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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 16, 1912
Mother Jones News Round-Up for May 1912
Found Speaking in Anaconda, Montana, on Behalf of the Shopmen’s Strike
From The Anaconda Standard of May 4, 1912:
URGES WORKERS TO JOIN THEIR FORCES
———-MOTHER JONES ADDRESSES MEMBERS OF LOCAL UNION.
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IN INTEREST OF STRIKERS
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Speaker is well known as strike aider and
advocate of labor unions in general
-Speaks on behalf of Southern Pacific men.
Mother Jones, the strike worker and speaker for labor unions, was in the city yesterday in the interest of the strikers on the Harriman lines. She addressed the members of the Mill and Smelter Men’s union at last night’s session. Mother Jones is known the world over. Last night she made a plea for the strikers on the Southern Pacific, stating that if this strike was lost it would be much harder to win the next. She said, in part:
I am here tonight in the interest of the strikers on the Harriman lines. From time immemorial all our wars were based on economic principles. It is a conflict between classes, and always has been. It is not a struggle between parties, it is class war. The great system you are grappling with the world has never known before. We are in the midst of a great industrial war such as the world has never seen before. Everything is changing; our newspapers, ideas, ways of living, ways of thinking and everything that is connected with us. What are our newspapers? Organs in the control of the ruling class.
We are producing more wealth today than ever before. We produce more wealth than ever did Rome or Greece. There is something wrong with the people when they let this wealth get in the hands of a few. Wealth is power, power rules, consequently we have a despotic government. The power is not in the government, but in Wall Street. The president who is elected is named two years before election by the banks on Wall street. The press is controlled by that power and it molds public opinion. The magazines are the same. Religion fits in with this system of the capitalists. You did not see any Salvation Army 60 years ago. It was not needed. The Salvation Army came with the controlling class. The same is true of the temperance movements. The controlling class needs these devices to keep the working class hypnotized so they cannot think. Everything is in conflict. We are all after the dollar. We betray ourselves for the dollar, as well as for a smile from the boss.
Mother Jones continued in a similar strain at some length.
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[Photograph added.]
From The Anaconda Standard of May 6, 1912:
STIRRING ADDRESS BY MOTHER JONES
———-LABOR COUNCIL DELEGATES RECEIVE AGED ORATOR.
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SHE IS PAST EIGHTY YEARS
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Tells of the many changes for the better
during the past sixty years in the
conditions of the toilers.
———-Applauded again, and again, the address of Mother Jones, the elderly and highly respected labor orator, was the feature of the Silver Bow Trades and Labor council last night. The widely known and generally beloved aged lady celebrated her eightieth birthday anniversary last Wednesday and her address last night was a polished, conservative and eloquent review of the labor movement. She is in the city as the guest of Miss Mary O’Neill, president of the Woman’s club, and will leave shortly for Virginia, where she will take up the fight of the striking coal miners. Her remarks last night were strongly against petty differences and factional fights among laboring people.
In closing she said:
While my spirit is as strong as of yore for the burdens of the toiler of every craft and creed, nature must be obeyed, and I feel that my time is rapidly drawing to a close as regards usefulness. But to you of the younger generation, I want to tell you that since I entered the struggle for the betterment of the conditions of the worker, more than 60 years ago, there have been many great and glorious advances. Conditions that confronted us in my girlhood days would hardly be believed were I to repeat some of them now. Men, women and children worked from 16 to 18 hours a day for much less than is now received for eight hours’ labor. During these long years thousands of heroes and heroines laid down their lives for the advancement of their fellow workers. Things are getting better all the time and, if craft jealousies and petty differences are eliminated, nothing can stop the steady forward progress of those who follow in the footsteps of the lowly Carpenter of Nazareth.
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From The Anaconda Standard of May 19, 1912:
WOMAN’S CLUB.
The Woman’s club met in regular session on Wednesday afternoon and elected trustees for the Woman’s club house corporation…..
“Mother Jones,” who is known as the idol among the labor unions, was an honored guest and made a very nice informal talk. This was the first time “Mother Jones” had attended a meeting of clubwomen, although she is a woman of wide experience.
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SOURCE
The Anaconda Standard
(Anaconda, Montana)
-May 4, 1912
https://www.newspapers.com/image/354267646/
-May 6, 1912
https://www.newspapers.com/image/354268393
-May 19, 1912
https://www.newspapers.com/image/354271654
IMAGE
Mother Jones, Tacoma Tx p3, Feb 14, 1912
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88085187/1912-02-14/ed-1/seq-3/
See also:
Mother Jones News Round-Up for April 1912
Part I: Found as Author of Series on Her Work Among Nation’s Coal Miners
Part II: Speaks in Montana, North Dakota and Minnesota on Behalf of Harriman Strikers
Part III: Speaks in Minnesota, North Dakota and Montana on Behalf of Harriman Strikers
Tag: Illinois Central and Harriman Lines Strike of 1911 to 1915
https://weneverforget.org/tag/illinois-central-and-harriman-lines-strike-of-1911-to-1915/
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Mother Jones, No More Deaths for Dollars – Jim Sharp
Lyrics by Ed Pickford