———-
Hellraisers Journal – Monday February 20, 1911
Mother Jones News Round-Up for January 1911, Part II:
–Found in Columbus, Ohio, Speaking at Miners’ Convention
From Ohio’s Marion Daily Mirror of January 21, 1911:
Talks to Miners.
Columbus, O., Jan. 21.-“Mother” Jones, whose name and fame is known throughout the country as the friend of laborers, addressed the miners’ convention [United Mine Workers of America] this morning and was given a rousing ovation when she appeared on the stage. “Mother” Jones claims the United States as her only home and registers on the hotel registers accordingly. She is 67 years old, and her hair is as white as snow. Without husband or children, she has chosen as her family the thousands of toilers from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
———-
[Photograph added.]
Columbus, Ohio-Convention of United Mine Workers of America
-Saturday January 21, 1911, Fifth Day-Morning Session
President Lewis–
Mother Jones is here. A motion was unanimously adopted yesterday to invite Mother Jones to address this convention at 9 o’clock this morning. That carried with it that it would be any time to suit her convenience. I believe most, if not all, the delegates in this convention know Mother Jones and know of her work in behalf of the mine workers and the wage earners of the entire country. I take pleasure now in both introducing and presenting to you Mother Jones, who will address the convention.
Mother Jones—
The time is short and I will not wear you out. I know a lot of you here want to go out and get a drink.
President Lewis-—
There is no time limit to your speech, and when we adjourn we will convene that much later after dinner.
Mother Jones—
Brothers of this convention, perhaps never in the history of the mine workers was there a more important convention than this. The eyes of the world are resting today and all other days you are in session on this hall. The master class is watching your convention with keen interest. And so I say to you, be wise, be prudent in your actions. Think before you act. Don’t give the master class any weapon to strike you with and laugh about. Let us have the laugh on them.
Now, my brothers, the last year has been a trying year for organized labor all along the line. There have been some wonderful fights on the industrial field. It has not been alone the miners, it has not been alone the steel workers. For the first time, perhaps, the women in the industrial field have begun to awaken to their condition of slavery. In New York and Philadelphia the women arrayed themselves in battle, and they gave battle fearlessly. They were clubbed, they were jailed, they were insulted, but they bore it all for a principle they believed in. Never can a complete victory be won until the woman awakens to her condition. We must realize that the woman is the foundation of government; that no government is greater or ever can be greater than the woman. It was once asked of Napoleon how the French nation could become a great nation. He considered a moment and then said: “Never until you have a great motherhood. When you have that you have a great nation.”
[…..]
I know how a scab is made up. One time there was an old barrel up near heaven, and all of heaven got permeated with the odor. God Almighty said, “What is that stuff that smells so?” He was told it was some rotten chemical down there in a barrel and was asked what could be done with it. He said, “Spill it on a lot of bad clay and maybe you can turn out a scab.” That is what a scab is made of, and he has been rotten all down the ages.
We have a few scabs in Pennsylvania, Mr. President, and once in a while we get hold of one of them and lick him. I have licked lots of them, and I expect to lick more of them before I die.
[…..]
If there is an organization in this land or in any other land the master classes are afraid of, if there is an organization they want to split in two, it is the United Mine Workers of America. They are putting up every sort of game to divide our forces, but they are going to get left, my friends. We may have a little housecleaning, we may have a little jawing and chewing the rag; but when the time comes we will line up and give the master class what they have been looking for. In Colorado you have sixteen men in jail. A distinguished judge, owned body and soul and brains–and he never had any too much brains-by the corporations, has put sixteen of our men in jail. Let me serve notice on the judges of this country that the day is not far distant when we will put every capitalist judge in jail and make a man out of him. That day is coming and it is not far away. Put that down, Mr. Reporter, so the judges will know it!
They take our boys and for no cause on earth put them in jail. In Greensburg they hauled them in all over the county, and gave them nothing to eat until the miners came along, put up their treasury, bailed them out and they went back again to help their brother strikers. They are trying to create a riot. Fellows will go out and say, “Why, the miners are very peaceful.” I wonder what those fellows think? We will be peaceful if they give us what belongs to us, but we will not be very peaceful while they are skinning us. We are at war, and there is no war so fierce as an industrial battle. No war on the battle field of the world’s history can equal an industrial battle.
[…..]
Now , the miners of this country put up $ 4,000, and those Mexican refugees [Mexican Revolutionaries imprisoned in the United States] are indebted to you for being where they are today. Had we not exposed this affair they would have been arrested again the day they came out of prison. On account of the hearing and the way we exposed it they were not arrested. The morning they came out I sent $75 to each of them. That was your money. I sent $100 later. There is a little more in the treasury of the Western Federation of Miners. We placed the money there because it was nearer the seat of war. That I intend to hold. I have written the warden of the penitentiary to find out when the time of a man who is there now will expire. He has five children and they are without a mother. You have dug down into your treasury and brought out your hard earned dollars and put them up for that cause. I desire to pay my respects to Comrade Germer, who handled the money and sent it West. Those Mexicans are indebted to the miners of this country for being safe today. A revolution is on in Mexico, and if we didn’t have a revolution of our own I would be down there, because I want to send that bloody thief of a Diaz up to God Almighty in a condition that will show how big a rascal he was down here.
[…..]
They have made a fine fight in the Irwin field, but the men were inexperienced in strikes. I saw that the minute I went in there. I wasn’t there four days until I took the whole situation in. I have been in strikes for a good many years—not alone miners’ fights, but garment workers’ and textile workers and street car men’s strikes. I knew that field could be won if we were able to center our forces there. You must stop all conflict and get down to the fight. Instead of fighting each other, turn all your batteries on the other fellow and lick him; then, if there is any fellow in our own ranks who needs a licking, let us give it to him. Let us be true to the organization; let us fight to a finish. That field must be organized, and the Southern Colorado strike must be won. You cannot win that field in the North until you do. You are wasting money. I know that field thoroughly. I was up against the guns there too many months not to understand the situation.
Now, I am talking to you miners. I am not talking to officers. I am talking to you who put up the money to fight those battles and win them. I knew the men who blazed the way. There was no pay, there was no newspaper eulogy, there were no compliments; they slept by the wayside, but they fought the battle and paved the way for this magnificent organization, and, knowing them as I did, this organization is dear to me. It has been bought with the blood of men who are scarcely known today.
Now , I want to say a few more words. I want to call your attention to that magnificent dope institution that was formed to get labor, that mutual admiration society, the Civic Federation. The biggest, grandest, most diabolical game ever played on labor was played when that was organized. The Civic Federation! It ought to be called the physic federation, because that is what it really is! I know it all! That Civic Federation is strictly a capitalistic machine. The men or women who sit down and eat and drink with them and become members of the Belmont-Carnegie cabinet are not true to labor. Tell them I said so!
I have a letter I ought to have brought with me. It is from one of the leading lawyers of the city of New York, I got it just a day before I left Greensburg. There were eight pages in the letter. I met him during the protest meeting when I was going after the judge, and he was one of the leading lawyers. He said in that letter: “Mother, I should very much regret that your work would be lost. Why don’t you tell the workingmen to pull their leaders out from the Civic Federation?” Labor never will progress; it cannot as long as they sit down and eat and drink and fill their stomachs and get their brains filled with champagne. And then Mrs. Harriman will say: “How deah! I get such an inspiration!” Inspiration from a couple of old labor scavengers! “It is so delightful to have labor and capital coming together in a brotherhood.” What do you think of such rot? The robber and the robbed, the fellow who brings the militia out to murder my class and representatives of the workingmen! Not on your life!
Let the Civic Federation stop the guns. Thirteen men have been murdered in the Irwin field. What has the Civic Federation done there? Sixteen men are in jail in Colorado. What did the Civic Federation do with Roosevelt when he sent 2,000 guns to the Governor of Colorado to blow your brains out? You have an old Mary Ann of a Governor there now. He hasn’t as much backbone as Peabody had. Make me Governor of Pennsylvania or Colorado just one month, and you will find there will be none of those fellows in jail.
That Civic Federation is a menace to the working movement. The Labor Commissioner of Colorado came to Trinidad during our strike and said: “Mother, we had a delightful time in Chicago. You know there was a banquet of the Civic Federation. It was a charming treat. It was delightful to be there. Here was a labor leader, here was a millionaire, here was a labor leader and here was a millionaire. Why, we had drinks that cost 75 cents a drink and cigars that cost 50 cents apiece! I have one here; the odor of it is beautiful.” “It ought to be,” said I , “when it is stained with the blood of men that you infernal hypocrites, scavengers, robbers and fakers have wrung out of the labor movement! They pay the bills.” You can tell old Easley, the secretary of the Civic Federation, that we know his game; that he has been hoodwinking labor, but labor is awakening. This convention must tell those who represent labor in the Civic Federation to get out of it or get out of the labor movement.
[…..]
You are in the mightiest conflict of the age. Put away your prejudice, grow big and great and mighty in this conflict and you will win. There is no such thing as fail. We have got to win. You have brave fighters, both in Colorado and Pennsylvania. You have warriors there, but you must stand by them. Pay your dues, win that battle in the Irwin field, and then, my friends, turn your batteries on the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company and show them what the United Mine Workers’ organization is made of.
From the Washington Sunday Star of January 22, 1911:
LIE IS PASSED FREELY AT MINERS’ CONVENTION
—–
“Mother Jones” Makes Address Calling
Supreme Court Judges Real Anarchists.
———COLUMBUS, Ohio, January 21.-Control of the United Mine Workers’ convention came to a severe test in the contest for the seating of delegates from nine locals of district No. 2 of central Pennsylvania. Charges of falsehoods were made freely by each side and the convention finally adjourned to continue the fight Monday.
Expected contests over the seating of President Francis Feehan of the Pittsburg district did not materialize and he was seated without final objection.
“Mother” Jones spoke before the convention. She classes members of the United States Supreme Court and Gov. Harmon of Ohio among “the real anarchists of the country.”
[…..]
From the Appeal to Reason of January 28, 1911:
Mother Jones on Deck
———-The papers of Greensburg, Pa., are filled with accounts of the great speech delivered there by Mother Jones in behalf of the striking miners on January 14th. Mother Jones appears to have been in perfect form and to have electrified the audience of three thousand people assembled to hear her. Below will be found brief extracts:
Thrusting aside hands proffering assistance, Mother Jones mounted the speakers table. Holding up her hands for silence, when the wave of applause swept over the audience, she burst out into a fierce invective against the business men of Greensburg. With her expressive hands gesticulating, she said;
“They are so full of greed that they won’t take a day off to find out what is the matter. The business men furnish the scabs with Armour’s rotten beer and swill whiskey. Then they blame disorder on the miners. It’s the changing order of economics. The small business man is put to the wall and he scratches his head and wonders what the hell is the matter.”
Turning around in partial apology to Rev. Mr. Schultz. she said:
“You ministers think you are the only ones who can talk about hell. I live in hell and I have a right to talk about it.”
Assuring them that she did not get into the labor movement yesterday, she said:
“The class who owns the industries, owns the governments, the newspapers and all.”
Turning to Mr. McGinley, Mother Jones spit out:
“You may like the constabulary, but I don’t-no true American would belong to the constabulary.”
Then in a bitter tirade against the state police she said:
“Their little gray cap covers the outside of their skull, buy they have nothing inside.”
Constantly throughout her invective, the state police were referred to as “dogs of war” and “bloodhounds.”
Notwithstanding the radical speech of Mother Jones and her unmerciful flaying of the coal company and its hirelings and lackeys the papers treated her with great regard. The following description of her as a she took her place upon the platform is interesting:
With firm tread, keen old eyes peering out at the crowds from behind spectacles set determinedly on her nose, Mother Jones advanced through the crowds and took her place at the speakers table. A modest bonnet covered her wealth of soft gray hair, soft laces appeared at her throat and wrists, and her strangely youthful face broke into smiles and her eyes twinkled in a roguish Irish way as she acknowledge greetings.
The seventy-seven years of Mother Jones sit lightly upon her venerable features. She is just as active and quite as revolutionary as at any time in her life. If only the great mass who are in their prime were imbued with her spirit and nervous energy what a great change there would be in this world. There would be no question about the social revolution in our time. We are glad this great effort of Mother Jones was made in behalf of the miners and earnestly hope they will stand solidly together to the end. If they do this they are sure to win and they certainly ought to win, for never was there a strike more justified than this, nor more deserving of the support of the working class and those who sympathize with it.
Note: emphasis added throughout.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SOURCES
Quote Mother Jones, UMWC p269 Jan 21, 1911
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=aRMtAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA269
The Marion Daily Mirror
(Marion, Ohio)-Jan 21, 1911
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88077573/1911-01-21/ed-1/seq-9/
The Sunday Star
(Washington, District of Columbia)
-Jan 22, 1911
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1911-01-22/ed-1/seq-1/
Proceedings United Mine Workers Convention
Columbus, Ohio, Jan 17 to Feb 1, 1911
https://books.google.com/books?id=aRMtAQAAMAAJ
Fifth Day-Morning Session, Sat Jan 21, 1911
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=aRMtAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA226
Jan 21, 1911: Mother Jones Speaks, pages 258-269
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=aRMtAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA258
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-Jan 28, 1911, page 2
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/appeal-to-reason/110128-appealtoreason-w791.pdf
IMAGE
Mother Jones, ed Cameron Co PA Prs p1, Apr 7, 1910
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83032040/1910-04-07/ed-1/seq-1/
See also:
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
Tag: Westmoreland County Coal Strike of 1910–11
https://weneverforget.org/tag/westmoreland-county-coal-strike-of-1910-11/
For notes on subjects covered, see the following:
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday January 22, 1911
Columbus, Ohio – Mother of the Toilers Speaks to Miners’ Convention
Without Husband or Children, Mother Jones Chooses as Her Family the Toilers from Coast to Coast
Hellraisers Journal – Monday January 23, 1911
Mother Jones Speaks at Convention of United Mine Workers of America, Held at Columbus, Ohio
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday February 1, 1911
“Mother Jones on Deck” -Speaks on Behalf of Striking Miners of Greensburg, Pennsylvania
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Children of Mother Jones – Pete Duffy