Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for September 1912, Part II: Speaks at Wheeling, West Virginia, Thrills Thousands, Grown Men Weep
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday October 22, 1912 Mother Jones News Round-Up for September 1912, Part II Found Speaking at Wheeling, West Virginia, Thrills Thousands
From the New York Sun of September 11, 1912:
MINERS TO BESIEGE GLASSCOCK. ———- Will Bring Wives and Children to West Virginia Capital. ———-
CHARLESTON, W. Va., Sept. 10.-Mother Jones announced to-day that the striking miners of the Kanawha district would make another effort to see Gov. Glasscock. Within a week they are to march into the capital again and make a demand for the use of the State House grounds as a meeting place.
[Said Mother Jones:]
The Governor must hear us this time. We want him to hear our story, we want him to see us. The very looks of the men who are fighting for freedom is a tremendous argument for their cause.
We are coming back to our capital again and twice as strong as last week. The men are going to bring their children along and their wives.
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[Photograph added.]
From The Wheeling Intelligencer of September 16, 1912:
MOTHER JONES MAKES ADDRESS ———-
TO OVER 1,500 AT FIFTH WARD MARKET HOUSE. ———- Paints Horrible Picture of Conditions in Strike District and Flays Coal Barons.
Owing to the rain the mass protest meeting that was to have been held at the wharf yesterday afternoon [Sunday September 15th] was held at the Fifth ward market house, where over 1,500 people assembled to hear Mother Jones, the lady of the mines, and other prominent speakers.
As the old lady with white hair mounted the platform she was greeted with cheers that lasted for over five minutes. She started right in to business, and did not mince words or names when it came down to condemning the conditions in the southern part of the state. Before the meeting closed, Governor William Glasscock and Senators Watson and Chilton came in for their share of flaying, as well as Senators Scott and Elkins. They were classed by her as leeches and blood suckers, and the detective force and mine guards as human blood hounds. She said that right here in the little Mountain State, peonage of the most horrible kind was being practiced, and that Russia and Bulgaria were a paradise compared to it. She said that slavery was nothing compared to it, and that only last Thursday she was forced to cross streams in the strike district in the middle of the night by wading in the water up to her waist.
She claimed that women, children and sick men were thrown out of doors by these hired toughs and compelled to find shelter in the open, and that women were hauled about by the hair if they resisted these insults.
A collection was taken up to be sent to the relief committee which amounted to over $50. It will be used for the purpose of buying food and clothes for the strikers. A large donation was also received from the miners in Cripple Creek, Colo.
Want Legislation.
By unanimous vote it was decided to send a petition to Governor Glasscock demanding him to call a special session of the state legislature to make laws to help the miners. The following legislation is wanted: To do away with the guard system; that all coal dug by the miners shall be paid for by weight; the enforcement of an employer’s liability law; the abolition of the company store; and the payment of the miners every two weeks. She said that the miners would never go back to work until these wishes were complied with, and that the guard system would have to go, and if the governor would not give the citizens their rights, they would be compelled to take the law in their own hands or starve.
Raps Watson.
She also took a rap at the Fairmont district and hit Senator Watson hard. She scorned him as a blot on the state that would take years to wipe off. As she concluded her speech she was madly cheered.
Other speakers were F. C. Harter, also from the southern part of the state, a Confederate soldier, and a well-to-do farmer over 80 years old. He condemned the tactics used by the coal barons as a disgrace to humanity, and a thing that every citizen in the state should be ashamed to tolerate. “Mother Jones left last evening for Charleston and will stay with the boys, she says, until they get their rights.
[Photograph added.]
From The Wheeling Majority of September 19, 1912:
“Mother” Jones Thrills Thousands ———-
Wonderful is the only word to describe the “Mother” Jones meeting Sunday afternoon [September 15th]. With the daily papers giving practically no publicity, and with an all day rain, nearly 2,000 people walked in the downpour to the Center Market and stood for an hour listening to the old woman preach her doctrine of divine discontent. Many more had gathered at the wharf from where the meeting was transferred when it became evident that the rain would be continuous. There have been many meetings held in Wheeling, carefully planned and extensively advertised, which did not bring more than a fraction of the audience that heard her. And such was the effect of her words that men in the audience wept.
The meeting was practically arranged. The first intimation of it was when the Majority, on last Thursday received a telegram from H. W. Houston, attorney for the Mine Workers, stating that he and “Mother” Jones would be here for a Protest meeting Sunday afternoon, and that two organizers of the Mine Workers would be here and attend to all the arrangements. The Majority announced the meeting in its next issue, and the crowd gathered Sunday afternoon. But the organizers had never appeared, and there was, as a result, no one in charge.
At this juncture H. A [Harry] Leeds climbed upon a box and began addressing the crowd. A few minutes later Walter B. Hilton appeared, and began addressing the crowd until “Mother” Jones appeared.
Great applause greeted her. The remarkable woman, nearly 77 years of age, took the platform and proceeded to “business,” as she called it, with all the vim and vigor of a young person. She told of the conditions in the mining camps, how men were beaten, women dishonored and children mistreated, how the coal companies “owned” all the public highways and compelled women, in going from place to place, to wade creeks with water up to their waists. She said that she had thus been compelled to wade.She described the mine guards as “bloodhounds” and insisted that they were thugs and brutes, hired by the coal companies merely to keep their minors in subjection, in a state of peonage. She said that miners were not all allowed to leave the mining towns on the trains, and that organizers were not allowed to get off the trains. She told of meetings that had been broken up, homes that had been destroyed, families that had been evicted, men that had been killed and women and children outraged.
Miners Demands.
She declare as the miners’ demands: First: The abolition of the “guard system.” Second: The right to deal wherever they please. Third: The right to meet with their employers and discuss the question of wages and conditions through their regularly elected representatives.
Call Special Session.
She asked all in favor of calling a special session of the legislature to pass laws looking toward the carrying out of these demands to vote “Aye”. An avalanche of “ayes” responded. Calling for the negative there was dead silence. It was thus declared unanimously.
Take Up Collection.
A special collection for the benefit of the miners was suggested, and while “Mother” Jones demurred at first, that not being on the program, cries of “Take up a collection” from the audience started the hats around, [and] raised was $50.05. This was forwarded to the striking miners’ headquarters at Charleston.
Left for Charleston.
Immediately after the meeting “Mother” Jones returned to the hotel and left at 7:45 p. m. for Charleston.
In her speech and privately afterwards she declared that she intends staying in the state and this fight until it is won. If they deport her, she says, she will return.
Walter B. Hilton, Editor of Wheeling Majority Socialist Party Candidate for Governor of West Virginia
Working Class Radicals The Socialist Party in West Virginia, 1898-1920 -by Frederick A. Barkey West Virginia University Press, 2012 https://books.google.com/books?id=bcf-ygAACAAJ -Index page 267: Leeds, Harry, 9, 12, 17, 115 -Index page 266: Hilton, Walter, 59, 72, 86, 99, 105-7, 111-15, 140-48, 157, 164
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