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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday April 13, 1909
Mother Jones News Round-Up for March 1909, Part II:
-Found in Pittsburg and Girard, Kansas
Mother praised by Appeal to Reason:
Mother Jones is in the field appealing to the workers with the eloquence and force for which she is noted. She has already raised by her own efforts over three thousand dollars for the defense of the Mexican comrades. Her meetings are uniformly crowded and at the close resolutions are adopted voicing the protest of the working class and demanding the liberation of the patriots.
[Emphasis added.]
From the Appeal to Reason of March 13, 1909:
….PREPARING FOR THE BATTLE….
The Mexican cases become more important hourly. Along the Rio Grande the pickets, sentinels and spies are posted and there is a state of actual war, although the capitalist press makes no report of it. The war is between the rising proletariat under the leadership of such patriots as Araujo and Magon, and the Mexican despotism with the tyrant Diaz at its head. Stripped of all collateral developments it is simply a war between labor and capital, between freedom and peon slavery.
The managing editor of the Appeal [Fred Warren] has for some days been at San Antonio, Waco and other points in southern Texas, making a personal investigation. He reports a far more serious and complicated situation than most of our readers imagine. He is convinced that these cases are but the beginnings of what is going to prove a serious and far-reaching conflict.
Efforts are being mede to appeal the case of Antonio Araujo to the supreme court, and at all events to fight the case to a finish. Additional evidence has accumulated to emphasize the infamy of the conviction. A number of other Mexican patriots have been arrested in secret in Texas and Arizona, waylaid, beaten jailed and held “incommunicado” by collusion of the American police in the employ of the Mexican government.
So powerful are the Mexican influences in those states that the papers are silenced and the courts are virtually Mexicanized in their treatment of the patriots who are fighting for liberty.
Late advices from Mrs. Sarabia, wife of Manuel Sarabia, are to the effect that preparations are being made for a thorough and vigorous propaganda against these convictions. Comrade Luella Twining, who is with Mrs. Sarabia, writes most encouragingly of the outlook. Meetings are being held largely attended and a healthy public sentiment is being created against these Mexican outrages upon American soil.
Mother Jones is in the field appealing to the workers with the eloquence and force for which she is noted. She has already raised by her own efforts over three thousand dollars for the defense of the Mexican comrades. Her meetings are uniformly crowded and at the close resolutions are adopted voicing the protest of the working class and demanding the liberation of the patriots.
The Appeal, after the investigation of its managing editor and special correspondent, are more than ever satisfied that if this menace of Mexico is not stamped out it will have to be met in a more serious form at a later time.
Peon slavery triumphant in Mexico and the revolt there crushed out will have its immediate effect upon the situation in the United States.
It will strengthen the power of the plutocracy, while upon the other hand it will result in wage reductions and the demoralization of the working class.
These cases constitute an issue of extreme importance. The conviction of these patriots is a direct stab at the revolutionary movement in the United States. The power of organized labor, the whole of it, should be tested in the defense of the principles here involved.
The Appeal has enlisted in this struggle realizing fully what it means. It has taken its place and proposes to hold it, nor to take a backward step until the fight is fought to a finish and the victory won.
Everything depends upon the activity of the liberty loving masses of the people. They can, if they will, crush this conspiracy to crucify Liberty and enslave the working class. Will they do it? We believe they will.
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From The Pittsburg Daily Headlight of March 13, 1909:
MOTHER JONES
[in Pittsburg, Kansas].
—–
Addressed Miners’ Convention
For About Two Hours.
—–Mother Jones dropped in upon the district [14] convention of miners’ yesterday afternoon and used up two hours of its time with a talk.
She arrived in the city at 2:50 p. m. on the Frisco limited from the north, and went directly from the depot to the city auditorium, where the convention was in session. As soon as her presence in the auditorium became known she was greeted with an ovation of applause, and the convention was given a recess and the delegates turned into an audience to listen to Mother Jones. She began talking shortly after three o’clock and ended a few moments before five o’clock. An adjournment of the convention was then taken until this morning at 9 o’clock.
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From the Duluth Labor World of March 20, 1909:
THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION.
The changing order of things is wonderful. You talk of your national constitution. You have no constitution-it is a thing of the past. This is not the government that you had in the days of Lincoln. You have two governments today. One the political government in Washington. The other-the real government, located in Wall Street.
-Mother Jones.
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From the Appeal to Reason of March 27, 1909:
MOTHER JONES HERE.
—–Returning from Texas and on her way to the coal fields of Illinois, Mother Jones surprised the Appeal last week with a sudden visit. Needless to say that all were happy to see her and to hear the stories of her latest experiences. Mother Jones has already raised almost four thousand dollars for the Mexican defense fund. To do this has required incessant toil and travel on her part. She has attended a number of conventions and delivered numerous addresses all the way from Indiana to Colorado and when she reached Girard she was almost exhausted, but not in the least cast down. On the contrary she was in the most buoyant spirits. She spoke in glowing terms of the receptions accorded her and of the eagerness of the wage workers to do their share to rescue the Mexican patriots.
Mother Jones improves with age. She has passed the allotted three score and ten, but carries with her the freshness of spring and the virility and enthusiasm of youth. Mother Jones is infectious. Where she appears there is action. The most sluggish respond to her magnetic presence.
She is a typical agitator.. There is not a more unique personality in the movement. She is at once as gentle as a cooing dove, and as fierce as a lioness. She is a grand combination of sweetness and gentility, strength and determination. Mother Jones is in her element working for the Mexican patriots and when they are rescued, as they are sure to be, they will have reason to remember no one more gratefully than this grand old warrior of the social revolution.
———-
Note: emphasis added throughout.
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SOURCES
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-Mar 13, 1909
https://www.newspapers.com/image/66981741/
-Mar 27, 1909
https://www.newspapers.com/image/66981770/
The Pittsburg Daily Headlight
(Pittsburg, Kansas)
-Mar 13, 1909
https://www.newspapers.com/image/94750554/
The Labor World
(Duluth, Minnesota)
-Mar 20, 1909
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn78000395/1909-03-20/ed-1/seq-4/
IMAGE
Mother Jones, Dnv Rck Mt Ns p2, Feb 28, 1909
https://www.genealogybank.com/
See also:
Tag: Mexican Revolutionaries
https://weneverforget.org/tag/mexican-revolutionaries/
Note: re quote above from Labor World:
I could not find time and place for this exact quote, but found statement
paraphrased from her Jan 1909 speech at UMWA Convention, see:
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of
Mother Jones for January 1909, Part II:
Found in Indianapolis Speaking at UMWA Convention
She declared that the seat of government was not at Washington, any way, insisting that it was in Wall street.
Note: Pittsburg, KS, was the HQ for
UMW District 14; the President of the District in 1909
was Alex Howat. Girard, KS, is 14 miles from Pittsburg.
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=WyH1VOBn6BsC&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA917
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The Death of Mother Jones – Gene Autry, 1931