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Hellraisers Journal – Monday November 15, 1909
Mother Jones News Round-Up for October 1909, Part II:
-Reports Found of Mother’s Mysterious Disappearance in San Antonio, Texas
From The Buffalo Enquirer of October 18, 1909
-the following story was reported by newspapers from coast to coast:
SECRET SERVICE MEN ARE ACTIVE
—–SOCIALISTS AND ANARCHISTS APPREHENDED IN
ADVANCE OF PRESIDENT TAFT’S ARRIVAL
-MOTHER JONES GONE.
—–(By the American News.)
San Antonio, Oct. 18.-The failure of a half dozen or more Socialists in this city to show up at their homes and a search instituted by local newspaper men, revealed the fact that the Secret Service authorities had taken into custody quietly a number of Socialists and Anarchists just before the visit of President Taft to this city.
Mother Jones, the friend of the miners, who was in the city Sunday it has been learned to day, also mysteriously disappeared. Friends of Mother Jones assert that she too was taken into custody and her whereabouts kept secret until after the departure of President Taft.
Activity among Anarchists and Socialists in this vicinity is thought to have been the cause for the arrests.
———-
[Photograph added.]
From the Shenandoah (Pennsylvania) Evening Herald of October 21, 1909:
“Mother” Jones Heard From.
Charles Gildea, a national organizer of the United Mine Workers at Hazleton, has received a letter from “Mother” Jones, who took a prominent part in miners’ strikes here, that she intends to be at the meeting between President Taft, of the United States, and President Diaz, of Mexico, near El Paso, Texas. Whether she was among those present or not has not yet been learned, as the letter was posted before the time of the meeting.
Note: We have found no evidence that Mother was taken into custody by the secret service in San Antonio. However, we did find the following report regarding her friend, John Murray.
From San Antonio’s El Regidor of October 21, 1909:
John Murray se queja de plagio.
John Murray, representante en San Antonio de la Liga Poltíca de Refugiados, dice que pondrá su caso en las manos del Comité de defensa, para averiguar si es posible que en este país, como en Rusia ó España, se arroje á las sucias mazmorras de una prisión, á cualquier ciudadano sin motivo. Dice Murray que sus amigos lo buscaron en la Cárcel del Condado y les fué negada su estancia allí y que en los libros de registro se omitió su nombre. Que se le puso á ración de preso é incomunicado en un lugar infestado de chinches y ratas. Dice que esto es un plagio.
Por parte del Gobierno, el Diputado Mariscal Lancaster dice que el arresto obedeció á orden regular del Comisionado Scott, que lo acusa de violación de las leyes de neutralidad. El preso fué puesto en la cárcel Condado y como los demás reos federales, no se le concedió ver ni hablar con nadie, porque todo el mundo sabe, que esta clase de reos necesitan para comunicarse la autorización de la Autoridad de quien dependen y como él no supo que eso permiso se le hubiese concedido á Murray, obró conforme á su deber.
De Mr. Murray se dice que es gran amigo de Mother Jones y que el objeto de los públicos meetings que se efectuaron en días pasados era evitar la entrevista de los Presidentes Diez y Taft.
From El Regidor of October 14, 1909:
From El Regidor of October 21, 1909:
From the Scott County Kicker of October 23, 1909:
LOOK OUT, SOCIALISTS.
Anybody that smells like a Socialist had better stay away from the Taft shows. Just the same as in Russia, If a secret service man nabs you and locks you up there you are. While Taft was swapping spit with Diaz the jails of El Paso, Texas were filled with “undesirable citizens.” Of Taft’s visit to San Antonio, Texas, a press dispatch says-
Half a dozen prominent Socialists members of the Political Refugee defense League, have been locked up by Government secret service men here. Their friends have been notified that they must stay in jail until Taft has left San Antonio.
The first information families and friends of these men had that they were locked up came when they failed to reach their homes. An investigation followed, and they were found lodged in cells.
Mother Jones the famous agitator and friend of the Western miners, who has been here, has disappeared and her friends assert that she, too, has been either locked up at the request of the secret service men or asked to leave town.
But this ain’t Russia. Oh. no!
This is a “free country.” Wonder what the Taft outfit does with the constitution when they go skylarking around and throwing people in jail just because it is the fashion?
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From the Appeal to Reason of October 23, 1909:
THE WORK IN BRIEF.
[…..]
Send in your orders for speakers, no matter where you are. With Mother Jones, Thos. A. Hickey and such bright and able speakers as Andrews, Noble, King, Snow, Thurman, Simpson, Kirkpatrick and Davenport available, the campaign of 1910 promises to be a warm one.
[…..]
Mother Jones is in the pink of health, spirits and vitality and looks better than her years. Her ability and keen perception are stronger than ever and she has much news of importance in state and national affairs to impart to the comrades. Locals and comrades desiring engagements with her will please inform state headquarters without delay, so that she will not be routed past their neighborhood before their orders for her services are received. We cannot get Mother to set any particular price on her services, as she refuses to make a commercial affair of her work, but comrades do and will see that she is properly supported by contributions when she is among them. Every one knows the fidelity of Mother to the working class and should not fail to avail themselves of her services while there is opportunity.
—–
SPEAKERS DATES.
[…..]
Mother Jones-Whitehouse, October 23,; Athens, 25th-27th; Corsicana, 28th-30th; Kaufman, November 1st.
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From Hellraisers Journal of October 24, 1909:
Mother Jones Praises Article by Turner
on Brutality of Mexican GovernmentFrom the Appeal to Reason of October 23, 1909:
Mexico and Murder
———-BY MOTHER JONES
I RISE to ask the American people, have you read John K. Turner’s article in the American Magazine for October on the frightful brutality of the Mexican government towards its people? If not, read it at once. Then ask your Christian minister why they are silent in the face of this frightful tragedy at our very doors.
Why are they silent? Because they worship at the shrine of Mammon.
If the Revolutionary fathers could come back to earth, the first question they would ask would be what has become of the national pride? Did it die with the immortal Lincoln? Look at the frightful pictures in the American Magazine. Imagine these lashes falling on your flesh. See and feel the blood dripping from your body. Go down to Belem prison see the shocking pictures there. Then, men and women, ask yourselves, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Look at their lacerated bodies, their hopeless lives.
They ask you, does God sleep? No, he does not. He will wipe out injustice with suffering, wrong with blood, and sin with death. The disgraceful phase of it all is that we stand and see the public officials whom we pay, become bloodhounds and man-grabbers in the service of bloody Diaz.
It looks as if this government of the people and for the people and by the people, so-called, had become general scavenger for the most ferocious murderer on the face of God’s earth. We have in our jails and prisons some of the bravest revolutionists, perhaps the world has known. Leavenworth, Kan., holds three of these brave political refugees. Yuma, Arizona, holds three more. That brave soul who swam the river across the Del Rio last year was arrested, tried in the federal court and turned loose; re-arrested under the emigration laws and turned loose by the bureau in Washington; re-arrested for the benefit of the hungry jackal who is thirsting for human blood and placed in jail in Texas to await trial.
Why all this? Listen: The American capitalists have started a steel trust in Mexico capitalized at fifty million dollars, and a smelter trust at sixty million. Cheap labor of course.
Attorney General Wickersham is a large stockholder in the Mexican Central railroad, where Harriman, before he passed to the great beyond, held most of the preferred stock. Hearst owns three million acres of mineral lands adjoining the Standard Oil company. The capitalist pirates have robbed the people of this nation, now they are going into Mexico to carry out the advice of Carnegie, and “hire labor cheap and make millions.”
Rob the Mexicans now and next China.
This young legal leper, Oscar Lawler, has men imprisoned for daring to protest against such tyranny and robbery. He held three revolutionists in jail in Los Angeles without trial for twenty months, contrary to law.
Will it be recorded in the days to come that we, the people of a Christian nation, stood for our president, the chief executive, taking the hand of the most brutal specimen of the human race that this age has produced?
How the immortal Lincoln would blush with shame, and frown with contempt at the mention of such men as Lawler and Wickersham! Contrast these legal satraps with John K. Turner, who took his life in his hands to make the world better for mankind to live in. All honor to John K. Turner! The world will call you blessed.
President Taft was placed in power by the Wall street robbers and he can not do as his natural instincts would urge him to do. When a man is nominated by the money power of Wall street his independence is gone, his manhood is sacrificed and his love of liberty, if he ever had any, must be offered up on the altar of selfish ambition.
I know what Lincoln would say to that crew on Wall street: “The nation first and you last!”
The people who make up this nation will some day wake from their slumber with horror. I hope it will not be too late.
Note: Emphasis added throughout.
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SOURCES & IMAGES
Quote Mother Jones Save Our Mexican Comrades, AtR p3, Feb 20, 1909
https://www.newspapers.com/image/66981674
The Buffalo Enquirer
(Buffalo, New York)
-Oct 18, 1909
https://www.newspapers.com/image/326432578/
Evening Herald
(Shenandoah, Pennsylvania)
Oct 21, 1909
https://www.newspapers.com/image/448087612/
El Regidor
(San Antonio, Texas)
-Oct 14, 1909
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84045523/1909-10-14/ed-1/seq-1/
-Oct 21, 1909
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84045523/1909-10-21/ed-1/seq-1/
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84045523/1909-10-21/ed-1/seq-8/
Scott County Kicker
(Benton, Missouri)
-Oct 23, 1909
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn89066234/1909-10-23/ed-1/seq-1/
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-Oct 23, 1909
https://www.newspapers.com/image/66982214
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday October 24, 1909
Appeal to Reason of October 23rd: “Mexico and Murder” by Mother Jones, Praises Article by John Kenneth Turner
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:
Note: Had Mother actually been jailed in San Antonio, it would have been front-page news in the Socialist and Labor press across the nation. I have yet to find any such reporting. However, see story below from AtR re jailing of John Murray, written by John Murray.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday November 14, 1909
Mother Jones News Round-Up for October 1909, Part I:
-Found in Girard, Kansas and Texarkana, Texas
Tag: Mexican Revolutionaries
https://weneverforget.org/tag/mexican-revolutionaries/
Hellraisers Journal – Monday July 12, 1909
Mother Jones News Round-Up for June 1909, Part I:
-Meets with President Taft on Behalf of Mexican Refugees
Presidents Taft and Diaz Meet on Oct 16th
-described by El Paso Morning Times of Oct 17th.
For more on John Murray:
Tag: John Murray
https://weneverforget.org/tag/john-murray/
El Regidor of Oct 21, 1909-Rough translation per Google:
John Murray complains of plagiarism.
John Murray, representative in San Antonio of the Political Refugee League, says he will put his case in the hands of the Defense Committee, to find out if it is possible that in this country, as in Russia or Spain, he will throw himself into the dirty dungeons of a prison, to any citizen for no reason. Murray says that his friends searched for him in the Jail of the County and his stay was denied there and that his name was omitted in the log books. That he was placed in prison and incommunicado in a place infested with bed bugs and rats. He says this is plagiarism.
On behalf of the Government, Deputy Marshal Lancaster says that the arrest was due to the regular order of Commissioner Scott, who accused him of violating the neutrality laws. The prisoner was put in the county jail and like the other federal inmates, he was not allowed to see or talk to anyone, because everyone knows that this kind of inmate needs to communicate the authorization of the Authority on whom they depend and how himself he did not know that this permission had been granted to Murray, he acted according to his duty.
Mr. Murray is said to be a great friend of Mother Jones and that the purpose of the public meetings that were held in days past was to avoid the interview of Presidents Diaz and Taft.
From AtR of Nov 6, 1919: “John Murray in Jail”
-by John Murray
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Internationale in Spanish