———-
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday November 12, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for October 1910, Part I:
-Found in Cleveland, Stopping at Home of Editor Max Hayes
From the Cleveland Plain Dealer of October 6, 1910:
Mother Jones Chides Officials
at the National Capital.
—————Mother Mary Jones, the white haired woman so long identified with the labor cause the country over, is in Cleveland. She spoke to the members of the Trades and Labor council last evening, urging them to forget internal differences, to go into the fight united. She did not spare her words, but advised them to meet violence with violence.
Mother Jones is a little woman; she came gowned last evening in trim and sober black. With a grandmother’s sweetness and dignity she sat quietly on the platform until her turn came to speak.
She chided the officials in Washington, scored the trusts, roasted capital whole, called down the wrath of the gods on police and marshals who point revolvers at strikers.
———-
[Photograph added.]
From the Wilkes Barre Times Leader of October 11, 1910:
———-
This nation, which started out to be the greatest in the world, is nothing now but an oligarchy-controlled by a few,” says Mother Jones, the “stormy petrel of the labor unions,” and the beloved friend of the coal miners and their families. Continuing she told the representative of the Times-Leader:
You can count on your fingers the men who have this country in their absolute grasp. They can precipitate a panic; they can scare or starve us all into submission, but they will not for long, according to my notion.
For although they give us sops whenever they think we are asserting a little independence, we will not always be fooled. Some day we will have the courage to rise up and strike back at these great “giants” of industry, and then we will see that they weren’t giants after all-they only seemed so because we were on our knees and they towered above us.
They have driven us to it and when the time comes we will square ourselves with them. Some people think it would be wrong to have any bloodshed. Is it any worse to kill a few men quickly than it is for a few men to kill the rest of us slowly?
Mother Jones is on her way to see her beloved miners in the coal regions of Western Pennsylvania, to which she was called by the terrible sufferings of the striking miners in the Greensburg district, who with their families are living in tents and subsisting on bread and water.
She had Just left the Illinois fields, where the miners have returned to work after having gained a great victory after an all summer strike.
[She added:]
It was two weeks ago down in a little mining town in Illinois. I was standing beside the bed of a young woman who had been working in the company’s warehouse since she was old enough to escape the law for minors. Her baby had just been born. It was her first. It should have been a fine, beautiful child. Instead, its first movement was to loll its tongue out in terrible hunger and stretch its puny little body out as though it had been working to a point of exhaustion. I turned to the doctor and said, “That baby was worked out before it was born, and it was starved, too.”
“Yes, Mother,” he replied, “they are nearly all that way around here. The mothers work right up to the day before they are born.”
[Mother Jones flashed out between tears:]
And that is the reason I am doing all I can do to change the terrible conditions here in America. It is for the sake of the children-the yet unborn children.
—————
From the Charleston Labor Argus of October 13, 1910:
-note: versions of the above interview were found during the month of October in newspapers across the country. The Labor Argus carried a longer version of the interview, and stated that the interview took place in Cleveland.
MOTHER JONES’ PLEA FOR BABIES
——-The Famous Trade Union Advocate Tells
Harrowing Story and Appeals to Women
of the Country to Study and Think.
——-Cleveland, Ohio, Oct. 12.-Mother Jones, one of the hardest fighters in the battle to awaken the working class of America to a realization of their own interests, and how to best serve those interests, stopped at the home of Max Hayes, editor of the Cleveland Citizen, on her way to Pennsylvania, and in an interview in the Press [Cleveland Press?] she said:
The education of this country is a farce. Children must memorize a lot of stuff about war and murder, but are taught absolutely nothing of the economic conditions under which they must work and live.
Mother Jones also told the following story, which clearly illustrates the fate of numbers of children of the working class:
It was two weeks ago, down in a little mining town in Illinois. I was standing beside the bed of a young woman who had been working in the company’s warehouse since she was old enough to escape the law for minors. Her baby had just been born. It was her first. It should have been a fine healthy child. Instead, its first movement was to loll its tongue out in terrible hunger, and stretch its puny little body out as though it had been working to the point of exhaustion.
I turned to the doctor and said:
“That baby was worked out before it was born. And it was starved, too.”
“Yes, mother,” he replied, “they are nearly all that way around here. The mother works right up to the day they are born.”
[Mother Jones flashed out:]
And that is the reason I am doing all I can to change the terrible conditions here in America. It is for the sake of the children. I just look at the children that are being born today, and compare them with those of the last generation, before the country was in the hands of oppressive capitalists who grind out the very lives of every one they employ. Their little faces are depressed and they have no life, no elasticity.
How can they help it? How can they escape such a heritage when their father’s chief concern is that he may lose his job and will not be able to buy even the necessities of life?
This nation, which started out to be the greatest in the world, is nothing now but an oligarchy-controlled by a few. You can count on your fingers the men who have this country in their absolute grasp. They can precipitate a panic; they can scare or starve us all into submission, but they will not for long, according to my notion.
For, although they give us sops whenever they think we are asserting a little independence, we will not always be fooled. Some day we will have the courage to rise up and strike back at these great “giants” of industry, and then we will see that they weren’t “giants” after all-they only seemed so because we were on our knees and they towered above us.
They have driven us to it and when the time comes we will square ourselves with them. Some people think it would be wrong to have any bloodshed. Is it worse to kill a few then quickly than it is for a few men to kill the rest of us slowly?
[Mother Jones concluded:]
The mothers of this country have the greatest task of all. They should awake to it. They should teach their children the truth about economic conditions, for the mother molds the child. She holds in the hollow of her hand the next generation. Let her spend more time in studying and not so much in thinking up things to wear on her back.
———-
Note: emphasis added throughout.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SOURCES
Cleveland Plain Dealer
(Cleveland, Ohio)
-Oct 6, 1910, page 6
https://www.genealogybank.com/
Wilkes Barre Times Leader
(Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania)
-Oct 11, 1910
https://www.newspapers.com/image/395200240/
The Labor Argus
(Charleston, West Virginia)
-Oct 13, 1910
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85059855/1910-10-13/ed-1/seq-1/
IMAGES
Mother Jones, WDC Tx p5, June 18, 1910
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026749/1910-06-18/ed-1/seq-5/
Mother Jones Anger n Tears, Spokane Prs p9, Tacoma Tx p7, Oct 24, 1910
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88085947/1910-10-24/ed-1/seq-9/
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88085187/1910-10-24/ed-1/seq-7/
See also:
Hellraisers Journal – Friday October 14, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for September 1910, Part I:
-Found in Pennsylvania Denouncing Former U. M. W. President Mitchell
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday October 15, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for September 1910, Part II:
-Found in Ohio Speaking in Cincinnati and Columbus
Max S. Hayes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_S._Hayes
The Cleveland Citizen
https://www.loc.gov/item/sn94083303/
Cleveland Press
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Press
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Ragged Hungry Blues by “Aunt” Molly Jackson