———-
Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 25, 1921
Mother Jones News Round-Up for February 1921
-C. H. Newell Claims Mother Jones is Helping to Make Mexico Safe
From the Salt Lake Telegram of February 1, 1921:
MAKING MEXICO SAFE PLACE FOR ALL
———-
Obregon, Villareal, Gompers and
“Mother Jones” Fight Bolshevism
———By C. H. NEWELL
MEXICO CITY, Feb. 1.-Mexico’s “big four” are Obregon, Gompers, Villareal and Mother Jones.
They’re making Mexico safe for Americans and American business.
The great American drive to capture the immensely rich Mexican trade is on full blast…..
“MOTHER” IS HELPING.
Mother Jones, America’s 90-year-young labor leader, is helping to put the skids under bolshevism in Mexico.
Her visit to Mexico, at first hailed with glee by Communist party organizers, has resolved itself into a characteristic crusade for trade union organization.
This means, employers and government officials say, a better chance for the Obregon administration to get the country back on a productive basis.
[Mother Jones says:]
Education is the fundamental need of Mexico. I’m down here to preach the gospel of education for workers.
When they get education they will know how to act to achieve full industrial as well as political rights. And the agency through which they will make the most rapid, peaceful progress is the Pan-America Labor federation, backed as it is by the American Federation of Labor.
This is what Mother Jones told the communists at the labor convention:
SAYS IT IS BEST.
Uncle Sam’s government may not be perfect, but it is the best one on earth today. So you rats may just as well understand that if you open your mouths against my country, I will grab you by the collar, drag you out of your hole, and shake hell out of you.
Mother Jones is the personal guest of General Antonio Villareal, who, as secretary of agriculture, is trying to restore farming and ranching pursuits, with real success.
Several years ago an effort was being made by mining and timber interests of northern Mexico have Villareal deported from the United States. His deportation would have meant his death.
Mother Jones made a trip to Washington in his behalf and he was not deported.
Villareal has been one of the foremost in restoring mail, wire, railway and ship service, so all important lines of communication are now open in the country.
———-
[Photograph added.]
From El Heraldo De Mexico (Los Angeles) of February 3, 1921:
LA ”MADRE JUANITA” SALIO EN GIRA
DE PROPAGANDA SOCIALISTA
———-MEXICO, 30 de enero.-“Mother Jones”, “la Madre Juanita”, líder obrera norteamericana que con los congresistas vino a México, inicia hoy una jira de propaganda por los centros mineros del país, con el propósito de difundir sus ideas socialistas. Mother Jones va acompañada de los más connotados mineros propagandistas del mismo ideal.
La anciana americana que tan entusiastamente ha abrazado la causa de los obreros, irá directamente a Jalisco, de ahí a Zacatecas, luego a Guanajuato, después al Estado de México y por último a Pachuca.
Cuando regrese de esta primera jira, resolverá si va a otros centros mineros del Norte de nuestro territorio.
From The Toiler of February 5, 1921:
Inside Story of Gomper’s Victory for
Presidency of Pan-American Federation
———-By Linn A. E. Gale.
———-Mexico City, Jan. 17 (By Mail).-Samuel Gompers today won his last victory in the Pan-American Federation of Labor.
It took almost superhuman efforts to reelect him President of the Federation. Next year it will be an impossibility. It was almost impossible today.
The Latin-American delegates, who outnumbered the Americans, were determined not to have Gompers head the Pan-American organization again. Luis N. Morones, the brilliant young leader of the Mexican Federation of Labor and an avowed Socialist, was their choice, and for a time it appeared that Morones would be almost unanimously elected. The prize was in the hollow of his hand. Gompers, seeing the over-whelming sentiment against him, declared he would not accept a reelection…..
Then Mother Jones came to the rescue of Gompers with a fiery speech calling on the congress to name him again and make the election unanimous. The convention, admiring the 81-year-old rebel who has fought the battles of the strikers of the United States so many times, forgot its detestation of Gompers in its enthusiasm for “the mother of the miners.”
[…..]
By sufferance, thru belief that such a policy is necessary to save Mexico [from the threat of U. S. military intervention], Gompers still heads the Pan-American Federation of Labor.
It is the last time.
Intervention of no intervention, come what may, organized labor of Latin-America will neither accept Gompers nor any other conservative leader again.
———-
From the Mattoon (Illinois) Daily Journal-Gazette of February 15, 1921:
MOTHER JONES AT WHITE HOUSE
WITH DEBS PLEA
———-Washington, Feb. 15-“Mother” Jones is going to appeal to President Wilson to grant a full pardon to Eugene V. Debs on what she calls “human grounds.” She appeared at the White House upon her return from Mexico and said she will return to that country in April to organize the miners. She spoke highly of Obregon administration.
From The Milwaukee Journal of February 20, 1921:
Mother Jones Finds “Liberty” in Mexico
BY LEASED WIRE TO THE JOURNAL
Washington-Mother Jones, of Colorado strike fame, who arrived here from Mexico City, declares she will return to Mexico to enjoy personal liberty.
[She asserted:]
They have real liberty there. A policemen isn’t always waiting to hit you with a club. No place in the world has been more lied about than Mexico.
The women there are so friendly that they are not afraid to come up and put their arms around you.
———-
Note: Emphasis added throughout.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SOURCES
Quote Mother Jones PAFL Congress, p72, Jan 13, 1921
Jan 10-18, 1921 PAFLC Report
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924003670712&view=2up&seq=1
Pages 72-76: Jan 13th, Address of Mother Jones
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924003670712&view=2up&seq=74&q1=mother%20jones
Salt Lake Telegram
(Salt Lake City, Utah)
-Feb 1, 1921
https://www.newspapers.com/image/288547624/
El Heraldo de Mexico
(Los Angeles, California)
-Feb 3, 1921, page 1
https://www.genealogybank.com/
The Toiler
(Cleveland, Ohio)
-Feb 5, 1921, pages 1-2
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/thetoiler/n157-feb-05-1921-Toil-nyplmf.pdf
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88078683/1921-02-05/ed-1/seq-1/
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88078683/1921-02-05/ed-1/seq-2/
Daily Journal-Gazette and Commercial-Star
(Mattoon, Illinois)
-Feb 15, 1921
https://www.newspapers.com/image/73186414/
The Milwaukee Journal
(Milwaukee, Wisconsin)
-February 20, 1921, page 9
https://www.genealogybank.com/
IMAGE
Mother Jones, ed WDC Tx p2, Aug 29, 1920
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026749/1920-08-29/ed-1/seq-2/
See also:
Mother Jones News Round-Up for January 1921, Part I:
–Found Traveling from West Virginia to Mexico City with Fred Mooney
Mother Jones News Round-Up for January 1921, Part II:
-Found Speaking in Mexico City at Pan-American Labor Congress
The Toiler of Cleveland, formerly The Ohio Socialist
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/thetoiler/index.htm
Google translates article from El Heraldo de Mexico:
THE “MOTHER JUANITA” CAME OUT ON A SOCIALIST PROPAGANDA TOUR
MEXICO, January 30 .- “Mother Jones”, “Mother Juanita”, a North American labor leader who came to Mexico with the congressmen, begins today a propaganda tour through the mining centers of the country, with the purpose of spreading their socialist ideas . Mother Jones is accompanied by the most notorious propagandist miners of the same ideal.
The old American woman who has so enthusiastically embraced the cause of the workers will go directly to Jalisco, from there to Zacatecas, then to Guanajuato, then to the State of Mexico and finally to Pachuca.
When [s]he returns from this first tour, [s]he will decide whether to go to other mining centers in the North of our territory.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mother Jones – Rob McNurlin