~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hellraisers Journal – Monday December 14, 1908
-Mother Jones News Round-Up for November 1908
Found in Kansas: “Pioneer Socialist woman in the revolutionary movement…”
During the early days of November, we found Mother Jones* assisting the Kansas Comrades to wind up the 1908 election campaign on behalf of the Socialist Party. The Coffeyville Daily Journal described her speech in Coffeyville:
One of the most powerful Socialist lectures ever delivered in Coffeyville was given in the Coliseum Saturday night. “Mother Jones,” the pioneer Socialist woman in the revolutionary movement, was the orator. A large number of people were out to hear the speech on economics, despite the counter attractions.
“Mother” Jones has been trying to improve the industrial conditions of the working class for nearly four decades. She has particularly devoted her energies along the line of unionism. For nearly a score of years before the Socialists put out a ticket in this country she was going from coast to coast talking unionism to the wage workers. This she is still doing but her scope of work is now much larger than before she embraced international scientific Socialism. She is not only assisting in liberating those who work for wages but she is equally intent on emancipating the entire human race.
The Appeal to Reason credited her contribution:
Mother Jones lined up a great crowd of miners at Weir and Chicopee.
In Parsons:
“Mother” Jones, noted Socialist, spoke to a good sized audience at Edward’s opera house on Sunday afternoon [November 1st].
By November 20th, we found Mother back in Chicago where Clarence S. Darrow and Peter Sissman were part of the legal team engaged in a desperate fight to prevent the Russian Government from extraditing Christian Rudowitz, Russian revolutionist. Describing the court scene, the New York Sun stated:
Mother Jones and several other Socialists were also there.
—————
From The Coffeyville Daily Journal of November 2, 1908:
MOTHER JONES SPOKE
—–SOCIALIST LEADER AT COLISEUM
[…]
“Mother” Jones Has Been Active Many
Years in Working for Cause
of Socialism-Her Speech.
—–One of the most powerful Socialist lectures ever delivered in Coffeyville was given in the Coliseum Saturday night. “Mother Jones,” the pioneer Socialist woman in the revolutionary movement, was the orator. A large number of people were out to hear the speech on economics, despite the counter attractions.
“Mother” Jones has been trying to improve the industrial conditions of the working class for nearly four decades. She has particularly devoted her energies along the line of unionism. For nearly a score of years before the Socialists put out a ticket in this country she was going from coast to coast talking unionism to the wage workers. This she is still doing but her scope of work is now much larger than before she embraced international scientific Socialism. She is not only assisting in liberating those who work for wages but she is equally intent on emancipating the entire human race.
This snowy-headed woman began her electrifying lecture by telling the audience something about the process of organic evolution. Her method of arriving at conclusions showed that she was familiar with many of the natural sciences. When she compared the savage without implements and with no knowledge of navigation, with the modern Caucasian with his wondrous machine and ocean liner, she gave the listeners a vivid idea of a revolution in science and industry. But when she followed the savage step by step in his growth, to the high foreheaded man of today, every one present didn’t seem to fall in with her in believing that our race of today had such an origin.
[She declared:]
Our machine today, is not the outgrowth of this race of people. The savage way back yonder is responsible in a measure for our machinery. The machine is a development of the ages. All our machinery was made by man. All of it is operated by man. Inasmuch as man makes and runs the machinery of the world why does he not own it? It is my mission here tonight to tell you why the people do not own the machinery and how they can get possession of it.
In her extensive travels “Mother” Jones sees the most abject poverty. She contends that our system is the cause of so much suffering, so much child slavery and so much crime. After telling how brutally Governor Comer recently treated the miners in that state she said,
Governor Comer would no doubt be a good man if he lived under the proper influence. Today he is simply a man Friday who does what the big interests advise. Were he to disobey orders he would be turned down by the master class.
[She said:]
A few years ago I was in Colorado, At that time Mr. Peabody was occupying the governor’s chair. I was unpopular with the mine owners of the state. In order to keep on the right side of the interests, Governor Peabody ordered me taken from my bed at night which was done and I was driven from the state at the point of guns and was told not to return. He was doing what the oligarchy compelled him to. So we meet bad rulers in both Democratic and Republican states.
She pleaded with the workers to vote the Socialist ticket. In her opinion both old parties are without value so far as most of the people are concerned. While on this topic she emphatically declared that:
It makes no difference whether you vote for Taft or Bryan you will be up against breakers and the sooner you find this out the better.
At the conclusion of her address she said the war of the classes would last till only one class remained-the producing class.
———-
From the Parsons Daily Eclipse of November 2, 1908:
“Mother” Jones, noted Socialist, spoke to a good sized audience at Edward’s opera house on Sunday afternoon [November 1st]. The Socialists held two meetings yesterday, one at Edwards opera house in the afternoon, and another at the Elks theater in the evening.
From the Weir City Journal of November 6, 1908:
We intended giving quite a report of the Democratic rally here last Friday night, and also Mother Jones speech, Monday night [November 2nd] but the campaign is over, and now let’s forget it.
———-
From the Appeal to Reason of November 7, 1908:
How They Closed in the Third [District].
All the speakers closed their work with rousing meetings.
George Hibner closed at Parsons with a packed house. Ben Wilson followed suit at Coffeyville. Mother Jones lined up a great crowd of miners at Weir and Chicopee. Caroline A. Lowe spoke at McCune, and the house was packed and some outside. L. F. Fuller pulled off a stunt in Girard that will long be remembered as one of the greatest fun-making events of the campaign. He advertised a joint debate and managed, after he had spoke, to pull the funny little Jimmy Casson out of his hole, and he forgot his piece and had to have a coach to tell what Bryan’s policies were. Wm. Scott, of Kansas, took up the cause of the republicans and delivered the best republican speech ever made in Girard, as he told the real facts in the case. Some of the republicans feel that he rather exposed the real intentions of the republicans and don’t like such honesty. Fred D. Warren finished at Parsons Saturday night. A. O. Mattingly closed at Chicopee, and George D. Brewer closed in the mining camps by putting an Appeal in every house in the camps out from Girard. L. E. Katterfeld closed at Topeka. Dr. Bendure finished at Oswego. I was not notified further about the whereabouts of other speakers.
It has been a good campaign. The lack of organization has been a handicap all through, however, and I hope that the next campaign will find us ready in all districts to make things hum.
———-
Note: The “I” of the above article is most likely J. E. Snyder of Girard, Secretary, Socialist Party of Kansas.
———-
From Missouri’s Webb City Register of November 19, 1908:
Debs Votes Cost 12 Cents.
Gutherie, Okla., Nov. 19.-Eleven cents each for 12,000 votes was the average expenditure by the Socialist party in Oklahoma during the recent campaign. They received and expended within 10 cents of $1,400. Among the individual contributors was $2.50 from “Mother” Jones of Chicago, who also stumped Oklahoma during the campaign.
———-
From the New York Sun of November 21, 1908:
FIGHT TO KEEP REFUGEE HERE.
—–
The Case of Rudowitz, Which Is Like
Pouren’s, Opens in Chicago.CHICAGO, Nov, 20.-Preparations for a desperate legal fight to prevent the Russian Government from extraditing Christian Rudowitz on what his defenders say are a spurious charge and misstated testimony were disclosed this morning when the Rudowitz hearing was begun before United States Commissioner Foote.
I. A. Hourwich of New York, representing the Jan Janoff Pouren Aid Society of New York, arrived in Chicago to-day to assist in the defence of Rudowitz. With Mr. Hourwich there appeared in court Charles C. Hyde of Northwestern University, an authority on international law; Clarence S. Darrow and Peter Sissman, well known in West Side Jewish circles as a worker for the Russian revolution. Baron Ernest Schilling, Russian Consul to Chicago, and William C. Rigby, his attorney, were present representing the Russian government. Mother Jones and several other Socialists were also there.
Mr. Hourwich openly charged the Russian government with attempting to railroad Rudowitz to Russia for political revenge because of his participation in the Russian revolution, formulating fictitious evidence and putting before the American officials fraudulent and misstated translations of evidence as it was arranged in the Russian language.
“I must hear the evidence as it appears to be certified by the American Ambassador,” said Commissioner Foote. “So far as I know it is all right. However, I think the proper thing to do is to hear it first and hear the contradictions of it afterward.”
Mr. Rigby read the depositions containing the evidence against Rudowitz. When the description of Rudowitz was given the defendant, who was surrounded by half a dozen deputy marshals, smiled because the description said he was 44 years old, medium in height, with dark hair and mustache, when in reality be is somewhat under size and his hair and mustache are light.
He is accused of complicity with nine or ten others in the murder of Mrs. Welhemina Kinze and her parents at Tukkum, Russia, on January 16, 1908.
———-
*Emphasis added throughout: Mother Jones.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SOURCES
The Coffeyville Daily Journal
(Coffeyville, Kansas)
-Nov 2, 1908
https://www.newspapers.com/image/58460127/
Note: “…the modern Caucasian with his wondrous machine and ocean liner…”
The Coffeyville Daily Journal is not quoting Mother Jones here. Whenever Mother used the phrase, “the race,” she was speaking of the human race.
Parsons Daily Eclipse
(Parsons, Kansas)
-Nov 2, 1908
https://www.newspapers.com/image/426408506/
Weir City Journal
(Weir, Cherokee County, Kansas)
-Nov 6, 1908
https://www.newspapers.com/image/426671701/
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-Nov 7, 1908
https://www.newspapers.com/image/67587518/
Re Snyder as Kansas SP State Sec, see:
Hellraisers Journal-Monday November 9, 1908
-Mother Jones News Round-Up for October 1908
Found in Kansas: “working with her sleeves rolled up…”
Webb City Register
(Webb City, Missouri)
-Nov 19, 1908
https://www.newspapers.com/image/131238864/
The Sun
(New York, New York)
-Nov 21, 1908
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030272/1908-11-21/ed-1/seq-3/
IMAGE
Mother Jones, Dnv Pst p2, July 19, 1908
https://www.genealogybank.com/
See also:
Tag: Socialist Party of Kansas
https://weneverforget.org/tag/socialist-party-of-kansas/
Hellraisers Journal-Monday November 9, 1908
-Mother Jones News Round-Up for October 1908
Found in Kansas: “working with her sleeves rolled up…”
Petter Sissman, partner of Clarence Darrow
http://moses.law.umn.edu/darrow/letters.php?pid=114&skey=Darrow,%20Paul
Christian Rudowitz
https://digital.janeaddams.ramapo.edu/items/show/5730
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday October 27, 1908
Mother Jones Visits Girard; Reports on Child Labor in Alabama
“Mother Jones in Alabama” -Infants Betrayed in Their Infancy
Re Mother Jones v Governor Peabody of Colorado:
Mother Jones To Governor James H. Peabody
Denver, Colorado, March 26, 1904
Governor James H. Peabody:Mr. Governor, you notified your dogs of war to put me out of the state. They complied with your instructions. I hold in my hand a letter that was handed to me by one of them, which says “under no circumstances return to this state.” I wish to notify you, governor, that you don’t own the state. When it was admitted to the sisterhood of states, my fathers gave me a share of stock in it; and that is all they gave you. The civil courts are open. If I break a law of state or nation it is the duty of the civil courts to deal with me. That is why my forefathers established those courts to keep dictators and tyrants such as you from interfering with civilians. I am right here in the capital, after being out nine or ten hours, four or five blocks from your office. I want to ask you, governor, what in Hell are you going to do about it?
Mother Jones
See:
Mother Jones Speaks
-ed by Philip S Foner
NY, 1983
Page 557
https://books.google.com/books?id=5k6eQgAACAAJ
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I love this song, but the idea that Mother Jones wasn’t a union organizer is simply not true. During her life, Mother was a long-time paid organizer for the United Mine Workers of America. UMWA President John Mitchell once wrote her that he was sorry that he so often had to send her into the most dangerous areas of West Virginia. He never had to fear that she would not accept, no matter the danger. When Frank Keeney could not find any union officer brave enough to enter Cabin Creek with him, he turned to Mother Jones, and, sure enough, she was willing to go and face the machine guns with him in order to organize the miners there.