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Hellraisers Journal, Saturday December 14, 1907
Mother Jones News Round-Up for November:
-Found Covered with Fond Tributes in the Appeal to Reason
From the Appeal to Reason of November 2, 1907
The Typewriter Fund.
As correspondents will have noticed, the state office is now in possessions of a typewriter as a result of the movement in that direction started by Mother Jones.
The entire fund for that purpose, however, has never been raise.
Seeing the great need for a typewriter, Comrade N. B. Hunt, unsolicited, tendered a loan of $20 for the purpose of getting the much-needed machine without delay.
A machine was purchased from Comrade C. L. Vincent for $35; $2 of the fund has been contributed by Comrade Vincent…
Amount to be raised to cancel loan…$16.25.
Let us have your contribution to this fund and wipe out the debt.
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[Photograph & emphasis added.]
From the Appeal to Reason of November 16, 1907
Stick!
If you sorely tried, stick!
You are not the only one who has been, or who will be, called upon to face trying situations. Many millions before you and many millions yet to come have been tried-tried as sorely as yourself.
A few of all the countless billions of the past had the grit to stick; and the world remembers their names and pays loving tribute to their memories.
There is nothing grander in all the world than the man, or woman, who will not flinch in the face of trial.
Such a man was Thomas Paine; such a woman is Mother Jones.
The world’s chronicles contain the honored names of many of these heroes, and never while this earth revolves on its axis will they be forgotten.
When the hour of trial came they had the courage to stick. That is the secret of their immortal story. But for that the whirling world would not know today that they had ever lived.
You, too, and each of you, will have the chance to stick, and when it comes be brave enough to stand your ground, and though what is cheaply known as fame may be denied, your deathless soul will be the heir of all the universe.
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[Emphasis added.]
From Utah’s Park Record of November 16, 1907:
Mother was found in Park City, Utah, during September 1907.
Socialist’ Club.
The Socialist Club meets every Thursday evening at 7:30 at the city hall to study economic and social ethics. A cordial invitation is extended to all to attend these meetings and participate in the discussions. Following is the program rendered last Thursday evening:
The Marseilles, violin solo…..Grace Lawrence
“Emerson on the Spirit of the Republic”…..Charles Myers
Song-“The Man with the Hammer and the Drill”
…..Grace Lawrence and Frida Young
A Little Original Philosophy of [My] Own Brand…..Oscar Lawrence
Recitation-“The [?] Path”…..Mrs. Florence Webb
Selection on the graphaphone…..Comrade Henman
Letter to the Socialist women of Park City from Mother Jones.———-
[Emphasis added.]
From the Appeal to Reason of November 23, 1907
“MOTHER” JONES.
—–BY EUGENE V. DEBS.
—–“The ‘Grand Old Woman’ of the revolutionary movement” is the appropriate title given to Mother Jones by Walter Hurt. All who know her—and they are legion—will at once recognize the fitness of the title.
The career of this unique old agitator reads like romance. There is no other that can be compared to it. For fifteen years she has been at the forefront, and never once has she been known to flinch.
From the time of the Pullman strike in 1894, when she first came into prominence, she has been steadily in the public eye. With no desire to wear “distinction’s worthless badge,” utterly forgetful of self and scorning all selfish ambitions, this brave woman has fought the battles of the oppressed with a heroism more exalted than ever sustained a soldier upon the field of carnage.
Mother Jones is not one of the “summer soldiers” or “sunshine patriots.” Her pulses burn with true patriotic fervor, and wherever the battle waxes hottest there she surely will be found upon the firing line.
For many weary months at a time she has lived amid the most desolate regions of West Virginia, organizing the half-starved miners, making her home in their wretched cabins, sharing her meagre substance with their families, nursing the sick and cheering the disconsolate—a true minister of mercy.
During the great strike in the anthracite coal district she marched at the head of the miners; was first to meet the sheriff and the soldiers, and last to leave the field of battle.
Again and again has this dauntless soul been driven out of some community by corporation hirelings, enjoined by courts, locked up in jail, prodded by the bayonets of soldiers, and threatened with assassination. But never once in all her self-surrendering life has she shown the white feather; never once given a single sign of weakness or discouragement. In the Colorado strikes Mother Jones was feared, as was no other, by the criminal corporations; feared by them as she was loved by the sturdy miners she led again and again in the face of overwhelming odds until, like Henry of Navarre, where her snow-white crown was seen, the despairing slaves took fresh courage and fought again with all their waning strength against the embattled foe.
Deported at the point of bayonets, she bore herself so true a warrior that she won even the admiration of the soldiers, whose order it was to escort her to the boundary lines and guard against her return.
No other soldier in the revolutionary cause has a better right to recognition in this edition than has Mother Jones.
Her very name expresses the Spirit of the Revolution.
Her striking personality embodies all its principles.
She has won her way into the hearts of the nation’s toilers, and her name is revealed at the altars of their humble firesides and will be lovingly remembered by their children and their children’s children forever.
From the Appeal to Reason of November 30, 1907
The “Tri-State Edition” takes up most of page 3, nearly one quarter of the entire edition of the Appeal, and documents the amazing amount of organizing undertaken by the state and local chapters of the Socialist Party of America in Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas. The Tri-State Appeal Army also comes in for much credit for industrious sale of subscriptions. Mother Jones is fondly remembered for her visit to Texas last year.
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The report for this week shows an encouraging gain in Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas. You may be sure this fact is appreciated by every member of the Appeal staff. Things have been coming pretty rough for the little old Appeal the past few weeks-with panics and federal persecutions. But the clouds are breaking and we’ll be on top again in a few days. And right here I want to commend to the readers of the Tri-State edition the well-considered words of Comrade Branstetter, in the article which follows:
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LINE UP! LINE UP!
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In Support of the Socialist Press.This is the most critical period in the existence of the Socialist papers and the Socialists should give them a moral and financial support greater than ever before.
Particularly is this true of the Appeal, the Chicago Daily, and our own revolutionary little organ, Justice. Never did they need your moral backing and your work in securing new subscribers as they do at this time.
Not only do they need US as never before, but there has been no time in the history of the Oklahoma movement when we needed THEM more than we do right now. There are strenuous times approaching in the financial and industrial world. Why not in the political world as well?…..
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J. E. Snyder held a rousing meeting at Englevale November 21st. and will go to Iola for a meeting November 27th.
[The Kansas report then goes on to describe the organization of new Socialist Party locals in Sumner County, Cowley County, Wichita County, Barber County, and Crawford County. ]…
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With the Organizers.
[Described here are the organizing efforts of the Socialist Party of Texas from one end of the huge state to other, east and west and north and south. Speaking dates in many towns across the state are given for Comrades: H. L. A. Holman, H. Henderson, W. W. Buchanan, Walter B. Dillon, M. A. Smith, and Reddin M. Andrews and Ben Wheeler.]…
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TRI-STATE [APPEAL] ARMY.
—–[Here we find a full column listing orders and subs gathered by members of the Appeal Army within the Tri-State region which ends with this report:]
-A list of four received from Comrade Pomeroy, Gatesville, Tex., who writes as follows:
Well, I guess the Army will have to show “Bony” a “Madden” trick, and if we can rally from the effects of this panic, I guess Uncle Sammy will have to sweep out the white house and make ready for our “Gene” to receive his friends, and the Appeal will bear the news to millions. Socialism is much talked of here since Mother Jones spoke here last summer. She is much liked by our people and I have written her to come again before election. We will do our best to send you orders and subs so you can keep up the splendid fight you are making a success of.
[Emphasis added.]
SOURCES
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-Nov 2, 1907
https://www.newspapers.com/image/67587059/
-Nov 16, 1907
https://www.newspapers.com/image/67587071/
-Nov 23, 1907
“Jail and Gallows Edition”
https://www.newspapers.com/image/67587088/
-Nov 30, 1907, page 3
https://www.newspapers.com/image/67587094/
The Park Record
(Park City, Summit County, Utah)
-Nov 16, 1907
https://www.newspapers.com/image/287686275/
Note: For the month of November 1907, I could find no actual location for Mother Jones. When last we located her, on October 19, 1907, she was in Chicago at Uhlich’s hall as telegraph strikers were receiving their strike benefits-see Mother Jones News for Oct 1907. She is found next on Dec 15, 1907, in Chicago “blaspheming the Deity, denouncing the government, and delivering to the delegates present at the [Chicago] Federation of Labor a choice selection of profanity,” this according to the December 16th edition of The Inter Ocean of Chicago.
https://weneverforget.org/hellraisers-journal-whereabouts-and-doings-of-mother-jones-for-october-1907-found-in-utah-chicago/
https://www.newspapers.com/image/34542959/
Note: Mother in Park City, Utah:
https://weneverforget.org/hellraisers-journal-whereabouts-and-doings-of-mother-jones-for-september-1907-found-in-park-city-utah/
IMAGE
Mother Jones, Mar 11, 1905, AtR
https://www.newspapers.com/image/66992169/
See also:
Hellraisers Journal, Sunday November 24, 1907
Eugene V. Debs on “The Grand Old Woman of the Revolutionary Movement”
Eugene Debs on Mother Jones: “wherever the battle waxes hottest there she surely will be found upon the firing line.”
EVD Internet Archive
https://www.marxistsfr.org/archive/debs/index.htm
1907: “Mother Jones” by EVD
https://www.marxistsfr.org/archive/debs/works/1907/motherjones.htm
For many of event described in EVD’s article:
The Autobiography of Mother Jones
-by Mother Jones
-Edited by Mary Field Parton
-Introduction by Clarence Darrow
Charles H. Kerr & Company, 1925
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/jones/autobiography/autobiography.html
Thomas Paine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Paine
Re “The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot…”
The American Crisis
-by Thomas Paine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Crisis
For more on Walter Hurt:
Tomorrow Magazine
(Chicago, Illinois)
Jan-Dec 1907
Tomorrow Publishing Company, 1907
(search: “Walter Hurt”)
https://books.google.com/books?id=xbQRAAAAYAAJ
For more on the Socialist Party of America
-in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas:
The Socialist Party of America: A Complete History
-by Jack Ross
U of Nebraska Press, Apr 15, 2015
https://books.google.com/books?id=MnflBgAAQBAJ
Regionalists on the Left: Radical Voices from the American West
-by Michael C. Steiner
University of Oklahoma Press, Feb 2, 2015
https://books.google.com/books?id=IbV4BgAAQBAJ
The Texas Left: The Radical Roots of Lone Star Liberalism
-by David O’Donald Cullen & Kyle G. Wilkison
Texas A&M University Press, Feb 5, 2010
https://books.google.com/books?id=AZNEAqTauREC