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Hellraisers Journal – Monday March 20, 1911
Mother Jones News Round-Up for February 1911, Part II:
–Found in Report of Socialist Party’s Investigating Committee
From The Socialist Party Official Bulletin:
Report of the Investigating Committee-
Sub-Committee of the National Committee
As to charges of dishonesty, brought by Comrade Mother Jones against Comrade J. Mahlon Barnes, through Attorney Thomas J. Morgan, the Investigating Committee found that:
[W]hen the alleged claim was placed in the hands of Thomas J. Morgan there was, in fact, nothing due Mother Jones; that the debt had been paid in full, and that the subsequent payment of $200 to Morgan was made under duress.
As to charges of drunkenness, immorality, incompetency and inefficiency, brought by Comrades James H. Brower and Marguerite Flaherty (both of whom have worked at national headquarters, the Investigating Committee found that there was no proof to support those charges and that the charges were without merit.
The Investigating Committe found that Thomas J. Morgan
had no other motive except a desire to embarrass, harass and annoy the National Secretary [J. Mahlon Barnes], and an attempt to not only discredit him, but to disrupt the party by destroying the confidence of the membership in a National official.
According to the Investigating Committee, Comrade Carr, editor of The Christian Socialist, used his paper to slander the Socialist Party:
The examination of Carr showed that he had no personal knowledge of speakers in the party who advocate and practice free love….
Of The Provoker and its editor, Thomas J. Morgan, the Investigating Committee stated:
We find that the Provoker is a publication largely for the dissemination of malice, slander, falsification and misinformation. It appears from the documentary evidence placed before your committee that the editor, Thomas J. Morgan, is engaged, either in a willful distortion of facts or is temperamentally unable to appreciate them.
The Investigating Committee concluded:
In conclusion, your Committee wishes to state that it has no jurisdiction over Comrades Morgan, Brower, Flaherty and Carr, as far as their membership in the party is concerned, and we therefore recommend that the proceedings of the trial shall be submitted to their respective branches or locals…..
Fraternally submitted,
JAMES H. MAURER, Chairman.
OSCAR AMERINGER,
DAN HOGAN,
ADOLPH GERMER.
WALTER J. MILLARD, Secretary.
From the Daily People of February 15, 1911
-published by the Socialist Labor Party:
To the Daily and Weekly People:-
The Socialist Party [of America] is again in trouble, not only in Chicago and Illinois, but in every state in the union. And as you have had considerable experience with knockers, kickers, provokers, embezzlers and disrupters of all kinds, we appeal to you for advice and counsel in this our hour of need. For if the capitalist enemy ever gets hold of the scandals now being aired in the Socialist party, our chances for Milwaukeeizing Chicago and other benighted centers will be very slim indeed.
Four of those who started this present trouble are among the most prominent members of the party. They have accused members of the National Committee and Secretary Barnes with crimes so horrible that some of them could not be printed.
The Socialists of Tyler, Tex., are running a weekly paper for the purpose of showing up the rascality and swindling tactics of the National Committee. The last issue of the Christian Socialist devotes four pages to attacks, charges and counter-charges against the National Committee and Secretary Barnes. James H. Brower, National Committeeman from Illinois, who up to a recent date worked in the national office under Barnes, sad that he will prove at any time that drunkenness and all forms of debauchery have been carried on in the national officer for years. Mother Jones says she can prove that the National Committee is made up of cheap political grafters who are playing the deck hands for suckers while living on their backs.
Thomas J. Morgan, a member of the executive committee in Cook County and a delegate to the late Socialist Congress as well as the party’s candidate for judge at the fall election, is running a weekly paper called the Provoker, devoted entirely to exposing the underhanded methods of extracting the last nickel from the deck hands through goldbrick and other schemes too numerous to mention. He says he will run his paper against all threats and opposition until the honest rank and file of the Socialist party know what kind of a brace game they are up against.
The National Board of the Socialist party appointed a special committee to hear all charges against the leaders and National Secretary of the party, and the hearing was held on Saturday, Feb. 4.
Carr, Editor of the Christian Socialist, Morgan, of the Provoker, Brower, National Committeeman and Mother Jones were notified to appear and tell what they knew. All appeared but Mother Jones, who is in the south [note: she was actually in Denver on Feb. 4th] and wrote saying she would send written charges in a few days. The evidence was heard by the committee who decided to strike a portion of it from the records on the grounds that it would injure the party. The balance was ordered written up by the committee. They decided to hear the rest of the evidence at their next meeting in Boston, date to be announced later. So you see, as Mrs. O’Brien said when she slipped and sprained her ankle, it might be worse; for the most damaging part of the evidence will never see the light of day. The filthiest part of it will never make sweet morsels for the hoard of unruly deck hands who are kicking over the traces all over the country…….
W. J. McSweeney,
Chicago, Ill., February 9.
Note: Emphasis added throughout.
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SOURCES & IMAGES
Quote Mother Jones, Greensburg PA Cmas 1910, Steel 2, p83
Note: while the SPA was busy defending it’s corrupt leader by defaming Mother Jones and her allies, Mother was in the thick of the fight in Westmoreland County PA with striking coal miners and their families.
https://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt%3A31735057897435/viewer#page/134/mode/2up
Report of the Investigating Committee-
Sub-Committee of the National Committee
-SPA National Headquarters, Chicago, Feb 28, 1911
-from The Socialist Party Official Bulletin of Feb 1911
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/spa-bulletins/110200-socialistpartyofficialbulletin-v07n06.pdf
Daily People
“Published Every Morning by the
Socialist Labor Party”
(New York, New York)
-Feb 15, 1911, page 2
https://www.genealogybank.com/
See also:
J. Mahlon Barnes, re Ouster as Executive Secretary of SPA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Mahlon_Barnes#Ouster_as_Executive_Secretary
Tag: J. Mahlon Barnes
https://weneverforget.org/tag/j-mahlon-barnes/
“The Rough Edges of Socialism”
By John C. Cort | October 1985
-re James H. Brower, Miss Marguerite Flaherty,
and Rev. Edward Ellis Carr, Editor of The Christian Socialist
https://www.newoxfordreview.org/documents/the-rough-edges-of-socialism/
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for February 1911, Part I
Found in Denver, Colorado, at Protest Against Government by Injunction
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
-pages 87-91 (139 of 416):
https://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt%3A31735057897435/viewer#page/138/mode/2up
-page 87: Jan 31, 1911, Cook Co. IL, Affidavit of Mother Jones re SPA
Mother states that she cannot be present at hearing of SPA Investigating Committe on Feb. 4th as she has been called to Colorado on behalf of 16 members of the United Mine Workers of America who have “been deprived of their liberty.” She continues with her bitter denunciation of Secretary Barnes, stating that she has lost her confidence and respect in National Secretary Barnes and considers him to be a “traitor to the party.” Further more, while “she was living in tents with the women and children of the miners on strike in the hills of Pennsylvania. The said Barnes declared in the National Bulletin that the affiant was briber of Editors and officials of the Socialist Party, and a recipient of a large revenue from her activities in the labor and Socialist movements.”…..
-page 90: Feb 5, 1911, from Mother Jones, Denver CO, to Catherine M. Conroy, Greensburg PA.
Mother writes to Mrs. Conroy re big protest in Denver on Feb 2nd against the CO courts, describing the parade of Feb 2nd as “four miles long” and meeting afterward where she addressed 12,000. Mother resided with the Conroys during her time in Westmoreland County and states that she had a “kind, nice home” with the Conroy family.
-page 91: Feb 11, 1911, from Mother Jones, Denver, to Attorney Morgan, Chicago.
Mother states that she will be in Chicago on the 22nd (of Feb) and that Comrade Millard (of the SPA Investigating Committee) told her that all expensed would be paid. She states; that Millard seems like a “a pretty fair minded fellow.” And that: “We had just as well fight this thing out now and clean up the rotteness in the movement.”
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Colorado Strike Song – John McCutcheon