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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday December 22, 1909
Mother Jones News Round-Up for November 1909, Part II:
-Found Speaking in New York City on Behalf of Carlo de Fornaro
From the New York Sun of November 29, 1909:
DEMAND DE FORNARO’S PARDON
—–
Protest Against the Cartoonist’s Imprisonment
Voiced at the Berkeley Theatre.
A meeting to protest against the imprisonment of Carlo de Fornaro, a cartoonist, for libeling a Mexican editor was held at the Berkeley Theatre last night. This resolution was adopted:
We the citizens of New York city in mass meeting assembled, herewith resolve that we regard the conviction of Carlo de Fornaro of libel and his sentence of one year’s imprisonment at hard labor as an unprecedented and unconstitutional attack upon free speech and the freedom of the press. We demand that our Legislature repeal that part of the libel laws which gave an excuse for the action of the court and we call upon the governor of New York for the immediate and unconditional pardon of Carlo de Fornaro.
First of all reporters were introduced to Heriberto Barrow, who says he’s the Democratic candidate for President of Mexico, running against President Dias. He was a member of the House of Representatives, he said, and about a year ago introduced to Mexico to the New Idea party of young men, or Democratic party. In September he fled, fearing persecution. He says posters announcing his candidacy in big red letters are being torn down by the police in Mexico and any one that dares to indorse him openly is being thrown into prison by Diaz.
[Then followed, as speakers, Gaylord Wilshire, chairman of the meeting, and George Edwin Joseph, attorney for De Fornaro.]
Mother Jones, the Socialist propagandist, then took the centre of the stage and scanning the audience shouted that she had no fear of any Pinkerton dogs who were present and worked for Diaz. She was as ready to die to-night as any time in her fight for liberty.
[She said:]
There you all sit, men and women, clapping for liberty with blistered hands and you don’t use your brains to vote.
And then you women go about like a lot of meow cats with that Mrs. Belmont. Women, don’t you bother about the ballot. You’ll get it when you make your men vote for liberty.
Just then a fireman entered. Mother Jones shouted,
There’s a policeman coming now, but I’m not going to stop for him.
A collection was taken and Joshua Wanhope, former Socialist candidate for Governor, spoke.
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[Photograph added.]
From the New York Tribune of November 29, 1909:
ALL FOR FORNARO
—–
“Mother” Jone and Wilshire Talk:
Emma Goldman Listens.A protest meeting at the Berkeley Theatre last night resolved itself first into a socialistic outbreak and then into a comedy, with “Mother” Jones, the coal miners’ friend, as the star performer. Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman were visitors during the evening, but, contrary to custom, played a silent part, allowing Gaylord Wilshire, Joshua Wanhope and “Mother” Jones to have the stage. The main object of the meeting was to protest against sending Carlo de Fornaro to Blackwell’s Island for a year for libelling Don Raphael Reyes Espindola, a Mexican editor, but that was lost sight of for the moat part.
Mr. Wilshire contended that free speech was a dead issue in this country, that we were all tied up politically, that the conviction of de Fornaro was a gigantic plot on the part of capitalists, that Jerome was a pretty light member, that the courts were not much good, and a few other things. Then he gave way to “Mother” Jones.
“Mother” Jones travelled all about from Ireland to China and back again, and talked on everything from a fight between two rival Salvation Army bands to the recent mine disaster in Illinois. She said there mas no Christianity but a lot of “Churchanity,” but failed to explain what that had to do with de Fornaro.
District attorneys and judges were “scavengers,” according to “Mother” Jones, and she was not afraid of “a Pinkerton dog” who was one of the “creatures” of President Diaz. She warned the women against the suffragette movement, and read a clipping about the Standard Oil Company owning some land in Mexico.
She travelled in China for awhile, and then came back with a threat to clean out the clergy if they did not do something, just whit she did not say. She ended with the statement that some one was a “bloody pirate,” and that she would “like to get a lick at him.”
Mr. Josephs, of counsel for de Fornaro, told of the trial, and then Mr. Wanhope said that there would be an industrial revolution in this country. Some one passed the hat, and resolutions were passed asking the Governor to intercede for de Fornaro.
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From Hellraisers Journal of November 30, 1909:
New York, New York – Mother Jones Speaks for Convicted Mexican Revolutionary
From The New York Times of November 29, 1909:
‘MOTHER’ JONES HITS OUT AT THE COURTS
—–
They’d Pronounce the Ten Commandments
Unconstitutional, She Says.
—–THIS AT A FORNARO MEETING
—–
Woman Agitator and Gaylord Wilshire Ask
Berkeley Theatre Audience to Help Free
Artist Convicted of Libel.
—–Mother Jones, who goes about fighting the battles of the downtrodden, turned up again in New York last night as a speaker. She joined with Gaylord Wilshire, Joshua Wanhope and others at a meeting held in the Berkeley Theatre to protest against the conviction of Carlo de Fornaro, the caricaturist, who has been sentenced to one year’s hard labor on Blackwell’s Island on the charge of libeling Rafael Reyes Espindola, an editor and politician of Mexico, in his book on Mexico published last year.
Resolutions were adopted protesting against the conviction, calling for the repeal of the law under which the conviction was obtained, and asking that Gov. Hughes immediately pardon Mr. de Fornaro. Moreover, a collection was taken up to help fight the case in the courts, if that is found necessary.
Mother Jones, though she said last night that she was 74 years old, is still marvelously vigorous, at least in speech. She said she had been spending a lot of her time of late down in the Southwest, where she had learned some horrible things about Mexican rule. She is going back there immediately, she declared. Assuming that the Berkeley Theatre was almost filled with spies of the Mexican and United States Governments, she hurled defiance at them, and spoke a good deal more cruelly about Mexico and big Mexicans than Fornaro did in his book.
[She said:]
In 1861 they used to say, “all is quiet along the Potomac.” Now the black press is saying that all is quiet along the Rio Grande. But in 1861, while all that talk was going on, there was the glint of bayonets on both sides of the Potomac and to-day United States officers are arresting all along the Rio Grande hundreds of Mexicans for no other crime than that they have denounced the tyrannical Government in their own country.
In Kansas to-day three young men are lying in prison for doing just exactly what Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry did for their country. Our judges and officers are doing scavenger work for the Mexican pirate. Let the Mexican bloodhounds here to-night take that to Taft if they want to.
The aged woman shook her white head here and stamped her softly shod foot. She said that one day not long ago a young Mexican revolutionist [Sarabia] she knew about in the Southwest was kidnapped from the jail in which he had been thrown after arrest on some trumped-up charge. He was hurried across the Mexican line in an automobile, she declared. She and some others went to work to save him, and after telegraphing to Washington and the State Government the young man was sent back by Mexico, tried, and released.
[Said Mother Jones:]
We just happened to know about his case. How many are there that we don’t know about?
Mother Jones lambasted the woman suffragettes. She had watched them in Colorado, she said, and they had done nothing worth while. They worked for the capitalists, she declared.
[She cried out:]
What do you want to do here? You wan to go meowing around with Mrs. Belmont like a lot of tabby cats. If you were any good you’d have made the men do something here at the ballot by this time. Oh, I knew. You come here and clap your hands until you get blisters on them, but you won’t use your brains at the polls.
She then turned her fire on Justice Malone, who charged the jury in the Fornaro case. She had no doubt that he appeared at church the next day, she said.
But if you took the Ten Commandments before one of these Judges in court, she went on, he’d say, “The Commandments be hanged; they ar not constitutional.”
Gaylord Wilshire, who presided over the meeting and who made a long speech, was utterly pessimistic about the world as it is now governed, and particularly about this country, and more particularly about such meetings as last night’s. He did not think they did the least good. People came, listened, clapped their hands now and then at some striking statement, went home, and remarked, “It’s a shame.” Then they forgot all about it. He was certain that the United States is the most perfect despotism the world ever looked upon.
Mr. Wilshire intimated that the conviction of Mr. Fornaro was due to President Taft’s solicitude for the business welfare of his two brothers-H. W. Taft and Charles Taft, the former a lawyer in New York and the latter a ranch owner in Texas and Mexico. He declared that Charles Taft owned heavy interests in Mexico, that he needed the good-will of the Mexican government, and that H. W. Taft had been employed in the case here against Fornaro.
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Letter to Mother Jones from Comrades Magón, Villarreal and Rivera:
Territorial Prison,
Florence Arizona, Nov 31, 1909.
[Most likely Nov 30th.]Beloved Mother Jones:
You will find enclosed a long statement in regard to the Mexican cases. Read it carefully, and kindly do everything in your power to fulfill those of our recommendations you consider practicable and well founded.
Despite all restrictions calculated to keep us from reading Socialist papers, we have succeeded in obtaining information about your splendid work. You are setting a noble example and teaching a lesson humanity should not forget. You, and old woman, are fighting with indomitable courage; you, an American, are devoting your life to free Mexican slaves.
And they will be freed in the near future, and they will learn to call you Mother.
You are conforming the beautiful thought of Lamartine; “There always is a woman at the foundation of every great movement.” You are the woman at the foundation of this tremendous struggle for the emancipation of our country and you will live forever in the hearts of all liberty loving Mexicans.
With best wishes, we are,
Yours for the Revolution,
R. F. Magón,
Antonio I. Villarreal,
Liberado Rivera.
Note: Emphasis added throughout.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SOURCES
The Sun
(New York, New York)
-Nov 29, 1909
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030272/1909-11-29/ed-1/seq-2/
New York Tribune
(New York, New York)
-Nov 29, 1909
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1909-11-29/ed-1/seq-4/
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday November 30, 1909
Mother Jones Speaks in New York City on Behalf of Carlo de Fornaro, Artist Convicted of Libel
The Correspondence of Mother Jones
-ed by Edward M. Steel
U of Pittsburgh Press, 1985
(See page 72.)
https://books.google.com/books?id=EZ2xAAAAIAAJ
IMAGE
Mother Jones, Elkhart IN Dly Rv p2, July 19, 1909
The Elkhart Daily Review
(Elkhart, Indiana)
-July 19, 1909, page 2
https://www.genealogybank.com/
See also:
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday December 21, 1909
Mother Jones News Round-Up for November 1909, Part I:-Found Speaking for the Socialist Party in the Lone Star State
Tag: Mexican Revolutionaries
https://weneverforget.org/tag/mexican-revolutionaries/
For more on the imprisonment of Magón, Villarreal and Rivera:
The International, Volumes 3-4
Moods Publishing Company, 1910
https://books.google.com/books?id=E4xAAQAAMAAJ
International of May 1911
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=E4xAAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA81
“The Mexican Revolution” by W. J. Ghent
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=E4xAAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA90
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Internationale Spanish