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Hellraisers Journal – Monday August 18, 1902
Mother Jones News Round-Up for July 1902, Part III
Found Speaking at Central Labor Council Meeting in Cincinnati
From The North Adams Transcript of July 21, 1902:
PATHETIC FAREWELL FOR “MOTHER” JONES
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On Leaving Indianapolis to Go
to Jail for Contempt
Indianapolis, Ind., July 21-An affecting scene was witnessed in the United Mine Workers’ headquarters last evening when “Mother” Jones bade the miners goodby and boarding a train for West Virginia.
“Mother” Jones was on trial early last week with several striking miners for contempt of court in holding public meetings in the face of an injunction, and she was found guilty. She now returns to receive sentence, and it is believed she will be sent to jail.
Many of the delegates to the recent convention are still here, and in the crowd gathered in the headquarters not a single dry eye was to be seen when “Mother” said goodby. Men whose faces were as hard as parchment with the work in the mines and with the hardship of their lives wiped the tears away with their rough hands and some of them left the room.
“Mother” Jones cheered them up and made little of the coming ordeal, but the miners knew she was doing it for them, and if she were their own mother they could not have a warmer love in their hearts for her.
[Photograph added.]
From the Baltimore Sun of July 22, 1902:
Charleston, W. Va., July 21.-Upon the application of the Collins Colliery, Federal Judge Keller today issued attachments for the arrest of John Richards, president of District No. 17, United Mine Workers of America, and 35 other members who took part in meetings near that mine. Special complaint was made against a meeting of July 17 as an alleged violation of the injunction issued against National Secretary Wilson, “Mother” Jones and others. After their arrest today Richards and 10 others were taken before the United States Commissioner at Hinton, where they gave bonds, and the hearing was set for next Friday in Charleston.
Judge Guthrie, of the State Court, issued an attachment for the arrest of 10 miners on complaint of the Kanawha and Hocking Coal Company, which held that they had violated an injunction of his court.
From The Cincinnati Post of July 23, 1902:
With a nervous little nod and a deprecating smile, “Mother Jones,” best known throughout the coal regions as “the miners’ good angel,” greeted me in her room at the Dennison House Tuesday evening July 22]. “Mother Jones” had stopped over in Cincinnati on her way from the Indianapolis convention of United Mineworkers, to speak before the Central Labor Council at Cosmopolitan Hall…..
OUT ON BAIL
She is out on bail now. Two weeks ago she was placed on trial before Judge Jackson at Parkersburg, W. Va., with 10 miners, charged with violating an injunction order issued during the coal strike in that State. A decision in the case is to be rendered by the Judge Thursday, and “Mother Jones” has said that she wouldn’t be surprised if she were sent to jail…..
[Mrs. Jones replied to a query:]
I do not know how I first became interested in the miners. I first visited their homes, talked with their wives and played with the babies. It has been a home campaign all along. My influence with the miners comes from my knowledge of their home life and the good opinions of their wives……
Following me into the hall, in her warm-hearted way, she said:
Good-by, my dear. I’ll go back tomorrow, and by Thursday I suppose I’ll be in jail, but I don’t let that worry me one bit.
JESSIE M. PARTLON.
From The Chronicle of July 27, 1902
-Organ of the Central Labor Council of Cincinnati and Vicinity:
“Mother” Jones, called the sentryman, was at the Central Labor Council meeting Tuesday night [July 22nd]. Accompanied by a young miner from the anthracite regions the snow-haired United Mine Worker was admitted. She was greeted with a burst of applause as she walked to a seat beside the presiding officer.
For an hour this quick-eyed, mobile-faced woman sat as an interested auditor to the regular proceedings of the meeting. At 9 o’clock, by resolution of the members, the doors were thrown open to the public. The hallway had been crowded with those patiently waiting to hear and see this eloquent and most court-injuncted labor organizer in the world. For ninety minutes she held her audience by the charm of a well-used voice in words that reached deep into the hearts and minds of the friends present. Humor and pathos, fact and fancy chased each other in quick succession and were never without their instant response. More than once the expression was heard, “I could listen to her all night.” She said in part:
The greatest industrial conflict in the world’s history is now being fought, and if it was not for the wise heads of the United Mine Workers’ officials the country would be in the throes of a revolution within a month. By our action in Indianapolis we refute the charge that we are always looking for trouble and ready for war. The miners are showing the world that they are not of the type they are said to be. I call particular attention to the 30,000 anthracite miners in the God-curst monopoly State of West Virginia. There are places there fenced in and guarded like in Siberia. No one is allowed inside, nor are the men permitted to come out. Only one newspaper enters-the Fairmount times, owned by the operators. The least talk against this prison management means discharge. And Patrick Henry, on the same ground, said once, “Give me liberty or give me death.” For calling a mass meeting there I was put behind the bars.
The State law says the men must be paid every two weeks in legal tender money. They are paid when the bosses get good and ready and in soup tickets. The law requires the coal to be weighed fairly. It is misweighed by the operators as they see fit. The law requires 1500 cubic feet of air for each miner. This is not done. Baby boys are compelled to breathe the poisonous air that brings them to disease and early graves.
In one place an army of men were thrown out of the company houses. We put them in tenets, and for no other reason the men were dragged behind the bars to Parkersburg, thirty miles away. I secured a house for some of the women who were set out one midnight on the road. This was denied in court, but it’s God’s truth, for I saw them do it.
There are 30,000 breaker boys in Pennsylvania whose torn and bleeding hands attest the greed of murdering capital. I said in open court to a judge down there who said in low accents, “labor has its rights,” and in thundering menace, “and the operators have their rights too, and I am going to see they get them.” I said, “It is worse than crucifying Christ, because Christ could have helped himself and these babies cannot.”
On Thursday I expect to go to jail, but I am not afraid of their jails. I go for a principle. There are no convictions except for cowardice when a principle is to be upheld. Men will work together, be enjoined together, will go to jail together, will defend each other, will trust each other, will support each other. Why is it they cannot stand together at the ballot box? No bayonet, no injunction can interfere there. You pay Senators, Governors, Legislators, and then beg on your knees for them to pass a bill in labor’s protection. You will never solve the problem until you let in the women. No nation is greater than its women.
One time this young miner beside me came to me and said that after five months of bitterest hardship they were going back to work in his mine in the morning under the old inhuman conditions. I called a union meeting. The women had never come before. This time they came. They for the first time heard and understood. Instead of returning to work, the women took up the fight and for five months longer the struggle went on, when the company gave in and the fight was won. Women are fighters.
I appeal to you. We must win in this Miners’ fight. Go down in your pockets and raise money and send it to this noble industrial army. If they are whipped you are whipped. It is a duty to yourselves and your children. We are up against it. I work for the children unborn. No children in the mines and mills of the future is my cry.
Put no faith in the politicians who pat you on the back. Every corruptionist in the Legislature you put there. At the next election be done forever with government by injunction. Thirty-nine years ago the black slaves were freed. Today we are the white slaves to a corrupt judiciary.
The Chinese bill has a leak in it. Frank Sargeant was appointed Immigration Commissioner, but more paupers are coming into the country than ever before. You have not protested. We are in the majority. Then away with it.
Let us have a class conscious proletariat party. The Miners will line up. In ’94 the President and both houses of Congress were Democratic. They shot us down in the great A. R. U. strike and here in Ohio a Republican Governor did the same thing. Don’t go off to fight for freedom in a foreign land. There is plenty of fighting to do at home. This is the first time in world’s history that labor is solidifying and I hope Cincinnati will wake up and show the world her force.
Editorial:
“Mother” Jones said two things not in type on the first page. We reserved them for this special mention. One was: “You would now have no beer boycott on your hands if you were true to each other. You are not as intelligent as trained monkeys when you drink ‘unfair’ beer.” The other was: “Ask for union-mined coal and help the miners. Don’t murder baby boys by being cowards towards yourselves and your own children.” Amen.
[Paragraph breaks added’]
Note: Emphasis added throughout.
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SOURCES
Quote Mother Jones, Going to Jail, Cnc Pst p6, July 23, 1902
https://www.newspapers.com/image/761305973/
The North Adams Transcript
(North Adams, Massachusetts)
-July 21, 1902
https://www.newspapers.com/image/legacy/545460537/
The Sun
(Baltimore, Maryland)
-July 22, 1902
https://www.newspapers.com/image/legacy/372438540/
The Cincinnati Post
(Cincinnati, Ohio)
-July 23, 1902
https://www.newspapers.com/image/761305973/
The Chronicle
(Cincinnati, Ohio)
“Central Labor Council of Cincinnati and Vicinity”
-July 27, 1902
https://www.loc.gov/item/sn94085842/
Mother Jones Speaks
Collected Writings and Speeches
-ed by Philip S Foner
Monad Press, 1983
(page 91)
https://books.google.com/books?id=OE9hAAAAIAAJ
IMAGE
Mother Jones , Phl Inq p24, June 22, 1902
https://www.newspapers.com/image/168338244/
See also:
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
Hellraisers Journal: Interview with Mother Jones at Cincinnati
On Her Way Back to West Virginia to Face Possible Prison Sentence
Part I Part II
Tag: Mother Jones v Judge Jackson 1902
https://weneverforget.org/tag/mother-jones-v-judge-jackson-1902/
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Breaker Boys – Lex Romane