———-
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday May 9, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for April 1901, Part I
Found Threatening Silk Mill Owners of Scranton with Arrest
From the Wilkes-Barre Daily News of April 1, 1901:
SILK OPERATORS TO BE ARRESTED
———-
“Mother” Jones Gives Out
Important Statement
———-STRIKE NOT SETTLED
———-
Strikers Bluntly Refuse Ten Per Cent.
Increase Offered.
———-HELD CONFERENCE YESTERDAY WITH SECRET BALLOT
-“MOTHER” JONES OFF FOR CLEVELAND
TO STUMP THE STATE.
SCRANTON, Pa., March 30-“I leave for Cleveland. Ohio, at once to seek financial aid for silk strikers.” was the statement given me to-night by “Mother” Jones, the noted labor leader.
I will stump the State and when I return I expect to arrest every mill owner who has in open defiance of the State law, employed children under 14 years of age in their factories. Warrants will be issued for parents also.
The strike has not yet ended. At the conference to-day of the leadership the silk workers it was decided by almost an unanimous vote to reject the offer of the operators of a 10 per cent, advance and the bitter struggle which last night seemed to be nearing a satisfactory settlement has been renewed under a new coupe which will carry the greatest battle of feminine labor into the courts…..
[Drawing added.]
From The Philadelphia Inquirer of April 1, 1901:
“MOTHER” JONES NOT AN AGITATOR
———-
She So Declares and Says Favors Harmony
Between Employer and Employe
———-TELLS INTERESTING STORY
———-
Got the Best of an Angry Mine Superintendent
and Made Him Laugh
———-Whatever may be said of “Mother” Jones, who has gained more or less prominence in labor circles in the anthracite coal fields during the past few months, it cannot be denied that she is at least sincere in her endeavors, and withal a delightful, conversationalist.
An Inquirer representative had a chat with “Mother” Jones, or properly speaking Mrs. Meginnes[?], the other afternoon, on the train from Wilkes-Barre to Hazleton. At the former place she had been in conference with the labor leaders in reference to adjusting the strike difficulty and expressed herself very decidedly that there would be no strike, but ends sought by the United Workmen [United Mine Workers] would in a measure be granted, the contending factions wisely compromising on the most annoying problems under discussion. It transpires that in this prophecy “Mother” Jones was not wrong.
Not An Agitator
[Said “Mother” Jones, with much vehemence:]
I am not a labor agitator, nor am I a disturbing element. I am a pacifier and only desire that the workman being worthy of his hire, he should receive just recompense for services rendered, and I believe that that end can be best attained by a mutual understanding between employer and employe. It is a great problem and will take a long time for its ultimate solution. It is also a matter or education among the laboring classes.
Asked as to some of her experiences in her “pacifying”‘ work, “Mother” Jones merry blue eyes twinkled as she replied:
The most amusing experience I ever had was in Virginia, where I was billed to address the mine workers. I had been addressing meetings on the west side of the river, and a few hours prior to filling an engagement on the east side of the river a burly, ill-natured and ill-mannered individual served notice on me that I should not attempt to cross the river to speak to his employes. He was the superintendent of the coal works. I asked why, and he said he wouldn’t have it, and warned me that he owned the boats, and transportation would be denied me. I replied that the earth was the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof, and inasmuch as I was a niece of His, I would fill my engagement. He replied that he would keep me away with a drove of vicious dogs.
No Fear of Dogs
But I was not intimidated, but to fill my engagement I was compelled to walk a distance of nearly four miles to a railroad bridge, where I crossed the river and walked down the tracks, and when near the meeting place I was suddenly confronted by the burly superintendent and four vicious-looking dogs. “Now, get back to the other side of the river,” said he, savagely, “or I will put the dogs on you.”
“No, I will not,” said I. And then I began to make friends with the dogs. I was prepared for them, and the first one to approach me became very friendly when I pulled from my handbag a bone with a generous quantity of meat upon it. Of course, when I threw the bone from me the dog went after it, and one by one as the dogs approached, I served them in like manner. “There, sir,” said I, “Your dogs are enjoying something your employes have not had in many a day-fresh meat.” That was too much for the superintendent, and he sat down on a railroad tie and laughed boisterously. Of course, I kept my engagement, and organized one of the largest unions in Virginia.
After laughing heartily, Mrs. Jones said meditatively:
Do you know what a man would have done under similar circumstances? Why, he would either have run, climbed a tree or licked the superintendent-probably the latter, if he had been a son of Erin. That is the lesson of all others the laboring classes must learn sooner or later-diplomacy.
“Mother” Jones addressed a large meeting of miners at Hazleton Friday evening and was to return to Illinois, where she has a number of engagements.
[Note: Mother is most likely speaking here of West Virginia, which state she often refers to as Virginia.]
———-
From the Philadelphia Times of April 9, 1901:
MINE WORKERS MEET
———-
Regular Quarterly Meeting of
District No. 1 Called to Order.Special Telegram to THE TIMES.
Scranton, April 8.
President T. D. Nichols this afternoon called to order the regular quarterly convention of the United Mine Workers of District No. 1. The sessions are being held at Olyphant and may continue throughout the week, according to the business brought up for disposal. Over three hundred delegates are in attendance…..
A monster parade with 4,000 miners in line was held at Olyphant this morning. “Mother” Mary Jones was in evidence to-day.
———-
From the Scranton Tribune of April 10, 1901:
A committee of girls from the Priceburg [silk] mill Monday waited upon Valentine Bliss, owner of plants in Dickson, Providence and Dunmore. Mr. Bliss informed them that all dealings would be done with his employes in a body and that he would not recognize the union to the extent of conferring with any committee. He has, however, expressed his willingness to grant the $-12 per cent. increase offered by Superintendent Davis (of the Sauquoit mill) to his employes.
A meeting was yesterday held of the Priceburg local at which “Mother” Jones and Organizer C. E. Thorn, of Wilkes-Barre, were both present. The committee reported on the results of its meeting with Mr Bliss. This afternoon the strikers executive committee will meet with the Pittston and Wilkes-Barre strikers at Crystal hall, Pittston, and learn from Secretary [Thomas] Morgan, of Paterson, what distribution of aid his local intends making.
———-
From the Wilkes-Barre Daily News of April 11, 1901:
[Miners’ Convention at Olyphant]
(Scranton Truth, Wednesday.)
Although there is much work to come before the quarterly convention of the United Mine Workers of District No. 1, at Olyphant, it is expected to have this completed before to-day ends, so that the delegates will be able to return to their homes to-night.
[……]
A splendid reception was held at the opera house last night in honor of the delegates to the convention. It was arranged by the local unions of Olyphant…President Nicholls and “Mother” Jones made stirring addresses which were received with great favor. Both spoke on the lines of the miners’ organization and the benefits which are to be obtained by the unionism of all those who work in the mines. Many vocal and instrumental musical numbers were also rendered, adding much to the pleasures of the evening’s meeting.
———-
From The Scranton Republican of April 12, 1901:
Mother Jones returned [to Scranton] yesterday and was at the silk strikers’ headquarters in Carpenters’ hall in the afternoon. She has just completed a lecturing tour in which she spoke for the support of the textile workers in many cities.
From The Missouri Socialist of April 13, 1901:
LITTLE STRIKERS
[Long for Mother Jones.]
———-Blighted Childhood of Tiny Girl Mill Hands.
———-
The Struggles of Childhood’s Happy Nature
With the Hard Conditions of Poverty.
———-[-by Dorothy Adams]
It was early, very early, in the mild March morning last year, when the little velvet cutters, in twos and threes, came trooping down the hillsides into Haledon Hollow [Paterson, N. J.] and found me sitting there in the doorway of the deserted mill.
They seemed more like a band of school children off for a spring holiday than the company of striking wage earners that they were, assembling for their daily mass meeting. Children they were, every one of them. What if their little old faces and bent forms did say ever so plainly that they had never been children, but always women? The heart that beat under every small, shabby jacket, was the heart of a child.
And because they had children’s hearts and because every breeze that soft March morning blew the breath of spring each girl grasped the ends of a skipping rope in her rough little hands, and two of the strikers, the tiniest of them all, had not forgotten to bring with them their long neglected dolls. For after all, it was a holiday, a strike holiday, the only holiday the working child knows.
The mass meeting was called for 8 o’clock, and there they were at that hour, every one of the seventy-five strikers, skipping ropes, dolls and all, gathered in small groups and whispering and eyeing me furtively.
Their shyness was the shyness of country children, for such all of them really were. At last two little girls with more courage than the others approached, while their companions fled in dismay and disappeared around the corner of the big unsightly mill.
“Please, Ma’am,” one of them asked, “are you a forelady looking for hands? “
She carried a doll in her arms, and when I told her that I was not a forelady, but had come to spend the day with her and the rest of the girls if they would allow me, her big, brown eyes opened wide and she laughed.
“You’re surely not Mother Jones, are you? I thought she was an old, white haired woman.”
“No.”
“And not her daughter, either?”
“We are looking for Mother Jones this morning,” the larger girl spoke up, “and we all thought you might be her when we first saw you as we came down the hill. Oh, we do wish Mother ones would come and help us with our strike! They say that strikers always win when they have Mother Jones to help them.” The child with the doll vanished, but in a moment reappeared with two other girls, who began to make shy advances to friendliness by asking me if I lived in Paterson. As soon as I told them that I had come from New York and that I knew, too, what it was to work and suffer and starve, and that I had come to spend the day with them and find out the truth of their condition, every bit of their shy proudness was gone and they led me into the deserted mill to show me how much human suffering is woven into the warp and woof and pile of every yard of velvet that was ever made.
[Long description of how a yard of velvet is made follows.]
This is the gist of the story of how a yard of velvet is made, as told me and shown me by the little strikers gathered there in their abandoned mill.
“And now,” said the child who acted as spokeswoman, “and now we have struck for better pay. We want $3.50 for 200 yards of slips instead of $2.85. Mr. Smith, the superintendent, has offered us $3, but we won’t take a cent less than what we have asked for, and no damages either
“Oh, if Mother Jones would only come and help us, we’d surely win!” said another.
“Yes, if Mother Jones only knew how our feet and legs ache and swell she’d come to us. I know she would.“
And surely Mother Jones or any other mother’s heart would have bled to see the pitiful sight that I saw. Little feet swollen and distorted and the blue veins in small ankles and legs gnarled and knotted. The agony suffered from twenty-five mile walks every day on such feet and with such ankles can better be imagine than expressed. Even the children themselves wince when they recount it.
It was pitiful to watch them scanning the hills for Mother Jones. I supposed she had been sent for, but when I made inquiries I found that in their childish ignorance they supposed Mother Jones to be a sort of all-wise feminine providence who turned up just in the nick of time to take the side of the striker as against employer. With all the sublime faith of childhood they stood there in the mill yard and waited and watched for a little, old white-haired woman to come down and help them, and I could not find the courage to tell them that Mother Jones was several hundred miles away, and having two or three other and bigger strikes on hand, had in all likelihood as yet never heard of theirs.
But Mother Jones couldn’t come, and three days afterward the brave little strikers were forced to accept the compromise originally offered them, $3, for the cutting of 200 yards of velvet.
-Dorothy Adams in New York Herald.
———-
Note: emphasis added throughout.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SOURCES
Quote Mother Jones, Stt Dly Tx p3or5, Feb 23, 1901
https://www.genealogybank.com/
Wilkes-Barre Daily News
(Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania)
-Apr 1, 1901
https://www.newspapers.com/image/423349260
-Apr 11, 1901
https://www.newspapers.com/image/423349693/
The Philadelphia Inquirer
(Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
-Apr 1, 1901
https://www.newspapers.com/image/168159973/
The Times
(Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
-Apr 9, 1901
https://www.newspapers.com/image/52581690/
Scranton Tribune
(Scranton, Pennsylvania)
-Apr 10, 1901
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026355/1901-04-10/ed-1/seq-8/
The Scranton Republican
(Scranton, Pennsylvania)
-Apr 12, 1901
https://www.newspapers.com/image/48312296/
Missouri Socialist
“Official Organ of the Social Democratic Party of St. Louis.”
(St. Louis, Missouri)
-Apr 13, 1901, page 3
(see link below to read full article)
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/missouri-socialist/010413-missourisocialist-v01n15-DEFECTIVE.pdf
IMAGE
Mother Jones, Drawing, SDH p4, Mar 9, 1901
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/social-democratic-herald-us/010309-socdemherald-v03n38w140.pdf
See also:
-re Thomas Morgan as Secretary of the
Textile Workers’ Union of Paterson, see:
Paterson NJ News of Apr 5, 1901, page 1
https://www.newspapers.com/image/524800417/
Apr 8, 1901, Wilkes-Barre Leader
-Girl Strikers of Haledon Velvet Co, Paterson NJ,
Cry for Mother Jones
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/77359690/apr-8-1901-wilkesbarre-ldr-girl/
-re Strike at Haledon Velvet Company of 1901, see:
Annual Report, Volume 24
New Jersey. Bureau of Industrial Statistics, 1902
(search: haledon)
Note: Strike started March 4, 1901 and was over by March 12th.
https://books.google.com/books?id=IDw8AQAAMAAJ
Note: Dorothy Adams was a pen name of Dorothy Richardson, see;
Out on Assignment
Newspaper Women and the Making of Modern Public Space
-by Alice Fahs, see pages 212-227
Univ of North Carolina Press, 2011
(search separately: “case of dorothy richardson” “dorothy adams”)
https://books.google.com/books?id=8zQvzX8jIc8C
The Long Day (by Dorothy Richardson)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Day
The Long Day
The Story of a New York Working Girl, as Told by Herself
(-by Dorothy Richardson)
Century Company, 1905
https://books.google.com/books?id=s0RPpeoT0Z8C
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday April 10, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for March 1901, Part I
Found Writing for The Review and Marching with Striking Silk Workers
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday April 11, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for March 1901, Part II
Found Arriving in Hazleton, Pa., for Mine Worker’s Convention
Hellraisers Journal – Friday April 12, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for March 1901, Part III
Found Seeking Settlement of Pennsylvania Silk Mill Workers Strike
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cotton Mill Girl – Hedy West & Pete Seeger
-remembering all the little girls whose childhood was spent
grinding out profits for the owners of the textile mills of America.