Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for October 1908, Found in Kansas and Missouri

Quote Mother Jones re Child Labor in AL, AtR p2, Oct 24, 1908
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday November 9, 1908
-Mother Jones News Round-Up for October 1908
Found in Kansas: “working with her sleeves rolled up…”

Other than a brief appearance in St. Louis, Missouri, at a campaign event for Eugene Debs, Mother Jones was found, during the month of October, mostly in the Girard area of Kansas campaigning for the Socialist candidates of the Third District. The Kansas Edition of the Appeal described her activities there as “working with her sleeves rolled up.”

From the Appeal to Reason of October 31, 1908:

[…..]

MOTHER JONES MEETINGS.

Mother Jones is in the third district. She is working with her sleeves rolled up and is going after the democrats and republicans in her usual way showing them both to be the tools of an exploiting class. At Galena the opera house was full and a good spirit prevailed; but the meeting at Scammon was great. Mother was in her element, having a hall crowded to the doors with miners, and you may be sure that she delivered the right kind of goods and the democrats that thought that the party for which he works, stands for labor, was disillusioned by the recital of the terrible conditions in democratic Alabama. Mother is to spend the time in the mining and industrial centers until after election and expects to see Ben Wilson come in under the wire a winner.

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[Photograph of Mother Jones added.]

Mother Jones – October 1908
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From the Appeal to Reason of October 10, 1908:

A Tribute to Mother Jones.

A dainty musicale composition for two mandolins or violins. Complete as solo. Very easy. Sent to any address for 10c. Comrades, here’s a chance to help the cause. Half of all receipts go to keep the grand old lady in the field until after election. No orders will be accepted after election day. You can reorder this piece, but we cannot supply other numbers by the same writer. Send all orders to Richard J. Preston, 55 West street, Fitchburg, Mass.

From the Appeal to Reason of October 17, 1908:

KANSAS SPECIAL EDITION

[…]

“MOTHER” JONES DROPS IN.

Mother Jones dropped in from Alabama on her way to St. Louis mining district. We secured her for the last week of the campaign in the third district. She will speak at Scammon, Coffeyville and in other places in the mining camps, and we would be pleased to know at once what places want a date. There are only nine days, so hurry.

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From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch of October 22, 1908:

Eugene V. Debs, Socialist candidate for President, will speak in East St. Louis at p. m. Others in his party will be: J. H. Brower, candidate for Governor of Illinois; Seymour Stedman, Stephen Reynolds and Charles Lapworth. “Mother” Jones, a woman expounder of Socialist principles, who is making a speaking tour of Illinois, will arrive at 4:30 p. m., and will speak in the Auditorium until Mr. Debs and his party arrive.

From The Coffeyville Daily Journal of October 23, 1908:

A THREE DAY RALLY
—–

“MOTHER JONES” TO SPEAK HERE
FOR THE SOCIALISTS
—–

HAVE RENTED THE COLISEUM
—–
Will Use It Saturday, Sunday and Monday-
Wilson and Hibner the Other Speakers-The Plans.
—–

To The Journal: The Socialists have engaged the Coliseum for the last three nights of the campaign. Speaking will be held there every night. No admission will be charged.

“Mother” Jones comes here to address the people Saturday night, October 31. She has long been known as a pioneer in the Socialist movement. Her fame is not confined to this country alone. The name of “Mother” Jones is revered by millions of people in other lands. She has lectured all over the United States and has often advocated her doctrines where her very life was imperished. Frequently she has been arrested and thrown into jail for no other offense than of advocating what she considers the rights of the poor. If the people here wish to hear the workman’s side of the story ably presented by a woman past seventy, they should be at the Coliseum on the date named.

George Hibner, candidate for governor on the Socialist ticket, appears at the Coliseum Sunday night, November 1.

Benj. F. Wilson, candidate for congress on the Socialist ticket from this district, will make the closing campaign speech here for the Socialists, Monday night, November 2, at the Coliseum.-A Socialist.

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From the Appeal to Reason of October 24, 1908:

KANSAS SPECIAL EDITION

[…..]

“WE’RE GOING TO WIN.”

This is the heading of a Crawford county bill just issued by the Socialists to advertise the whirl-wind finish we are going to make in the county the last week of the campaign. Two large automobiles have been engaged for this finish beginning Monday, October 26. They will leave Girard every evening with four speakers each and a driver, as well as thousands of pamphlets, platforms and leaflets. They will drop a speaker at four meeting places each, and remain for the last one to conclude his address, and return to Girard over the same road, picking up a speaker at each point where one has been dropped. This will mean eight meetings each night, for the last week and two days, with about fifteen on Sunday.

The speakers to participate in this work are: Mother Jones, M. V. Tubbs, Benj. F. Wilson, J. E. Snyder, T. C. Davis, J. A. Wayland, Fred D. Warren, George D. Brewer, O. A. Mattingly and Henry Laurens Call. The schedule already made up is as follows; Sunday, October 25, Radley, Dunkirk, Franklin; Tuesday, ’27, Yale, Fuller, Curranville, Midway, Camp 31 and Breezy Hill. Wednesday, Cherokee, Monmouth, McCune and school houses in the vicinity. Thursday, Nelson, Frontenac, Opolis, Pittsburg, Kramer and other immediate points. Friday, Ozark school house, Corning school house; Englevale, Hatch school house, Coalvale and Arcadia; Saturday, Chicopee, Ashley, Fleming and other places.

Sunday each speaker will address two meetings, all of which are not arranged, but Crowberg, Mulberry, Franklin, Dunkirk and Radley will be included in the list. Monday, November 2nd, not yet arranged. It is expected that this strenuous campaign will do much towards carrying Crawford county for Socialism, make Ben Wilson’s majority in the county sure, and elect Brewer and Mattingly to the state legislature. Our message will be Victory and Freedom! If this reaches you and you have the opportunity, hear our final word before election.-G. D. B.

———-

From the Appeal to Reason of October 24, 1908:
-(Full article previously re-published in Hellraisers Journal of October 27th.)

Mother Jones in Alabama

When Mother Jones returned from her recent trip to Alabama she stopped in Girard long enough to write the following story of her experience for the Appeal and its readers, and then hurried on to other fields to continue her work of agitating and organizing workers to battle for their emancipation.

IT HAD been thirteen years since I bid farewell to the workers in Alabama and went forth to other fields to fight their bitter battles. I returned again in 1908 to see what they were doing for the welfare of their children. Governor Comer, being the chief star of the State, I went out to Avondale, on the out skirts of Birmingham, to take a glance at his slave pen. I found there some where between five and six hundred slaves. The governor, who in his generous nature could provide money for Jesus, reduced the wages of his slaves first 10 per cent, and then 16.

As the wretches were already up against starvation, a few of them struck, and I accompanied an organizer and the editor of the Labor Advocate to help organize the slaves into a union of their craft. I addressed the body, and after I got through quite a large number became members of the Textile Workers’ Union. I returned again inside of an other week, held another meeting with them and another large number joined. I was also going to complete my work on Monday, the 12th, but I had to leave for southern Illinois. He has not yet discharged any of them nor has he threatened to call an extra session of the legislature to pass the vagrancy bill in case they struck against the last reduction. Of all the God-cursed conditions that surround any gathering of slaves, or slave pen, Comer’s mill district beats them all….

One woman told me that her mother had gone into that mill and worked, and took her four children with her. She says, I have been in the mill since I was four years old. I am now thirty-four. She looked to me as if she were sixty…..

I saw the little ones lying on the bed shaking with chills and I could hear them ask parents and masters, what they were here for; what crime they had committed that they were brought here and sold to the dividend auctioneer…..

Mr. Roosevelt makes no allusion to these undesirable citizens who murder these children for gold. I believe that the god of justice will yet rise and take it into his own hands and punish the devourers of children’s lives for profit.

This is the democratic south, my friends-this is a democratic administration. This is what Mr. Bryan and Mr. Gompers want to uphold. I stand for the overthrow of the entire system that murders childhood. I stand for the overthrow of a system that can give $6,000 jobs to labor leaders who have betrayed these infants in their infancy. I stand for the teachings of Christ put into practice, not the teachings of capitalism and graft and murder.

I stand for the day when this rotten structure will totter of its own vileness. I stand for the day when the baby child will live in God’s fair land, and enjoy its air, its food, its pleasures, when every mother will caress it warmly, when there will be no parasites, no slaves, when $2,000 won’t be paid for a hat to cover the skull of the desirable citizen’s daughter, when the child shall not be taxed for such diabolical infamy; when poodle dogs will not be caressed on the life-blood of innocent childhood; when these children of Comer’s hell-hole will live in God’s heaven without any master to rob them of their lives……

As a new Rudyard Kipling would say:

Comer, go reckon our dead
By the forges red
And the factories where your slaves spin.
You’ve eaten their lives,
Their babes and wives.
For which Roosevelt says you’re a desirable citizen.
It was your legal right, your legal share.
If blood be the price of your god-cursed gold,
God knows, these slaves have paid it dear.

—————

From the St. Louis Post Dispatch of October 24, 1908:
-(Full article previously re-published in Hellraisers Journal of Oct 28th.)

TAFT HOUNDED LABOR LEADER PETTIBONE
TO HIS DEATH, SAYS DEBS

Eugene V. Debs, Socialistic candidate for the presidency of the United States, speaking at the First Regiment Armory Friday night [October 23rd], tore into Taft and Bryan to the huge delight of an audience of 6000 people, presumably Socialists, or at least those with Socialistic tendencies, and when he finished his 50-minute speech he retired bathed in perspiration, trembling with exhaustion and tottering from weakness.

He went to the arms of his devoted wife, who hurried him between rows of young militiamen away from his shouting, applauding admirers to a room in the back of the hall, where he descended a ladder to a carriage that was awaiting him in an alley and was driven to his private car and to bed. He was thoroughly exhausted.

Debs arrived in St. Louis at 6:15 Thursday night [Oct 22nd], several minutes late, and his private car was switched out of the Union Station and to a sidetrack along Clark avenue east of Eighteenth street…..

Then he was summoned into the hall. As he appeared 6000 people rose and shouted themselves hoarse while he made his way slowly to the stage, helped along by militiamen who kept the crowd from bearing him under.

When he stepped to the front of the big stage, the crowd yelled for 10 minutes……

Mother Jones Also Spoke.

Outside the Armory Mother Jones and other Socialist orators entertained an overflow meeting estimated at 4000 persons, who were not able to get into the hall. Men standing on the balustrade of the stairway made fervent speeches and tried to satisfy those who had failed to hear Debs.

Debs remained in his car at Clark avenue until Saturday, when he left for Illinois. His departure took place at such an early hour that few were there to bid him farewell, and anyway he was safe in his stateroom and invisible to the world.

From The Galena Evening Times of October 26, 1908:

Mother Jones Address

The political address of “Mother Jones” at the Sapp opera house in Galena Sunday night was well attended considering the unfavorable condition of the weather. The woman has spent thirty-five years in the interest of organized labor and the announcement that she would talk on this subject brought forth a crowd of enthusiastic and curious listeners. The strictest attention was paid to her remarks and and there was frequent applause.

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From The Pittsburg Daily Headlight of October 27, 1908:

MRS. JONES SPOKE
—–

NOTED SOCIALIST SPEAKER AT SCAMMON RALLY.
—–
Told of the Conditions In the
Alabama Coal Strike-
Many Heard “Mother Jones.
—–

(Special to Headlight.)

Scammon, Kans., Oct. 27.-Mother Jones was one of the speakers at a Socialist rally here last night, besides George D. Brewer, of Girard.

This was the first stop Mother Jones has made since she left Alabama a few days ago, where she has been all summer in coal miners strike in that state.

She talked of the labor problem and talked a great deal about the child and women labor proposition in the south all of which was very interesting.

During her speech she repeated the history of the big strike in the anthracite mines of Pennsylvania and also told of the recent strike in Alabama, and the causes that led up to each.

She had a big crowd and it was composed of representatives from all parties.

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From The Pittsburg Daily Headlight of October 29, 1908:

Mother Jones, the Socialist speaker, delivered an address in Mineral last night.

From The Parsons Daily Sun of October 30, 1908:

“Girard, the Storm Center of Socialism”

“Mother Jones,” will speak in the Edwards opera house Sunday afternoon and is one of the prominent socialist speakers now in Kansas. She is making her headquarters at Girard, the storm center of socialism, and although seventy years of age she is a vigorous worker and speaker. She has recently returned from a campaign tour of the coal districts in Alabama and has been speaking in the coal districts of Kansas during this campaign.

“Blaze of Oratory”

SOCIALISTS GET BUSY.
—–
Arrangements Made for Series of
Socialist Meetings this Week.
—–

The socialist leaders are preparing to close the campaign in a blaze of oratory. They secured the Edwards opera house early in the campaign for the last night of the campaign. Fred D. Warren, candidate for congress in this district will speak in the Edwards opera house Saturday evening. Warren has a chip on his shoulder and wants a debate but he has not yet had his longings satisfied. Sunday evening Caroline A. Lowe, the socialist organizer of women in Kansas, will speak at the Lyric theater. Sunday afternoon “Mother Jones” will speak at the Edwards opera house. Monday night Geo. Francis Hibner, the socialist candidate for governor will be the speaker at the Edwards opera house and there will probably be some local candidates. Members of the socialist party from all over the county will come to this meeting.

From The Scammon Miner of October 30, 1908:

Mrs. E. J. Call, the pianist, with Mother Jones, carries with her the Royal Crescent of Germany as a pianist. This makes her a world renown character in her line.

—–

From The Pittsburg Daily Headlight of October 30, 1908:

Crowberg News

Mother Jones spoke at the school house Tuesday evening and address quite a large crowd of Socialism.

From The Coffeyville Daily Journal of October 31, 1908:

THREE SOCIALIST RALLIES.
—–
Mother Jones Will Speak at the
Coliseum This Evening.

The Socialists will close their campaign in Coffeyville with three big rallies at the Coliseum commencing tonight and ending Monday night. They have made all arrangements for big meetings and will undoubtedly see their speakers greeted with hundreds of people.

Tonight at 8 o’clock Mother Jones will speak. Mother Jones comes direct from Chicago where for thirty-five years she has worked with the Socialists and has helped their battles long before the movement gained its national influence. She is an eloquent speaker and every person in Coffeyville ought to hear her.

Tomorrow (Sunday) night George F. Hibner, Socialist candidate for governor, will speak. He will discuss state issues in general and say things that are well worth hearing.

On Monday night Benjamin F. Wilson, Socialist candidate for congress, will close the campaign in Coffeyville. Mr. Wilson has spoken here many times already and each time has a larger crowd. His address Monday night will be a final effort and every workingman who works should hear Mr. Wilson’s last word.

Ladies are especially invited to attend all these meetings.-adv.

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From the Appeal to Reason of October 31, 1908:

KANSAS SPECIAL EDITION

[…..]

WHERE THE SPEAKERS ARE TO BE.

…..Mother Jones will be at Curranville Friday night; Coffeyville, Saturday night; Parsons, Sunday afternoon; Weir, Monday night at 7 p. m.; Pittsburg, 9 p. m…..

MOTHER JONES MEETINGS.

Mother Jones is in the third district. She is working with her sleeves rolled up and is going after the democrats and republicans in her usual way showing them both to be the tools of an exploiting class. At Galena the opera house was full and a good spirit prevailed; but the meeting at Scammon was great. Mother was in her element, having a hall crowded to the doors with miners, and you may be sure that she delivered the right kind of goods and the democrats that thought that the party for which he works, stands for labor, was disillusioned by the recital of the terrible conditions in democratic Alabama. Mother is to spend the time in the mining and industrial centers until after election and expects to see Ben Wilson come in under the wire a winner.

———-