressed herself as greatly pleased to be in Scranton again. During the past sixteen months she has been working among the miners of West Virginia.
“Mother” Jones will return to West Virginia.
[She said in this interview:]
We have not given up the fight there. The majority of the residents of West Virginia never really knew what a laboring man’s organization was, and now we are attempting to enlighten them.
I am sure we will win out there. It cannot be denied that we have a very formidable obstacle in our path as regards the weapon the capitalists have found in the courts-injunction proceedings-but we have the grit and the determination, and we will win. They are good fighters in West Virginia, that is, the laboring men there are.
“Mother” Jones was asked what she thought of Judge Jackson, the West Virginia jurist who sentenced a number of miners to a lengthy period in jail.
[Said Mother Jones:]
Oh, Judge Jackson means all right. He is an old man, however, and he has old ideas. He never knew what a laboring organization was, and when he sentenced these men his old-fashioned ideas prevented him from viewing the matter in a just manner. As I said in Indianapolis, he means well, but the poor man has been asleep for 40 years. Some day he will awake.
“Mother” Jones called attention to the important admission made by a prosecuting attorney in one of the West Virginia courts. “We have had the militia and the iron and coal police here,” said this man in arguing an injunction proceeding, “but injunctions have proven to be the strongest aid to the coal operators.”
District President Nichols met “Mother” Jones and Board Member Fallon at the depot and accompanied her to her hotel.
[Photograph added.]
From the Duluth Labor World of August 9, 1902:
IS A NEW BARBARA FRIETCHE!
Judge Jackson’s insistence that he would not allow Mother Jones to become a martyr by sending her to prison, not only showed him to be an unblushing representative of capitalism and careful of its interests, but it indicated also something of the valiant and venerable woman [he] has aroused. He did not propose as a tool of capitalism (and a holder of mining stock, as well!) to try the public temper any further than was necessary in his judicial acts.
Mother Jones stands before the American people today in the light of a modern Barbara Frietche. Already the verse-makers are celebrating her stand for liberty in verse. One of the best attempts of this sort we have yet seen is the following by O. L. Ford in the Typographical Journal:
[Typographical Journal of July 15, 1902.]
From the Appeal to Reason of August 9, 1902:
Government by Injunction.
Government by injunction had one of the strongest illustrations it has ever had in this country yesterday [July 24th] by the action of Judge Jackson of the United States district court of West Virginia, in sentencing seven miners at Parkersburg to terms of imprisonment ranging from 60 to 90 days. Another of the enjoined is the celebrity of the proceeding known as “Mother Jones,” whose sentence was reserved. The offense of the sentenced ones was in making speeches in sympathy with and encouraging the striking miners at different widely separated places in West Virginia where there were labor troubles. The judge in passing sentence characterized the men as “professional agitators, organizers and walking delegates.”
His stump speech from the bench was the boldest and most unqualified assertion of government by injunction ever heard in this country. It suppresses free speech and sends men to jail for exercising that right. He admitted that there was no statute law for his action, and that it was possible only by the injunction process of courts of equity. The effect of this proceeding will force Congress to pass bills pending to restrain the exercise of the injunction process by Federal judges. It virtually destroys the right of trial by jury, makes the judge the court, jury and executioner, and denies the accused a free and fair hearing. There are fundamental rights secured to every American citizen by the constitution, and must not be destroyed by the judge-made law of an angry extremist who happens to fill a judicial position that makes such an outrage possible. The action of the judge, it is declared, will break the strike of 12,000 miners in the Fairmont coal field. -Pittsburg Post [of July 25th, page 4].
[Paragraph break added.]
From The Philadelphia Inquirer of August 9, 1902:
“MOTHER” JONES AND MITCHELL CONFER
———-WILKES-BARRE, Aug. 8.-President Mitchell and “Mother” Jones, who came here from West Virginia last night, had a protracted conference at strike headquarters to-day. The “Mother of the miners” went over the whole ground in the strike region in the South from the first day she went there until yesterday with the national president. Speaking of the present condition of the miners in West Virginia, she said:
Words cannot describe the treatment accorded the men in these fields. The majority do very little except work, and the compensation is so decidedly small that it makes the ordinary mortal boil with indignation. The mine owners are arbitrary and will concede nothing. The courts, too, are on their side. Some of the judges have done everything in their power to break the strike, but they will not succeed. These men only seek justice, and they will get it, mark my word.
Note: Emphasis added throughout.
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SOURCES
The Scranton Times
(Scranton, Pennsylvania)
-Aug 8, 1902
https://www.newspapers.com/image/533303012
The Labor World
(Duluth, Minnesota)
-August 9, 1902
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn78000395/1902-08-09/ed-1/seq-4/
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-Aug 9, 1902, page 4
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/appeal-to-reason/020809-appealtoreason-w349.pdf
The Philadelphia Inquirer
(Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
-Aug 9, 1902
https://www.newspapers.com/image/168244306
IMAGE
Mother Jones, Coal Miners, Cnc Pst p6, July 23, 1902
https://www.newspapers.com/image/761305973/
See also:
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for August 1902
Part I: Embodies Spirit of Revolt; UMWA Surrounded by Injunctions in West Virginia
Barbara Fritchie/Frietchie/Frietschie (née Hauer; 1766–1862)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Fritchie
The Pittsburg Post of July 25, 1902
https://www.newspapers.com/image/86369073/
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for July 1902
Part IV: Judge Jackson Severe on the Miners, Releases Mother Jones with Lecture
The Typographical Journal, Volume 21
International Typographical Union, 1902
(search: “Mother Jones”)
https://books.google.com/books?id=5KguAQAAIAAJ
Tag: West Virginia Coalfield Strike of 1902-1903
https://weneverforget.org/tag/west-virginia-coalfield-strike-of-1902-1903/
Tag: Mother Jones v Judge Jackson 1902
https://weneverforget.org/tag/mother-jones-v-judge-jackson-1902/
Tag: Great Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902
https://weneverforget.org/tag/great-anthracite-coal-strike-of-1902/
Coal strike of 1902
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_strike_of_1902
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The Spirit of Mother Jones – Andy Irvine