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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday August 17, 1902
Mother Jones News Round-Up for July 1902, Part II
Found in Court in West Virginia, Speaks at Miners’ Convention in Indianapolis
From the Baltimore Sun of July 12, 1902:
MOTHER JONES ARRAIGNED
—–
She Expects A Jail Sentence
From Judge Jackson.
(Special Dispatch to the Baltimore Sun.)
PARKERSBURG, W. Va., July 11.-“Mother” Jones and 11 other strike leaders, who were arrested for alleged violation of an injunction issued by Judge Jackson, appeared in court today. The arguments in the case were begun and will be concluded tomorrow, when a decision is expected. “Mother” Jones expects a jail sentence for herself.
[Photograph added.]
From the Appeal to Reason of July 12, 1902:
In Darkest America.
Comrade McGeorge, of Clarksburg, W. Va., sends the following clipping from th Daily News of that place, regarding the arrest [June 20] and trial [June 24-27] of “Mother”‘ Jones for organizing the miners, who are more brutally treated and less paid than probably in any other section of the nation. The miners have been enjoined from talking to the non-union miners, from holding meetings in the vicinity, and from circulating literature! Great is the constitution-but not when federal judges don’t want it. The Dred Scot decisions are numerous nowadays. But the item will interest thousands of friends of that grand old woman-Mother Jones:
“You are not a citizen of West Virginia. Why do you not stay where you belong, instead of coming to our state to stir up trouble among the miners? What business have you the here? thundered Judge Jackson from bench.”
“Judge,” softly replied Mother Jones and every lawyer and each member of the crowd that thronged the court room, hung upon her every utterance, “I am a citizen of the United States, and as such I think I have the right to come to West Virginia or where ever my duty may call me.”
All day Thursday [June 26] “Mother” Jones was on the stand at United States court, and she was subjected to one of the most rigid examinations that has ever been heard here. But never for an instant did she lose her quiet and dignified demeanor, nor did the questions of the district attorney confuse her in the least. On the other hand, she was one of the shrewdest witnesses that ever took the stand at United States court and from the time she was called in the morning until late in the evening it was a veritable battle of brains, and “Mother” Jones was not always worsted. The court room was crowded and the old silver haired woman won many friends by her sweet, dignified manner and shrewdness with which she met every question of the attorneys. When the day was over she was visibly worn out and it was with a sigh of deep relief that she left the witness stand.
The examination of “Mother” Jones was in many ways a treat that those who heard it will not soon forget. Her story was straight forward but in many places her love for the miners brought out the pathetic side of the trouble, while again, on several occasions the court room was in a roar of laughter at some witty repartee between the witness and Judge Blizzard [District Attorney Reese Blizzard], or at some element of humor injected into the proceedings by Judge Jackson.
When asked if she had not said that the operators were the same sort of people that had crucified Christ, the witness replied that she had made such a remark.
“Well,” questioned Judge Blizzard, “do you not think the crucifixion of Christ was the worst crime ever committed?”
“No,” answered the witness in loud tones, “it was not nearly so bad as the crucifixion of little boys in the coal mines who are daily being robbed of their manhood and their intellect by what they are through necessity compelled to undergo. Christ could have saved himself, the boys cannot.”
“Mother” Jones, when first put on the stand, stated that she was sixty years old, having been born in Ireland, coming to this country at the age of six years. She had been, she said, working among the miners for the past thirty years.
She, in answer to questions, denied that she had ever counselled the violation of the law in any respect, but had always asked the miners, to stay sober, to obey the law, and to fight their battles by peaceable methods. She stated that she had no intention of violating the injunction when the meeting was held at Clarksburg on Friday, as the property on which the meeting was held was leased by the miners, and was thought to be far enough away from the property of the mine operators and the homes of the miners. She had come to this state on the invitation and was here to organize the miners. She denied the statement that more trouble occurs where strikers are organized than where they are not.
She stated that she had been at Paterson, N. J., on several occasions, and had lately had an invitation to go there, but denied that she knew that city was a hotbed of anarchists, or that she had ever met or worked with any of the anarchists.
Judge Jackson asked her if she had ever met Emma Goldman, she replied in negative.
To the Judge’s facetious question if she knew Carrie Nation she laughingly returned a similar answer.
The witness denied many of the statements that had been made with regard to her attempts to stir up trouble, or intentionally violating the injunctions, and she stated that she had the highest respect for the courts and sought always to obey the laws of hr country.
From the Baltimore Sun of July 13, 1902:
First “Mother Jones” Case Ended.
(Special Dispatch to the Baltimore Sun.)
PARKERSBURG, W. Va., July 12.-The arguments in the case of “Mother Jones” and others for the violation of Judge Jackson’s Injunction were completed in the Federal Court here today. The case was continued until other cases can be heard in which the prisoners are charged with a similar offense.
From the Chattanooga Press of July 14, 1902:
“Mother” Jones gave the boys of Coal Creek a two hours bonfire of eloquence on July 4. She told them the way to keep on top was to organize and stay that way. She was given the closest attention by the miners and her advice had a very impressive and motherly bearing with the young labor element who have reached the junction of choice which shapes the destiny of singleness or fellowship. In union there is strength.-Clinton Gazette.
From The Indianapolis Journal of July 17, 1902:
“Mother” Jones Here To-Day.
“Mother” Jones, who had been in West Virginia for several months and was recently arrested for violating an injunction issued by Judge Jackson, of the Federal Court, will arrive to-day to attend the convention. Final judgment will be passed on her next Thursday [July 24]. Secretary Wilson said yesterday that “Mother” Jones was overworked, and although she wanted to stay in the field, the miners thought she needed a rest and sent for her to come to the convention. Barney Rice, member of the executive board from the bituminous field of Pennsylvania, who has been in West Virginia and violated the injunction with the other miners arrested, will also be here today to attend the convention.
From the Evansville Journal-News of July 19, 1902:
Mother Jones
———-Why the Miners Look Upon Her as the
Noblest of all Women in the World.
———-“One of the two most dramatic incidents that I can recall in a life spent among mines and miners occurred during the memorable suspension [at Arnot?] in Central Pennsylvania of 1899-1900,” said S. M. Sexton, editor of the United Mine Workers’ Journal, Thursday.
[The editor continued:]
For five long months miner and operator had stood still, hoping to tire the other out. Coal ranked among the precious minerals with the operators, and the gaunt wolf was sniffing at the doors of many homes among the miners. The stoic fortitude and the calm Spartan endurance of sufferings and starvation by the miners moved even the stony-hearted operators, and they called to their aid the clergy, the doctor, the influential among leaders in politics and business, to urge the strikers to yield for the sake of their suffering wives and children.
There is a deep misapprehension in the public mind that the wives of the strikers are not in sympathy with the cause of their husbands, and only endure suffering under duress. On the contrary, the striking miners’ wives give life and invincibility to the cause. Their counsels nerve the husbands’ courage to endure to the end. Whoever else weakens in a strike, the miners’ wives are supremely true. Whoever else hesitates and falters in the face of starvation, she stands as firm as the everlasting hills.
Then this combined band of clergy etc., made a house to house canvass among the strikers and got them to call a public meeting to discuss the strike. It was on Thursday, and many strikers attended the meeting, and there were strong hopes among the operators that work would be resumed on Monday. Many miners were wavering and it was the pivotal moment of the strike.
Late that night there came over the mountains in the stage a kindly-faced, grey-haired old woman. A single glance revealed her to be a woman of note-“a leader of the host.” About medium size, strongly built, she was as straight as a rush, and as nimble as a kitten. She had those steely blue eyes you read about so often and so seldom see, and the majesty of courage sat enthroned upon her ruddy face. She was “Mother Jones,” the tribune of the toilers who will be remembered with gratitude and love as long as organization is a necessity among workingmen. She called a meeting for the next day. Nature there has prepared a great amphitheater, a circular hollow in the hills, with gentle sloping sides, where an audience of 20,000 could gather and hear the speaker. It was a beautiful October day, the bleak stony mountains were stripped of their foliage, and formed a dismal background to the stirring scene about to be enacted.
Youth and old age were there. Grandmothers held nursing infants and grandsires touched elbows with their sturdy descendants. Edward McKay, of Pittsburg, then a member of the National Executive Board, was chairman, and, In a few fitly chosen word, introduced “Mother” Jones. It was the supreme hour, when the wages and conditions of 40,000 men rocked and trembled in the balance; one of those overpowering crises when the person and the occasion blend.
“Mother” Jones was arrayed against the might of the corporation, the persuasive power of the pangs of hunger, the eloquence of priests and the cunning of the politician. What is oratory? ‘”Mother” Jones stretched forth her hand like Paul unto the multitude and reasoned with righteousness, and plead with truth. Her appeal made every fiber of their beings thrill with emotion-she made their hearts’ blood leap and throb. She made men sob and women shriek–old men, bent and bowed with the slavish toil, sprang to their feet like school boys, waved aloft their horny hands and uttered a father’s curse on those who would yield. Young wives with infants in arms, with disheveled hair, danced and screamed defiance to the power of the corporation. It needed but the “Marseillaise” to have been a scene from the days of the barricades.
When she sat down, after talking for three-quarters of on hour, she had so steeled their hearts to brave the buffets of the winter’s storms and the pangs of hunger that they remained on strike nearly five months longer and won. And yet people living afar wonder at the adoration Mother Jones receives from the hardy miner. She is to them an Esther and a Judith, a Joan of Arc and a Florence Nightingale.
A little incident will illustrate her dauntless courage. A year ago last spring, she was sent to address some miners in West Virginia. There was a ferry across the Kanawha River, which separated her from the place at which she was to speak. The mine superintendent sent her word that if she crossed the river he would set his bloodhounds on her. He kept a pack to chase away agitators, truck farmers, and any others whom he deemed dangerous to his business. Mother Jones went to a butcher shop, bought some bones, crossed the river, and when the superintendent made good his threat, she did not flee like the trembling Eliza across the river, but fed the dogs, went on and made her address, converted the superintendent himself, and he is now one of her warmest friends.
[Paragraph breaks added.]
From The Indianapolis Journal of July 19, 1902:
“Mother” Jones arrived [in Indianapolis] from West Virginia in the afternoon [July 18th] and immediately went to Tomlinson Hall to join in the [miners’] convention. As she stepped upon the stage she was greeted with loud cheers. Then she stepped up to President Mitchell and kissed him like she would if he were her long lost son. At this the convention applauded and then again got down to business.
From The Fort Wayne Sentinel of July 19, 1902:
“MOTHER” JONES TALKS.
At the opening of the convention this morning “Mother” Jones was given the floor. She made an address which was enthusiastically applauded by the delegates. She declared that before coming to Indianapolis she had favored a general strike, but since coming to the convention she had reached the opinion that the conclusion reached by the delegates to avoid such a movement was the wisest course. She urged the delegates to oppose at the congressional elections this fall every man who was favorable to “government by injunction.”
Saturday Morning, July 19, 1902
-Mother Jones addressed the convention and said in a part:
Mr. Chairman and Fellow Delegates: I have been wondering whether this great gathering of wealth producers thoroughly comprehended the importance of their mission here today; whether they were really clear as to what their real mission was.
I realize, my friends, what your mission is; but I am one of those who, taking all the conditions into consideration, had I been here would have voted for a gigantic protest. I wanted the powers that be to understand who the miners were; to understand that when they laid down their picks they tied up all other industries, and then the operators would learn what an important factor the miner is toward his support. But, my friends, I believe you have taken the wisest action, that action which the world at large will commend, and which I now commend, believing it is right…..
These fights must be won if it costs the whole country to win them. These fights against the oppressor and the capitalists, the ruling classes, must be won if it takes us all to do it…..
There is before you one question, my friends, and you must keep that question before your eyes this fall when you send representatives to the legislative halls. Your instructions to these representatives must be: “Down forever with government by injunction in the American nation.” This generation may sleep its slumber quietly, not feeling its mighty duty and responsibility, and may quietly surrender their liberties. And it looks very much as though they were doing so. These liberties are the liberties for which our forefathers fought and bled. Things are happening today that would have aroused our Revolutionary fathers in their graves. People sleep quietly, but it is the sleep of the slave chained closely to his master. If this generation surrenders its liberties, then the work of our forefathers, which we will lose by doing this, will not be resurrected for two generations to come. Then perhaps the people will wake up and say to their feudal lords “We protest,” and they will inaugurate one of those revolutions that sometimes come when the slave feels there is no hope, and then proceed to tear society to pieces.
My friends, it is solidarity of labor we want. We do not want to find fault with each other, but to solidify our forces and say to each other: “We must be together; our masters are joined together and we must do the same thing.”
I want to explain to some of the delegates here why eleven of my co-workers in the field and myself were arrested and thrown into jail. We had the Fairmont Company practically licked, and as we did our marching and got our camps established the injunction machine began to work, and we had injunctions served against us, and they can grind injunctions out there in daylight and in the dark-it is no trouble to them at all. The Marshal served one on me, and I said to him: “I shall do my duty regardless of injunctions. I am here to do a work and I am going to do it; I think also that my co-workers intend to do their duty……
Then we were arrested and taken to Parkersburg at twelve o’clock at night; and the Marshal [Charles D. Elliott], intending to be very courteous to me, said he had engaged a room for me at the hotel. I thanked him very kindly, and he told a deputy to go there with me, and when we got to Parkersburg he said, “Come this way with me,” and I said, “Come with me, boys.” He said, “No, they are going to jail, and you are going to the hotel.” I said, “No, I am going wherever my boys go,” and we all went to jail. Next day, we were all taken before the judge [John J. Jackson], and I was kept on the witness stand for seven long hours, for seven long hours they were questioning me, and the old judge and I made friends with each other. He asked me: “Did you say there was an old gray-headed judge on the bench up there at Parkersburg who thought he was running everything?” I said, “I said to the crowd there is an old gray-headed judge back there in Parkersburg, and he is growing old just as I am myself; we are both getting childish and some day soon we will both die, and then the whole world will miss us.”
Then the judge told me that if I would go out of the state and stay out, and be a good girl generally, he would leave me alone. I asked my lawyer to tell him for me that I said all the devils in hell would not get me out of West Virginia while I had my duty there to perform. I said I was there to stay, and if I died in West Virginia in jail it made no difference with my decision. There would be no going out of the state, however; that thing was settled. I was there and I intended to fight whether in jail or out until we won. We all felt the same about that……
Now I want to say a word about the West Virginia comrades. A great deal has been said for and against them. Perhaps no one there knows them better than I do. No one has mingled with them more than I have, and no one has heard more of their tales of sorrow and their tales of hope. I have sat with them on the sides of the mountains and the banks of the rivers and listened to their tales.
One night a comrade from Illinois [John H. Walker] was going with me up the mountain side. I said, “John, I believe it is going to be very dark tonight,” and he said he thought it was, for only the stars were shining to guide us. When we got to the top of the mountain, besides the stars in the sky we saw other little stars, the miners’ lamps, coming from all sides of the mountains. The miners were coming there to attend a meeting in a schoolhouse where we had promised to meet them, and I said to John, “There comes the star of hope, the star of the future, the star that the astronomer will tell nothing about in his great works for the future ages; but that is the star that is lighting up the ages yet to come; there is the star of the true miner laying the foundation for a higher civilization, and that star will shine when all other stars will grow dim.”……
One of the best elements there, I am here to tell you, are the colored men. One of the best fellows we have is the black man. He knows what liberty is; he knows that in days gone by the bloodhounds went after his father over the mountains and tore him to pieces, and he knows that his own Mammy wept and prayed for liberty. For these reasons he prizes his liberty and is ready to fight for it. My friends, the most of us have been told that we have liberty, and we believed the people who told us that!
Now, my friends, we should all work together in harmony to secure our rights. Don’t find fault with each other; rather clasp hands and fight the battle together. Be true to the teachings of your forefathers who fought and bled and raised the old flag that we might always shout for liberty. Think, my friends! Did the laborers ever take twenty-two capitalists and riddle their bodies with bullets? Did the laborers ever take twenty thousand men, women and children and lock them up in the Bastille and murder them? No, labor has always advanced Christianity. The history of the miner has been bitter and sore; he has traveled the highways and the by-ways to build up this magnificent organization, and let me beg of you, in God’s holy name and in the name of the old flag, let the organization be used for the uplifting of the human race, but do not use it for the up- lifting of yourself. Be true to your manhood; be true to your country; be true to the children yet unborn.
Now I want to say to you here that whether I die in jail or outside, I want to feel in the closing hours of my life that you have been true to each other, that you have been true to the principles of our forefathers. If you are true to these things the battle will end in victory for you.
From The Indianapolis News of July 19, 1902:
Proceedings of the Miners
Waiting on the CommitteeAfter the miners’ convention had listened in open session to Mother Jones this morning…..
A recess of thirty minutes was taken to give Secretary Wilson time to bring in the report of the committee that considered President Mitchell’s recommendations. “Mother” Jones presided while the committee met in one of the hall corridors, and while delegate John Evans, of Pennsylvania, sang.
The delegate were almost hilarious during the wait for the report of the committee. Several delegates were called on for songs. Two other delegates besides Evans responded and were enthusiastically received. “Mother” Jones, as chairman, “bossed” the delegate the same as a mother rules a family, and the miners obeyed willingly.
Note: emphasis added throughout.
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SOURCES
Quote Mother Jones, Told the Court in WV to Stay,
-Ipl July 19, 1902, UMWC p86
https://cuomeka.wrlc.org/files/original/e8a127cff2e927a72bf17df6f97c6617.pdf
The Sun
(Baltimore, Maryland)
-July 12, 1902
https://www.newspapers.com/image/372429285/
-July 13, 1902
https://www.newspapers.com/image/372429728
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-July 12, 1902
https://www.newspapers.com/image/67056967
Chattanooga Press
(Chattanooga, Tennessee)
-July 14, 1902
https://www.newspapers.com/image/585668355/
The Indianapolis Journal
(Indianapolis, Indiana)
-July 17, 1902
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82015679/1902-07-17/ed-1/seq-2/
-July 19, 1902
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82015679/1902-07-19/ed-1/seq-7/
Evansville Journal-News
(Evansville, Indiana)
-July 19, 1902
https://www.newspapers.com/image/772068413/
The Fort Wayne Sentinel
(Fort Wayne, Indiana)
-July 19, 1902
https://www.newspapers.com/image/29263528
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday July 20, 1902
Indianapolis, Indiana – Mother Jones Speaks to Miners’ Convention, Part I
Hellraisers Journal – Monday July 21, 1902
Indianapolis, Indiana – Mother Jones Speaks to Miners’ Convention, Part II
The Indianapolis News
(Indianapolis, Indiana)
-July 19, 1902
https://www.newspapers.com/image/39449348
IMAGE
Mother Jones of UMW, NY Tb p6, Image 20, July 6, 1902
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1902-07-06/ed-1/seq-20/
See also:
Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for July 1902
Part I: Organizers for UMW Surrounded by Injunctions in West Virginia
Tag: Mother Jones v Judge Jackson 1902
https://weneverforget.org/tag/mother-jones-v-judge-jackson-1902/
Tag: UMW Special Convention 1902
https://weneverforget.org/tag/umw-special-convention-1902/
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday October 11, 1899
Arnot, Pennsylvania – Agitator Mrs. Mary Jones on Prolongs Miners Strike
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday February 24, 1900
Blossburg, Pennsylvania – Arnot Miners and Families Bid Mother Jones Farewell
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She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain -Ken Carson and the Choraliers