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Hellraisers Journal – Friday April 15, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for March 1910:
-Found Visiting Girard, Kansas, and Speaking to Miners at Cincinnati
From The Pittsburg Daily Headlight of March 11, 1910:
Mother Jones the prominent Socialist lecturer has been in Girard this week.
From Hellraisers Journal of March 27, 1910:
Cincinnati, Ohio-Speech of Mother Jones at Miners’ Special Convention
From The Topeka State Journal of March 24, 1910:
SOUNDS CALL TO ARMS.
—–
“Mother Jones” Arouses Coal Miners
to Great Enthusiasm.
—–
Cincinnati. O., March 24.-Bituminous coal operators and miners of Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania, entered their subscale meeting this afternoon with almost certainty that a disagreement would be reported to the joint committee, that the joint conference would reach a like disagreement before tomorrow noon and that the International Convention of United Mine Workers would then be asked to say whether it should be industrial peace or war after April 1.
Operators of the three states immediately concerned, held a secret conference all morning and at the conclusion announced that the vote had been unanimous to resist all of the miners’ demand. The attitude of the miners in the international convention was shown during an address by “Mother” Jones when she declared:
If the operators force a fight we are all in trim to give them the hottest fight they ever had in their lives.
The convention was almost stampeded and the cheering did not cease for several minutes.
[She shouted:]
Line up, we are ready for war.
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[Photograph and emphasis added.]
From Proceedings of Special U. M. W. of A. Convention
-Cincinnati, March 24, 1910:[MOTHER JONES SPEAKS]
—–
Mother Jones-I am not here today to talk on the mining industry. …..For the last two months I have been in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, going through the breweries studying the phase of the industry that affects women. I have come to the conclusion that the breweries are no place for women workers; but if economic conditions enforce the women to abandon their homes they have to find some place to earn their bread.
I went to the head of one of the firms and said to him, “Your foreman uses the most beastly language to those women. You realize as well as I do that in this nation there is growing a terrific sentiment against your industry. You realize as well as I do that your industry is the product of the profit system, and while the profit system lasts your industry will go on, either openly or secretly. Therefore I have come to you to show how you can correct some of the horrors existing in your institution.” I told him the language used by those men to the women who worked in the breweries would not sound well in print. He said, “I thank you for coming here.”
I went to Milwaukee at the request of the Brewery Workers’ organization. There are between 600 and 700 girls and women working in those breweries, and the average wage is from $2.50 to $3.00 a week. They work in the bottle-washing department, where the work is very disagreeable, as their clothing becomes very wet. Many of them are foreigners, but some of them are American born. I tremble for the future of some of the young girls who were driven to such work. Some statesman once said in the early days of this country, “When a nation sends her old to the poor house and her young to the scaffold and to the jails that nation is in its decline, there is something wrong with it.” When a nation stands for its women being dragged from their homes and driven to do such work for the master class and to be ground into profit for them there is something wrong.
These breweries are making millions upon millions of dollars. They prohibit the organization of the girls and women that are working for them, and discharge them as soon as they join a union. I have been there for two months, and while some of them are organized, as soon as the bosses get on to it they are discharged under one pretext or another. I went to Blatz’s brewery and I said to the proprietor, “I would like to go through your brewery.” He said, “We held a meeting of the Brewers’ Association when we heard you were in Milwaukee and we concluded we could not allow our girls to be organized. They get married and go away and they don’t need to be organized.”
I said, “If women have to go into the industries we need to get them together to show them the future state of civilization. You surely will help me to do that?” He said, “I will not. You cannot go into the breweries.” I said, “There is one place you can’t keep me out of and that is the legislature of Wisconsin. I will go there and ask the legislators if they can afford to have the women of the state slaughtered to build a monument to you.”
[…..]
Now I want to tell you why I am here. I want to ask this body of men to help those girls. You can go into any mining camp-and very few of them I haven’t been in-and find that Milwaukee beer is sole there. Those girls working in those breweries tell me how good it would be if they could get only $7 a week. One told me that in two weeks she only earned $5, and another said that in two weeks she only earned $6. Some of them said they only earned enough to pay their room rent, and that they washed dishes and helped the woman where they boarded for their meals. These conditions exist in the Milwaukee breweries.
I have tried every way to organize the girls peacefully and without hitting the brewery owners; but I have concluded that the only way to hurt them is to touch their pockets, and therefor I want this convention to help me. If you could see the pictures I have seen there is not one of you who would not rise to your feet and pass the resolution that will be presented to you, not one of you that would not pledge yourselves not to drink a glass of Milwaukee beer or see that not a glass is sold in any mining camp in the country until those girls are organized.
[…..]
I want you not only to pass this resolution in regard to the brewery workers, but I want you to help the Cigar Workers who are fighting in this city. I honor them for their spirit of revolt. I am going away in a day or so. I am going West. I will be back in Milwaukee when I have touched the brewers’ pockets. When we find we have over 500,000 miners who will not drink a glass of Milwaukee beer in any place, north, south, east or west, the breweries of Milwaukee will be brought to time.
[…..]
Now you have been here a long time, boys, taking a rest; you have been having a picnic. I want to tell you if they force the fight we are all in trim to give them the damnedest fight they have ever had. One of the boys said I was looking well. Of course I am. There is going to be a racket and I am going to be in it! When I get a lick at them it makes me young again. I am going to watch you! Line up, and if you have got to give those fellows a fight they will regret they have brought it on.
There is a different feeling in the country now to what there was a few years ago. We are ready for war now. ……
Get The Appeal to Reason and read it. When Turner undertook to show up the American capitalistic combine in Mexico The American Magazine closed out the articles immediately. When a man went to California to look over the articles he said, “I cannot get a magazine in America to take them up.” I said, “Of course, because the magazines and papers are controlled by the Wall Street gang of commercial pirates and they don’t want their crimes known by the people.” Now get the paper I spoke of and you will be able to read the articles. They will show how the mine owners of the United States are in league with the Guggenheims and the Standard Oil people getting the peons down there to work cheap. The president’s own brother has 250,000 acres in Texas with Mexican peons working on it for a few cents a day. That is the way they protect the American workingman!
Now pass that resolution. Mr. [Thomas] Lewis, when that fight comes on I will be with you to the last ditch-I will help you out.
[Photograph and emphasis added.]
From the Socialist Montana News of March 31, 1910:
Coal Miners Walk Out
—–Demand for Increase in Wages Refused by Operators
300,000 Miners Lay Down ToolsCincinnati, O.,-The Joint meeting! between the delegates from the United Mine Workers of America and the coal operators broke without reaching any agreement. A strike of over 200,000 miners on April 1 now seems certain unless the operators show a decided change of front. So far the mine owners have blocked every move for a settlement and have contended themselves with prolonging the negotiations so as to make the miners spend as much money as possible in maintaining its delegates at the convention here.
Capital’s Power Too Strong.
Mother Jones is here, and wherever she goes before a gathering in which miners take part she gets only one sort of a reception, the gathering is hers. She has been working in Milwaukee trying to organise the girls in the Milwaukee breweries. Organized labor in that city has extended aid to her and she has spared neither time nor energy. The final result, however, was the conviction that the power of the brewers was too strong. The girls and women in the breweries are sweated cruelly and when Mother Jones told the story of her work to the union miners here the delegates to the joint convention immediately voted a boycott against all beer coming from Milwaukee.
The joint conference represents the members of the United Mine Workers all over the United States and mine owners from a like area. At the convention of the United Mine Workers, recently held in Indianapolis, It was decided that the miners should sign their contracts for the next term as a unit. With that end in view advances were made to the operators who convened a gathering at Toledo, where the Illinois mine operators were not represented.
Meeting Failed.
This made the gathering useless. It was then adjourned. The Illinois miners sent Duncan McDonald, Groce Lawrence, Frank J. Hayes and others, as a committee to Chicago to meet the Illinois operators.
The operators in Chicago delayed matters and prevented an agreement. A complete convention of the joint forces, miners and mine operators was called to meet in this city. Several times it has been adjourned, waiting the negotiations with the scale committee. It was then reconvened, but finally decided that there was no chance of agreeing with the operators at this time.
Suspension of Work.
Indianapolis, Ind., March 31–Three hundred thousand organised miners of the bituminous coal fields of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa. Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas quit work at midnight pending settlement of a new wage scale. President Thomas L. Lewis, the Miners’ Union, declared a total of 300,000 miners had quit work.
Officers of the United Mine Workers of North America declared the walk out was not a strike but merely a suspension of work because no wage scale had been made to replace the old scale which expired with March. The miners demand an increase of pay, in some instances of five cents a ton and in other instances more, with certain changes in working conditions.
While the miners predict the suspension will be shortened by a prompt signing of wage scales, some of the operators maintain the mines may be kept closed for a month or longer.
Some Operators Grant Increase.
The first settlement came in an announcement from Brazil, Ind., the center of the Indiana block coal field, where the demand for a five-cent increase was granted.
Hope for Settlement.
Indianapolis-Leaders of the United Mine Workers and the operators association in the bituminous coal fields were busy Friday preparing for conferences in which, it is hoped, agreements on new wage contracts will be reached.
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[Emphasis added.]
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SOURCES & IMAGES
The Pittsburg Daily Headlight
(Pittsburg, Kansas)
-Mar 11, 1910
https://www.newspapers.com/image/93434322/
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday March 27, 1910
Mother Jones Speaks to Delegates at United Mine Workers Special Convention in Cincinnati
Montana News
“The Only Workingman’s Paper in Montana
Owned and Published for Socialism in Montana”
(Helena, Montana)
-Mar 31, 1910
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84024811/1910-03-31/ed-1/seq-1/
See also:
Note: Mother Jones found in Girard would mean that she was visiting J. A. Wayland, editor of the Appeal to Reason. However, I found no mention of Mother in the Appeal during March of 1910.
Julius Augustus Wayland (1854–1912)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Wayland
Tag: Bituminous Coal Strike of 1910
https://weneverforget.org/tag/bituminous-coal-strike-of-1910/
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday March 12, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for February 1910
Part I Part II
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Fire in the Hole – Hazel Dickens