———-
Hellraisers Journal – Friday March 17, 1911
Mother Jones News Round-Up for February 1911, Part I:
–Found in Denver Speaking Out Against Government by Injunction
From The Rocky Mountain News of February 3, 1911:
1,000 WOMEN, SOME WITH BABIES,
JOIN PROTEST
———-
Twelve Thousand, Including Legislators,
Parade as Rebuke to Judge Whitford
for Recent Injunctions.
———-OUST HIM, SAY RESOLUTIONS
———-
Auditorium Packed Until Dark; Thomas Urges
Change in Laws; Asks Recall.
—–
The biggest trades union demonstration ever seen in Denver was that which took place yesterday in the form of a parade of the downtown streets and a mass meeting at the Auditorium as a protest against the decisions of Judge Greeley W. Whitford in the injunction cases against the union coal miners of the northern Colorado district and the striking machinists of the Denver Rock Drill and Machinery company.
The actual number in the parade was estimated at 12,000. The Auditorium was packed to its capacity and 2,000 were unable to get in…..
Former Governor Charles S. Thomas was the first speaker and from the time he began his address until “Mother” Jones closed at 6 o’clock the meeting was almost a continual demonstration of enthusiasm, with bursts of stormy applause whenever any especially strong denunciation of the decisions of Judge Whitford or or what the speakers designated “government by injunction” was uttered…..
Big Garment Workers’ Force.
The greatest number of women was in the first division. The Garment Workers’ union, the largest union of working girls in the city, marched in this division. So also did the woman’s auxiliary to the machinists…..
[Former Governor Thomas] urged the enactment of a recall law as one of the most effective means of putting an end to existing conditions, and the unanimity of the sentiment in favor of such a law was evidenced by vigorous applause.
E. E. [E. S.] McCullough, former vice-president of the United Mine Workers of America; John M. O’Neill, editor of the Western Federation of Miners’ magazine, and “Mother” Jones were the other speakers. O’Neill termed Whitford the Pontius Pilate of Colorado.
———-
[Photograph added.]
From The Denver Post of Feb 3, 1911:
The Post described the speech of Mother Jones:
“Mother” Jones closed the meeting and was most enthusiastically cheered. She assailed Judge Whitford and she also assailed the leaders of organized labor, classing them all together as “men who are trampling down the rights of the individual workingman.”
[She said:]
We want no leaders of any sort. Down with the leaders. Down with our judges. Our judges are the outcome of our economic conditions. These injunctions, too, are the outcome of existing conditions. As long as you permit the private ownership of public property that long you will have injunctions, and not all of our resolutions and fiery speeches will change matters a particle.
Every citizen should rise up against this Judge Whitford and say, “Administer justice or leave the state.”
From the Horseshoers Monthly Magazine of February 1911:
COLORADO ANTI-INJUNCTION LEAGUE.
DENVER, COL., February 10, 1911.
Editor Horseshoers’ Magazine:
One of the most remarkable demonstrations ever pulled off by labor took place in Denver, Colorado, on the afternoon of February 2, last.
The demonstration was a protest against government by injunction and had its immediate object the release of sixteen members of the United Mine Workers of America, who had been sentenced to one year in prison for an alleged violation of an injunction issued by one Judge Greeley W . Whitford.
Colorado has seen bitter labor wars in the past and the present struggle between the U. M. W. of A. and coal barons of the Northern Colorado fields bids fair to equal, if not surpass, the bitterest. The culmination of this struggle came with the imprisonment of the sixteen union miners. A clarion call was sent to labor all over the state to rally to the defense of their stricken fellows. The result was the organization of The Colorado Anti-Injunction League.
A parade and demonstration was planned with the purpose in view of showing the capitalist class that they had gone as far as they could. The showing made by labor in this parade and demonstration, taking the short time they had to prepare and their numbers into consideration, was nothing less than remarkable.
Union after union declared a holiday for the occasion and ordered their members to turn out under penalty of heavy fines. As a result over 15,000 were in the line of march, which stretched for over two miles and took one hour and a half to pass a given point. The Auditorium, with a seating capacity of 12,000, could not accommodate the crowds who tried to enter. It is estimated that over 25,000 tried to enter in all.
The line of march led past the city hall, the courthouse and the Capitol building, thus notifying the city, county and state officials that labor had determined to fight for its rights.
E. S. McCullough, ex-Vice-President of the U. M. W. of A., “Mother” Jones, beloved by every miner in this country; John M. O’Neil, editor of the Miners’ Magazine, and Ex- Governor Thomas addressed the meeting, and judging by the applause the remarks of the speakers scorching at times were fully appreciated and concurred in.
It is the wish of the officers and members of the Colorado Anti-Injunction League that a similar organization spring up in each and every state and that such an agitation be carried on against the idea of government by injunction that it will be wiped off the face of the legal map as far as labor is concerned. Go to it, brothers. Let us sound the tocsin that will reverberate from one end of the continent to the other and sweep injunctions and injunction judges before it into the dark sea of oblivion.
Fraternally yours,
W. B. DILLON.———-
From the Duluth Labor World of February 11, 1911:
10,000 MEN PARADE TO IMPEACH JUDGE
———-
Workingmen March Through Denver’s Streets
to State Capitol and Demand Action.
—–Special to Labor World.
DENVER Colo., Feb. 8.—Sensational charges accompanied the filing of impeachment proceedings in the lower house of the state legislature against Judge Greely Whitford. It was this judge that sentenced 16 United Mine Workers to a year in jail for contempt of court for violating an injunction issued by Whitford, preventing interference with strikebreakers in the Northern Colorado coal fields.
The principal charges against Whitford are that he is unfit for office, has used his office to oppress litigants in court, and has denied trials by jury.
The house received the resolution and, after a sharp debate, referred it to a special committee for consideration.
Hurrying from the Westmoreland strike district, in Pennsylvania, Mother Jones is coming to the aid of the imprisoned miners, who were given a year for contempt of court, by Judge Whitford. “Mother” has been jailed in Colorado; she has been driven out of the state at the gunmuzzles of the militia, but all the force of the mine owners has failed in its purpose to stop her truthful and stirring speeches in favor of her boys, the miners.
And Colorado is in the temper to receive “Mother,” for 10,000 unionists have just paraded through Denver, and, after marching to the state house, held a monster mass meeting in the Auditorium, where burning speeches were delivered against Judge Whitford.
———-
[Photograph added.]
Note: Emphasis added throughout.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SOURCES
Quote Mother Jones, Powers of Privilege ed, Ab Chp III
https://www.iww.org/history/library/MotherJones/autobiography/3
The Rocky Mountain News
(Denver, Colorado)
-Feb 3, 1911, pages 1 + 5
https://www.genealogybank.com/
Note: page 5 of Rocky Mt News article has photos of parade which are, sadly, not useable, but worthwhile to go to library to view if you live in Denver
The Denver Post
(Denver, Colorado)
-Feb 3, 1911, page 7
https://www.genealogybank.com/
International Horseshoers Monthly Magazine
(Cincinnati, Ohio)
-Jan thru Dec, 1911
International Union of Journeymen Horseshoers of the United States and Canada, 1911
https://books.google.com/books?id=Va2fAAAAMAAJ
-Feb 1911 p5, Letter from Denver, dated Feb 10, 1911
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=Va2fAAAAMAAJ&hl=en&pg=GBS.RA1-PA5
The Labor World
(Duluth, Minnesota)
-Feb 11, 1911
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn78000395/1911-02-11/ed-1/seq-1/
IMAGES
Mother Jones crpd ed, WDC Tx p5, June 18, 1910
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026749/1910-06-18/ed-1/seq-5/
CO Miners in Dnv Co Jail by Jdg Whitford, ISR p525, Mar 1911
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v11n09-mar-1911-ISR-gog-Corn-OCR.pdf
See also:
L’Italia
(San Francisco, California)
-Feb 18, 1911
-article begins bottom column 2
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85066408/1911-02-18/ed-1/seq-5/
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday March 16, 1911
Denver, Colorado – “A Living Protest” by William D. Haywood
-article from the International Socialist Review of March 1911
Note: no article that I have found, thus far, mentions the presence of Big Bill Haywood at the parade or mass meeting in Denver on Feb 2nd. Page 557 of ISR (March 1911) states that Haywood was in Longmont CO on Feb 1, and in Denver on Feb 7th.
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=8-05AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA557
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 19, 1911
Mother Jones News Round-Up for January 1911, Part I:
–Found in Pennsylvania and at Columbus, Ohio, for Miners’ Convention
Hellraisers Journal – Monday February 20, 1911
Mother Jones News Round-Up for January 1911, Part II:
–Found in Columbus, Ohio, Speaking at Miners’ Convention
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They’ll Never Keep Us Down – Hazel Dickens