This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
Hellraisers Journal, Thursday July 18, 1907
Mother Jones News for June: Organizing Miners in Arizona
During the month of June 1907, Mother Jones was found working with the Western Federation of Miners, organizing the metal miners of Arizona. During that month she also made a trip to New York City, and, on her way back to Arizona, stopped off in Girard, Kansas, to visit with J. A. Wayland of the Appeal to Reason.
The Tombstone Epitaph of June 2, 1907 stated that she should seek a less taxing lifestyle than that of preaching “socialistic doctrines,” while the Albuquerque Evening Citizen of June 24, 1907 honored her efforts on behalf of the working class:
Like Joan of Arc, Mother Jones is alone in her class, and is one of the few labor leaders in this country who have the ear of the entire people, and the respect of the different factions that so often clash in the material world.
From the Nogales Border Vidette of June 1, 1907:
“Mother” Jones, prominent in the labor field of the United State, will arrive in Tombstone this afternoon and is billed to lecture both this and tomorrow evening. “Mother” Jones is a lady 60 years of age or more, the major portion of which time has been devoted to the welfare of the working-man. The lady is not a disturbing element nor an agitator, but on the contrary endeavors to still the troubled waters by pointing out how amicable relations may be brought about and prosperity take the place of chaos. “Mother” Jones speaks from a socialistic standpoint, is well versed in political economy, highly educated and has oratorical ability. Her prominence throughout the country will doubtless call out large audiences on both occasions of her lectures.-Prospector.
From the Tombstone Epitaph of June 2, 1907:
“Mother” Jones, a national figure in the labor world and an expounder of socialistic theories, has visited Tombstone and departed. The aged lady held forth one evening only and addressed a small, intelligent and unappreciative audience. Had she confined her talk to socialistic doctrines without essaying to have the workingman kneel at her shrine and follow her dictations she would have avoided much adverse criticism. Th old lady, pleasing in appearance, is deserving of an easier life than she is now leading. That sweet face wreathed in smiles and embelished with a luxuriant growth of gray hair is appealing to the better instincts of man; it is an animate picture that would bless the surroundings of a nursery where, if “Mother” must work, she would be teaching the cherubs to sing praises to Almighty God and the good old lady become a ministering angel.
From South Dakota’s Lead Daily Call of June 5, 1907:
BISBEE SITUATION
—
Rawling, Cannon and Moor Make a Graceful
Getaway After Union Places Burden
on Denver Headquarters-
“Mother” Got $50
—–
Complete Defeat of Socialist Agitation in
Bisbee Marked by Sunday Meeting Which
Was Attended by Seventy-five Persons
—–The following article was published in the Bisbee Daily Review under date of Tuesday morning, May 28, 1907. The city of Bisbee has 17,000 population and The Review has a sworn average daily circulation of about 3,000. The average pay roll of the camp is said to be &5000,000 per month. the Review says:
The last scene in the attempt to make Bisbee a closed camp, under the domination of the Western Federation of Miners and the Industrial Workers of the world, for the present at least, was enacted at the meeting of Bisbee Local 106, which was held in Pythian Castle at 7:15 Sunday night [May 26th].
There are to be no more Union meetings in Bisbee at this time, and the management of the “strike” has been placed in the hands of the executive committee in Denver…..
Organizer Moor, a member of the executive committee, expects to leave for Denver today, where he will assist in making arrangements for the Western Federation convention which meets in that city on June 10…..
Brother Moor addressed his few followers in this camp for the last time Sunday evening, and on the eve of his departure…was decidedly optimistic…Brother Moor bade his seventy-five followers a fond farewell and was followed by Organizer Cannon, who…will [also] leave in a few days for Denver to give an account of his leadership of the “strike” of ’07 Bisbee…Before taking his seat Brother Cannon called attention to the fact that “Mother” Jones has been with us for the past three weeks and had received no expense money from Bisbee 106. A motion to the effect that “Mother” receive the usual price of $3.00 and expenses for her stunt was made. Cannon again called attention to the glorious work “Mother” has done and another member offered an amendment that she receive $4.00 and expenses.
At this stage of the game “Mother” took a hand herself. She was in the work for the love of it, she said, and was not looking for the money. She further promised that she would be with Bisbee 106 until the end, and then launched forth in one of her set speeches against the capitalist class. As the final result the meeting voted “Mother” $50 for railroad fare and instructed the strike committee to “do what was right” in the way of additional remuneration…..
“Mother” Jones departed yesterday [May 27th] for Tombstone and expects to be in Douglas tonight, returning to Bisbee again the latter part of the week…..
From the Kansas Pittsburg Daily Headlight of June 13, 1907:
GIRARD ITEMS
[…..]
Mother Jones, the noted Socialist lecturer, is here for a visit of a day or two with J. A. Wayland and family. She has just returned from New York City, where she went to interview the president of the Copper Queen mining Co.
Western Federation of Miners Convention
-Denver, Fourth Day, June 13, 1907, Morning Session
From the “Report of Acting Secretary-Treasurer Kirwan
-Expenditures for December, 1906,” we learn that Mother Jones, organizer, advanced $100.00.
Brother Marion W. Moor described organizing in Arizona with Mother Jones:
CHAIRMAN STODDEN: If there is no objection…we will proceed with the reports of the individual members of the Executive Board. We will first hear from M. W. Moor, District No. 1 [Headquarters in Goldfield, Nevada]. Mr. Moor then read the following report:
…..On May 10th, believing it to be for the best interests of the organization I went in company with Mother Jones to El Paso, Texas, where Mother Jones addressed a large street meeting in order to counteract the efforts of the scab hunters of the mining companies of Bisbee. I am pleased to be able to report that our organizers with the aid of Mother Jones have been fairly successful in keeping scabs away from the Warren District, and at the time I left Bisbee. on May 27th, the mining companies in spite of their imported thugs and gun fighters were in desperate straits for men to take the place of the strikers……
From the Albuquerque Evening Citizen of June 24, 1907:
Territorial Topics
—–[…..]
Mother Jones, the noted woman labor leader with headquarters at Denver, left El Paso yesterday for Bisbee, Arizona, where she hopes to start a movement for the settlement of the strike in the Warren district, Like Joan of Arc, Mother Jones is alone in her class, and is one of the few labor leaders in this country who have the ear of the entire people, and the respect of the different factions that so often clash in the material world.
Western Federation of Miners Convention at Denver
Sixteenth Day, June 27, 1907, Afternoon Session
According to Delegate P. W. Galentine, Mother supports C. O. Sherman:
P. W. GALENTINE (60): I have noticed, Mr. President and fellow delegates, that almost every delegate that has risen to speak so far on this question has immediately drifted off into the personalities of certain men. Now they say that many members of this convention had their minds made up when they came here, and I acknowledged that in reference to myself. I had my mind made up as to the evidence that had been produced before Globe Local No. 60. which I represent. We had these same arguments that have been rehashed here over and over and over again before the local, at almost every meeting. A communication from the Trautmann side, a communication from the Sherman side, etc., until finally we got so eternally sick of it that we decided to listen to neither side and we cut it out. Now, I claim that all this villification against poor old C. O. Sherman is tommyrot. Now I am going to do a remarkable thing. I am going to take C. O. Sherman’s part. For God’s sake, don’t mock me. I spoke in Globe, Arizona, to a woman, a nobler woman than whom never trod God’s earth. Mother Jones, a woman who has been in the labor movement for forty-two years, and I asked her in regard to C. O. Sherman. “Do you know,” she says, “I have known C. O. Sherman for fifteen years. C. O. Sherman has done more for the labor movement than nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of a thousand ever will do who are today maligning him.” I says, “Is that a fact, Mother? Is it positively a fact that he has really been a good union man for fifteen years to your knowledge?” “It is, and I can prove it.”
Note: So far as we have been able to determine, Mother has not involved herself in the fight between the Trautman and Sherman factions of the Industrial Workers of the World. Her support of Sherman seems to be based on her long-standing personal knowledge of Sherman as loyal union man.
SOURCES
The Border Vidette
(Nogales, Santa Cruz County, Arizona)
-June 1, 1907
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn96060796/1907-06-01/ed-1/seq-1/
Tombstone Epitaph
(Tombstone, Cochise County, Arizona)
-June 2, 1907
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn95060905/1907-06-02/ed-1/seq-2/
Lead Daily Call
(Lead, South Dakota)
-June 5, 1907
https://www.newspapers.com/image/91771903/
The Pittsburg Daily Headlight
(Pittsburg, Kansas)
-June 13, 1907
https://www.newspapers.com/image/94695281/
Albuquerque Evening Citizen
(Albuquerque, New Mexico)
-June 24, 1907
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84020615/1907-06-24/ed-1/seq-2/
Official Proceedings of the
Fifteenth Annual Convention,
Western Federation of Miners
Held in Odd Fellows Hall, Denver, Colorado
June 10th to July 3rd, 1907
https://books.google.com/books?id=wq03AQAAMAAJ
Fourth Day, June 13, 1907, Morning Session
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=wq03AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA29
Report of Acting Secretary-Treasurer Kirwan
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=wq03AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA39
Expenditures for December, 1906
Mother Jones, organizer, advanced…..$100.00
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=wq03AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA94
Expenditures Subdivided
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=wq03AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA98
Miscellaneous
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=wq03AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA118
December, 1906
Mother Jones, advanced…..$100.00
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=wq03AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA120
Report of Marion W. Moor
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=wq03AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA146
Sixteenth Day, June 27, 1907, Afternoon Session
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=wq03AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA643
Delegate P. W. Galentine re Mother’s support for C. O. Sherman:
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=wq03AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA662
IMAGE
Mother Jones, Mar 11, 1905, AtR
https://www.newspapers.com/image/66992169/
See also:
Hellraisers Journal, Sunday June 23, 1907
Denver, Colorado – Report from W. F. of M. Convention
Western Federation of Miners Hands “Lemon” to Industrial Workers of the World
The I.W.W.
-by Paul Frederick Brissenden
(2 searches: sherman; “western federation of miners”)
Columbia University, 1920
https://books.google.com/books?id=5qkpAAAAYAAJ
June 30, 1907
Douglas, Arizona
Kidnapping of Manuel Sarabia
Mother Jones Speaks:
Collected Writings and Speeches
-Philip S. Foner
Monad Press, 1983
https://books.google.com/books?id=T_m5AAAAIAAJ
Page 55 re June 30, 1907:
[Mother Jones] while speaking to smelter workers in douglas, Arizona, becomes involved in case of Manuel Sarabia, leader of the Organizing Junta of th eLiberal Party, followers of Flores Magón, who were seeking to overthrow dictator Porfirio Díaz in Mexico. Helps to get him returned to the United States form Mexican prison to which he had ben taken after bing kidnapped from Arizona.
I could find no evidence of Mother being present in Douglas when Sarabia was kidnapped. -More research needed.
The story begins to break July 2, 1907:
https://www.newspapers.com/search/#query=%22manuel+sarabia%22&dr_year=1907-1907
“Manuel Sarabia” at Chronicling America
Searching with MJ + Sarabia
Chronicling America
Newspapers (dot) com