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Hellraisers Journal – Friday October 15, 1909
Mother Jones News Round-Up for September 1909:
-Found Speaking at Labor Day Celebration in Lead, South Dakota
From The Deadwood Daily Pioneer-Times of September 1, 1909:
From the Appeal to Reason of September 4, 1909:
Mother Jones Doing Good Work.
Mother Jones is speaking in Texas and New Mexico in behalf of the accused [Mexican] revolutionists and is attracting great crowds of workers. Even the papers are compelled by the force of public opinion to speak well of her work. The Houston Chronicle recently devoted a column to her full of praise. It quotes her as saying:
I hope the time will come when the lead which is now used for making bullets will be used for making type to educate the masses.
Everywhere she goes she is greeted with large and enthusiastic audiences.
—–
Note: We last found Mother in Texas, speaking in San Antonio, on August 21st.
From The Deadwood Daily Pioneer-Times of September 5, 1909:
“Mother” Jones was an arrival on the Burlington yesterday and will be the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Freeman Knowles of this city during her stay in the Hills. She will speak at the Labor Day celebration in Lead on Monday and will probably make some other addresses before leaving this part of the country.
From the Lead Daily Call of September 7, 1909
-Mother Jones Speaks at Lead’s Labor Day Celebration:
LARGE TURNOUT IN LABOR DAY PARADE
LEADING BLACK HILLS UNIONS REPRESENTED
-WEATHER WAS IDEAL.
—–
GOOD BASEBALL GAMES AND SOME FIELD
SPORTS DRAW BIG CROWD.
—–Organized labor n the Black Hills was well represented in the parade and picnic held here yesterday. There was a good turnout of nearly all the labor organizations and it was one of the largest labor parades seen here. There were probably not less than 2,000 in the parade and it took 10 or 15 minutes for the parade to pass a given point. The parade started at 10 o’clock from the business section and marched direct to the City park.
The city police, mounted on horseback, with Chief Marshal Peter Jorey and his aides, headed the procession, followed by the float of the Union laundry and the Lead Shirtwaist and Laundry Workers’ union. The float was entitled “The Beginning,” and showed three young girls learning to wash and iron. The girls of the Lead union looked their prettiest in their white dresses and patent leather shoes. The Lead Miners’ union [Western Federation of Miners] brought up the rear followed by the city council in carriages and the speaker of the day, Mother Jones, of Philadelphia.
The order of march was observed very nearly as first scheduled, nearly all the unions turning out with large representations, and was as follows:
Mounted Police.
Lead Shirtwaist and Laundry Workers’ Union.
Central City Ladies’ Auxiliary.
Lead Barbers’ Union. Union Cigarmakers.
Brewery Workers’ Union.
Machinists’ Union.
Deadwood Band.
Lead Bartenders’ Union.
Deadwood Bartenders’ Union.
Electrical Workers’ Union.
Teamsters’ Union.
Carpenters’ Union.
Musicians’ Union.
Lead Clerks’ Union.
Deadwood Clerks’ Union.
Union Brick and Stone Masons.
Deadwood Typographical Union.
Lead Typographical Union.
Cristoforo Colombo Band.
Custer Miners’ Union.
Rochford Miners’ Union.
Maitland Mine and Millmen’s Union.
Galena Miners’ Union.
Deadwood Mine and Millmen’s Union.
Central City Miners’ Union. Terry
A. O. U. W. Band.
Terry Peak Miners’ Union.
Lead Miners’ Union.
Mayor, City Council and Speaker in Carriage.Shortly after the arrival of the parade at the park. Freeman Knowles introduced the speaker, Mother Jones, of Philadelphia. She is past 75 years of age, but is remarkably well preserved. She has a clear voice well adapted to outdoor speaking and talks with considerable earnestness. She spoke for nearly two hours and held the attention of the audience well. She told of some of her experiences as a labor agitator and during the last part of her speech drifted very strongly into socialism.
Her language at times was punctuated with profanity and blasphemy. She said millions had been spent in creating a standing army to crush down humanity and not a “damn” dollar to save humanity. Such mild profanity was applauded with some enthusiasm, but as her language became stronger the applause was correspondingly louder and longer.
She railed against the government, the press and pulpit and the courts particularly the United States courts. When she was becoming quite warmed up, an amateur photographer was getting ready to take a snap shot picture. With all the vehemence With which she had been attacking capitalism, she turned upon the frightened young photographer with
Put that kodak away. Put it away. I say. I will stand and pose for you when I get through, but don’t you dare take a picture now.
Referring to Mrs. Jay Gould. Mother Jones said:
She spends $40,000 a year to cover her rotten carcass.
And then, she said:
The poor working woman will say, “O how I wish I could see Mrs. Gould.”
Mother Jones said she hoped the next generation would have some brains as this generation didn’t have any.
Here is a choice section of Mother Jones’ speech:
We will go to Wall street and say to the infernal crowd: “Get to hell out of here.” No doubt I shock the ears of some pious people. But I am not on my knees praying to God. I am fighting God and if he don’t like my way I tell him “Mind your own business.” I am tending to mine.
To these remarks the audience gave uproarious applause, not necessarily because the people concurred in the sentiments of the speaker, but due to the fact that it was something entirely new to hear a woman make use of low down street profanity in a public address.
Following the speaking, basket dinners were served and those who did not take their lunch patronized the lunch room, which did a rushing business. The weather was ideal, not being cold for this season of the year, and added much to the success of the day. Shortly after 1:30 the crowd began to pour into the baseball park where a good exhibition of the national game was seen….
From the Lead Daily Call of September 7, 1909
-Editorial Condemning Speech of Mother Jones:
LABOR ORGANIZATIONS MISREPRESENTED
It is unfortunate that the union men as a whole do not get out and control their own organizations rather than allow the socialist minority to take charge and misrepresent union workingmen. Each year the handful of socialists make Labor day arrangements and run in a socialist speaker who attempts to turn the Labor day celebration into a socialist mass meeting. Such a speech as was made at the park yesterday by the woman known as “Mother Jones” is a disgrace to the labor organizations. The mass of braggadocio, profanity and blasphemy in itself would only have aroused feelings of mingled pity and disgust for the silly old woman who gave vent to it, but inasmuch as it was delivered at a Labor day picnic under the auspices of the union organizations, it becomes a reflection on the union workers of this section that ought to prove so intolerable to them as to prevent a repetition of socialist control another year.
It was not unexpected that the speaker should pay tribute to Freeman Knowles and his well known views as to the marriage relation. The unfortunate phase of the matter is that she should be in the position of representing union labor when there is probably not a decent union workingman in the country who would not rather see his children dead than see them grow to manhood and womanhood as believers in such teachings.
But the workingmen are waking up. On all sides expressions of disgust are to be heard for the grafting tactics of the socialist leaders and for the abominable sentiments expressed by those of the guild who have lately flooded this section with their writings and speeches. It is a safe bet that the next Labor day speaker will be a unionist, not a socialist.
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From The Deadwood Daily Pioneer-Times of September 7, 1909
-Mother Jones Speaks at Lead’s Labor Day Celebration:
On the arrival at the city park of the procession [the Labor Day parade] and the hundreds of citizens of Lead, Deadwood, Central, Terraville, Maitland, Terry and all other sections of the Black Hills, who followed in its wake, the program for the day was inaugurated, when Freeman Knowles of Deadwood introduced as the speaker, Mother Jones of Philadelphia. Mr. Knowles’ introduction was confined to a few words eulogistic of Mother Jones and referring briefly to what she has done for organized labor.
The lady herself, who is past seventy five years of age and has passed through many hardships, is remarkably well preserved and as active as a woman of half her age. She is an interesting and forcible talker and for upwards of two hours, held her audience in close attention. She has a voice of great volume and one admirably adopted for outdoor speaking. Her speech was not confined to the recitation of dry facts and still dryer figures but was interspersed with frequent flashes of wit of the kind easily grasped and readily responded to. She devoted much of her time to bewailing the opportunities which the laboring man has missed, often through the lack of organization but more often still through not properly and intelligently exerting the power which they held in their hands. Her narrative of her experiences in the Jails in which she has been incarcerated for her agitation in connection with labor movements, was interesting and at times, not unmixed with humor. Her audiences paid the closest attention to her talk and remained with her to the end of the two hours.
From the Appeal to Reason of September 11, 1909:
To Prevent the Meeting.
In a speech at San Antonio [in August] Mother Jones declared that the proposed meeting between Taft and Diaz will never take place. A Mexican, who understands the situation, says Diaz is too cowardly to venture from his capital, and that at the last moment he will plead other duties and send someone else to represent him at the meeting. He says Diaz is afraid to show himself publicly among the people he has so grievously wronged.
———-
From the Lead Daily Call of September 13, 1909:
Mother Jones spoke at the Miners’ Union opera house last night. The opera house was about half filled. Her speech was similar to the one made on Labor day with the coarse language partly cut out. It was an argument for socialism in which she placed the blame for drunkenness on economic conditions, saying poverty made drunkards. A part of her address was devoted to answering Mrs. Julia Marohn’s published communication. She took several flings at Mrs. Marohn [of W. C. T. U.]
From Proletarec of September 14, 1909:
From the Montana News of September 16, 1909:
The people of the Mexican border states, knowing the atrocities of the Mexican government, are greatly agitated over the proposed love feast of Taft and Diaz at El Paso, and the cause of the Mexican refugees is being strengthened daily. Mother Jones has recently been holding immense tent meetings in the city of San Antonio. John Murray of Chicago, Secretary of the political Refugee Defense League, is on the scene. Resolutions of sympathy with the Mexican Revolutionists are being passed by many labor organizations.
———-
From The Deadwood Daily Pioneer-Times of September 17, 1909:
Mother Jones who has been visiting and lecturing in this vicinity for two weeks past left on the Burlington yesterday for her home in Philadelphia.
From the Miner’s Magazine of September 23, 1909:
Editor John M. O’Neill responds to the editor of the Lead Daily Call:
He Knows His Owner.
“MOTHER” Jones has been speaking in the Black Hills, South Dakota, and this lady who has spent the best years of her life in using all her ability to arouse toiling humanity to a realization of the brutal system under which we live, has wounded the dignity of a pigmy editor who is permitted by his master to conduct a measly rag, known as the “[Lead Daily] Call.”
“Mother” Jones in her speeches in the Black Hills, wore no gloves but rapped capitalism with bare knuckles, and for this unpardonable sin against society, all the vindictive venom of a prostituted brain, is hurled at her through the columns of a subsidized sheet, that is edited by a spineless vassal whose last vestige of manhood has been confiscated to earn the plaudits of a privileged few, whose wealth is built on the degradation and destitution of the producing class. Had “Mother” Jones invaded the Black Hills as the defender and champion of vested interests,the lickspittle that fawns in ear-ringing sycophancy to jingling coin, would have crawled on his abdomen to do her homage. Did she belong to the “Smart set,” she would have been the guest of the aggregation that hatched the foul and infamous conspiracy that sent Freeman Knowles to jail.
Did she blaze with diamonds and wear a directoire gown, the “mollycoddle” and puerile, mental “weakling” that slobbers with vituperation to please his owner, would have crowned her as a queen among women and impoverished his limited command of the English language to cover her with encomiums of praise. But “Mother” Jones being a WOMAN and not a “lady” in the “smart set,” the mental nonentity on the Call, could not comprehend the vastness of her subject nor could he give her credit for her fidelity to a class, whose wails of anguish are heard in every nation on earth.
It lamentable to contemplate the number of degenerates who have fastened themselves on journalism, and who for “filthy lucre,” put in chains their infant mentality, to receive from their owner, the declaration of approval: “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”
But when the scribbler on the “Call” and “Mother” Jones are facing eternity, when both have been laid away in “the silent city of the dead,” men, women and children will gather at the last resting place of this grand old woman whose hair has been whitened by the snows of age and her memory will be kept alive, while humanity will scarcely ever realize that a microbe infested the Black Hills to inflict verbal slum on intelligent people.
The editor of the “Call” should take a large dose of Sloan’s Condition Powders for Mules.
Note: Emphasis added throughout.
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SOURCES & IMAGES
The Deadwood Daily Pioneer-Times
(Deadwood, South Dakota)
-Sept 1, 1909
https://www.newspapers.com/image/102812505/
-Sept 5, 1909
https://www.newspapers.com/image/102812638/
-Sept 7, 1909
https://www.newspapers.com/image/102812654/
-Sept 17, 1909
https://www.newspapers.com/image/102812974/
Note: “Mother Jones of Philadelphia” or any other mention by the press of the day as to the home of Mother Jones, should be largely ignored. Mother often said that her home was wherever a fight was on, or words to that effect. Where Mother was, from September 17 to October 7 of 1909, I cannot say. But she was found in Girard, Kansas, on the evening of October 8th, at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Fred D. Warren, at a gathering of friends which included Eugene Debs (be sure to see Mother Jones News Roundup for October 1909).
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-Sept 4, 1909
https://www.newspapers.com/image/66982093
-Sept 11, 1909
https://www.newspapers.com/image/66982109/
Lead Daily Call
(Lead, South Dakota)
-Sept 7, 1909
https://www.newspapers.com/image/91767140
https://www.newspapers.com/image/91767142
-Sept 13, 1909
https://www.newspapers.com/image/91767193/
Proletarec
“Owned and published every Tuesday by
South Slavic Workmen’s Publishing Company”
(Chicago, Illinois)
-Sept 14, 1909
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045377/1909-09-14/ed-1/seq-1/
Note: see article on page 2, signed by Frank Shavs, future husband of Big Annie Clemenc.
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045377/1909-09-14/ed-1/seq-2/
Note: rough google translation:
when the lead from which the bullets work today is poured out and the books for the broadest education of peoples are printed
Montana News
(Helena, Montana)
-Sept 16, 1909
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84024811/1909-09-16/ed-1/seq-3/
Miner’s Magazine
(Denver, Colorado)
-June 3, 1909-Jan 19, 1911
Western Federation of Miners, 1909
https://books.google.com/books?id=hT8tAQAAMAAJ
-Sept 23, 1909, Vol. XI, No. 326
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=hT8tAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.RA1-PA54
Masthead & John M. O’Neil, Editor
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=hT8tAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.RA1-PA56
“He Knows His Owner”
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=hT8tAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.RA1-PA59
See also:
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday September 12, 1909
Mother Jones News Round-Up for August 1909, Part I:
-Found Speaking in Texas, Missouri, and Kansas
Hellraisers Journal – Monday September 13, 1909
Mother Jones News Round-Up for August 1909, Part II:
-Found in San Antonio, Fighting for Mexican Revolutionaries
Tag: Mexican Revolutionaries
https://weneverforget.org/tag/mexican-revolutionaries/
AOUW= Ancient Order of United Workmen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Order_of_United_Workmen
Re Freeman Knowles, see:
“The Case of Freeman Knowles” by Eugene V. Debs
Photo Taft and Diaz at El Paso
-from Barbarous Mexico by John Kenneth Turner, 1910
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Barbarous_Mexico/Chapter_14
re Marohn of WCTU
See search: marohn “w. c. t. u.” for Lead SD, 1909
https://www.newspapers.com/search/#query=marohn+%22w.+c.+t.+u.%22&dr_year=1909-1909&s_place=Lead%2C+South+Dakota
Woman’s Christian Temperance Union
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman%27s_Christian_Temperance_Union
Tag: John Murray
https://weneverforget.org/tag/john-murray/
Tag: Political Refugee Defense League
https://weneverforget.org/tag/political-refugee-defense-league/
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Children of Mother Jones by Pete Duffy