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Hellraisers Journal –Friday October 17, 1919
Mother Jones News for August 1919, Part II
Homestead, Pennsylvania – Mother Jones Arrested for Speaking to Steel Workers
From the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader of August 21, 1919:
SEIZE MOTHER JONES
—–
Pittsburgh, Aug. 21.-“Mother” Jones, J. G. Brown, of Seattle; J. L Boghan [J. L. Beaghen], of Chicago, and R. W. Riley, of Homestead, organizers of the American Federation of Labor, were arrested last night in Fifth avenue, Homestead, when they attempted to hold a mass-meeting on the street. Acting Chief of Police Hood, who made the arrests, charged them with violating a borough ordinance when they were unable to produce a permit for the meeting.
When the automobile from which “Mother” Jones was speaking when she was ordered to stop by Chief Hood carried her and the other speakers toward the Homestead police station, a crowd of 1000 persons, mostly foreigners, who had gathered in Firth avenue,followed. Amity street in front of the police station, was blocked by the crowd for half a block on either side of the station.
“Mother” Jones and the others were released on forfeits. Mounting the rear seat of the automobile which carried her to the police station, “Mother” Jones addressed the crowd and advised them to “go home and be good boys”. After the crowd had cheered her, “Mother” Jones asked that they give three cheers for the United States and then told them to go home.
[Photograph added.]
MOTHER JONES NEWS ROUND-UP for AUGUST 1919
(Part II)
—–
From the Akron Evening Times of August 19, 1919:
Steel Workers to Consider Walkout
YOUNGSTOWN, Aug. 19.-Representatives of 25 steel workers’ unions forming a national executive committee began arriving here today for the conference to be held tomorrow under the chairmanship of John Fitzpatrick to canvass the strike vote recently taken in the steel industry and to make a decision as to a nation-wide steel strike. Organizers in the Ohio district declare the vote has been overwhelmingly in favor of a strike and say reports from other districts indicate a like result….
“Mother” Jones addressed a meeting of steel workers here last night [August 18] in regard to union organization.
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From New Castle News of August 19, 1919:
Mother Jones Will Speak This Evening
—–“Mother Jones” noted labor speaker will deliver the principal address at a meeting to be held in the Umberto hall on Division street under the auspices of he American Federation of Labor at 7:30 this evening.
From The Wheeling Intelligencer of August 22, 1919:
Plan Big Meeting.
Frank Wilson, secretary of the local organization of the American Federation of Labor, to-day received a telegram from Pittsburgh headquarters informing him of the result of the steel men’s strike vote taken in this section and the forthcoming conference with heads of the steel companies. Mr. Wilson announced that a meeting of steel workers is being arranged for Mingo Junction [Ohio], where Mother Jones will deliver an address to the men.
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From Hellraisers Journal of August 23, 1919:
Homestead, Pennsylvania -Mother Jones and Steel Organizers Arrested
-From the Lebanon Daily News of August 21, 1919:MOTHER JONES LABOR AGITATOR
WAS ARRESTED
—–
Charged With Attempting To Hold Street Meeting
In Homestead, Pa., Without Permit-Trouble Threatened When “Mother”
Was Taken to Lockup.(Special to News by United Press).
Homestead, Pa., Aug. 21.-Mother Jones, labor agitator, and three organizers for the American Federation of Labor, were to appear in police court here today on charges of attempting to hold a street meeting without a permit. They were arrested last night [August 20th] while addressing a gathering of iron and steel workers…..
From The Pittsburgh Post of August 26, 1919:
Mother Jones Freed; Three Are Fined
—–Following a hearing before Burgess P. H. McGuire in the Homestead police station last night, “Mother” Jones, a worker for the American Federation of Labor, who with three others was arrested last Wednesday while speaking from an automobile to a gathering of iron and steel workers in Fifth avenue, Homestead, was discharged.
J. G. Brown of Seattle, Wash., and J. L. Boghan [J. L. Beaghen] of Chicago, organizers for the Federation, were each fined $1 for holding the meeting without a permit. R. W. Riley of Homestead, also an organizer, was discharged when it was shown that he had taken no active part in the meeting.
For his alleged shouting, “To hell with the Government,” while those arrested were being taken to the police station, August Billey of Homestead was fined $10.
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From Pittsburgh’s National Labor Tribune of August 28, 1919:
ORGANIZERS ARRESTED-MOTHER JONES TELLS RADICALS HURT CAUSE
—–
SPLENDID TRIBUTE PAID ATTORNEY GENERAL PALMER AND
HOPE EXPRESSED THAT HE BE NEXT PRESIDENT
-CROWDS TOLD TO BE PEACEFUL AND GO HOME
—–Mother Jones starts lively time in Homestead which results in organizers being arrested for violation of Borough Ordinance. With Mother Jones was J. G. Brown of Seattle, Washington; J. L. Bogen [J. L. Beaghen] of Chicago, Ill, and R. W. Riley of Homestead, organizers of the American Federation Labor.
The arrest took place on Fifth avenue when an attempt was made to hold a street meeting. Acting Chief of Police A. J. Hood, made the arrest, when they were unable to produce a permit for street meeting.
The attempt to hold the street meeting was made when it was learned that the meeting, for the purpose of organizing the iron and steel workers in the Homestead vicinity, could not be held in Sokol Hall, Fifth avenue, Homestead, as planned because of the small capacity of the hall.
When the automobile from which Mother Jones was speaking when she was ordered to stop by Chief Hood carried her and the other speakers toward the Homestead police station, a crowd of 1,000 persons, mostly foreigners, who had gathered in Fifth avenue, followed. Amity street in front of the police station was blocked by the crowd for half a block on each side of the station.
As Mother Jones was being led into the police station a foreigner, who later said he was August Billy of Homestead, is alleged to have made slurring remarks about the police. Billy was arrested on a disorderly conduct charge.
A few minutes after they entered the police station Mother Jones and the others were released on $15 forfeits. Mounting rear seat of the automobile which carried her to the police station, Mother Jones addressed the crowd, advising them to “go home and be good boys.”
When she heard of the arrest of Billy and was told of his alleged remarks she told her audience that one of the best men in the country was Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, and that persons of Billy’s stripe hurt the cause of the workingman. She further lauded Attorney General Palmer by saying that she hoped he would be the next President of the United States.
After the crowd had cheered her Mother Jones asked that they give three cheers for the United States and then told them to go home. The crowd then dispersed and the automobile carrying the organization party drove away. Billy was then released on a $15 forfeit.
From Hellraisers Journal of August 28, 1919:
-Note: We cannot say exactly where Mother was when she first heard the terrible news of the murder, by company gunthugs, of her fellow U.M.W.A. organizer, Fannie Sellins. Most likely, she was still in the Pittsburgh area, about 20 miles from Brackenridge.
West Natrona, Pennsylvania – Fannie Sellins & Joe Starzeleski Murdered
-From the Pittsburgh Gazette Times of August 27, 1919:Note: We caution our readers to remember that the enemies of organized labor, through the kept press, are often the first to tell the story of labor disturbances. Already, the day after the murders of Mrs. Sellins and Joe Starzeleski, we find the kept press charging that the two died in a “mine riot.” Other accounts, from the strikers side, indicate that there was no riot until Deputized Coal and Iron Gunthugs attacked Miner Starzeleski. When Fannie attempted to save him, she was beaten and shot. We will continue to report on this story that the truth may be told of the deaths of these two labor martyrs.
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Two persons, one of them Mrs. Fannie Sellins, organizer for the United Mine Workers of America, secretary of the Allegheny Valley Trades Council and a woman labor worker of national repute, were shot to death and five others wounded in a strike riot at the entrance of the Allegheny Coal and Coke Company near Brackenridge late yesterday.
THE DEAD
Mrs Sellins, aged 49, of New Kensington: shot in the head and instantly killed.
Joseph Strzelecki [Starzeleski], aged 58, of West Natrona, a miner: shot in the head and instantly killed.
From The Labor World of August 30, 1919:
Mother Jones Arrested By Homestead Police
While Speaking to Steel Men
—–PITTSBURG, Aug. 28.—Among the tyrannical boroughs along the Monongahela river, where the overlords in the steel industry reign supreme, Homestead has established itself firmly at the head of the list as the most despotic principality of them all.
Organizers working with the National Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel Workers have been jailed in practically all the great steel suburbs of Pittsburgh, but it remained for the small calibre, $4.50 per day police officials of Homestead to drag gray-haired, 89-year-old Mother Jones to their filthy jail for daring to speak in behalf of the enslaves steel workers.
Prohibit Public Meetings.
Municipal czars, who are beholden to the steel trust for their small-sized jobs, usurp, in western Pennsylvania, the right to say when public meetings may be held. Also when they may not be held. In case “permission” for meetings is condescendingly given, usually impossible conditions are imposed, such as requiring that no foreign languages shall be spoken, etc.
Arrangements for a big meeting for Mother Jones had been made for Aug. 20. Applications for a “permit” brought forth an instant refusal on the alleged grounds that some Slavish interpreters had been used at a previous meeting. Concurrent with this action, notice was served on the owners of the hall that renting it with out written permission of the burgess would result in immediate arrest of both owners and directors. This effectively closed the hall, but Mother Jones, with characteristic contempt for the edicts of kaisers of high and low degree, declared she would speak on the streets if a hall could not be secured.
So, at the appointed hour, the hall still being closed, in an automobile across the street, Mother Jones, accompanied by several organizers, appeared. Her presence immediately fired the great crowd with the wildest enthusiasm.
Organizer Arrested.
Organizer J. L. Beaghen arose in the machine and began to explain why a hall could not be secured and the necessity which determined Mother Jones to speak on the street. Beaghen was at once arrested, but Mother Jones a veteran of a thousand battles, commenced to hurl her defiance at the crowd of police scattered among the thousands of spectators. Her venerable white hair, her body, bent and twisted from hardships and exposures of her 40-year fight, lent an almost tragic aspect to the situation. She simply electrified the crowd even the police were awe struck for a moment.
When they had recovered sufficiently, they ordered Organizer J. G. Brown, who was in the machine, to drive on, hoping thus to stop the meeting. Upon his refusal to do so he was also arrested. The police then commandeered the services of a colored auto mechanic and forced him to drive the machine with Mother Jones in it to the police station. Arriving there, she was escorted into as filthy a jail as can be found in the district, where the other organizers, together with local Secretary Reilly picked up on the way, had already been assembled.
No charge was placed against the arrested persons, but they were finally released on heavy bail. Probably the roaring and indignant crowd which had followed Mother Jones to the city bastile contributed to the speedy release of the prisoners.
Mother Jones Quiets Crowd.
Indeed, had it not been for Mother Jones addressing the crowd after being freed, advising them to organize, develop their collective power and thus be able to redress their wrongs by the orderly means, it is hard to say what might have happened. The police who were quick to follow the bidding of the steel trust and drag an old woman off to jail for daring to raise her voice in behalf of the oppressed workers, were equally quick to make use of her assistance to quiet a crowd of outraged workers over whom they had lost every particle of control.
The “trial” was set for the following night, but when the prisoners presented themselves several thousand steel workers assembled on the outside. An extra force of police was on hand, but none of the workers were permitted to enter the “court room.” Obviously, the situation was serious. The cases were hurriedly postponed till Aug. 25. No one knew what the crowd might do. However, the shift change on Sunday and so all these men who had seen them close the lips of Mother Jones would then be working.
Sees U. S. Officials.
Mother Jones, realizing the very grave danger that confronts the workers everywhere if the right of free speech can be successfully denied in western Pennsylvania, left at the first possible moment to lay the whole case before United States Attorney General Palmer.
Those who know Mother Jones will have little doubt that she will succeed in bringing to the attention of official Washington full knowledge of the high-handed outrages being employed to head off the great organizing campaign that is sweeping the steel workers into the American Federation of Labor to the gasping dismay of the steel trust.
Mother Jones may be persecuted, organizers may be jailed, but the work of building up the organizations among the steel workers is going on. Changes in the political complexion of the petty municipalities will quickly follow the changed economic status of the workers, which the formations of the big unions will bring.
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[Emphasis added throughout.]
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SOURCES
Quote Mother Jones, Kaisers here at home, Peoria IL Apr 6, 1919
https://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt%3A31735035254105/viewer#page/216/mode/2up
Wilkes-Barre Times Leader
(Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania)
-Aug 21, 1919
https://www.newspapers.com/image/133493156/
Akron Evening Times
(Akron, Ohio)
-Aug 19, 1919
https://www.newspapers.com/image/228125199/
New Castle News
(New Castle, Pennsylvania)
-Aug 19, 1919
https://www.newspapers.com/image/72473963/
The Wheeling Intelligencer
(Wheeling, West Virginia)
-Aug 22, 1919
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86092536/1919-08-22/ed-1/seq-9/
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday August 23, 1919
-Mother Jones Arrested August 20th in Homestead Along With Three Organizers of A. F. L. Steel Committee
The Pittsburgh Post
(Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
-Aug 26, 1919
https://www.newspapers.com/image/87648617/
National Labor Tribune
(Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
-Aug 28, 1919, page 7
https://www.genealogybank.com/
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday August 28, 1919
Union Organizer Fannie Sellins and Miner Joseph Starzeleski Murdered, August 26th, Near Brackenridge
The Labor World
(Duluth, Minnesota)
-Aug 30, 1919
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn78000395/1919-08-30/ed-1/seq-1/
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn78000395/1919-08-30/ed-1/seq-2/
IMAGE
Mother Jones Women in Industry, Eve Ns Hburg PA p2, Jan 6, 1919
https://www.newspapers.com/image/57884211
See also:
Hellraisers Journal –Thursday October 16, 1919
Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for August 1919, Part I: Found Speaking to Steel Workers in Clairton, Pennsylvania
Tag: Great Steel Strike of 1919
https://weneverforget.org/tag/great-steel-strike-of-1919/
The Great Steel Strike and Its Lessons
-by William Z. Foster
B. W. Huebsch, Incorporated, 1920
(search: homestead)
https://books.google.com/books?id=Hbt-AAAAMAAJ
See pages 59-60: “In Homestead, however….”
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=Hbt-AAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA59
The Autobiography of Mother Jones
Charles Kerr, Chicago, 1925
-Chapter 24: The Steel Strike of 1919
https://www.iww.org/history/library/MotherJones/autobiography/24
Mother Jones tells the story of her arrest at Homestead:
I was speaking in Homestead. A group of organizers were with me in an automobile. As soon as a word was said, the speaker was immediately arrested by the steel bosses’ sheriff. I rose to speak. An officer grabbed me.
“Under arrest!” he said.
We were taken to jail. A great mob of people collected outside the prison. There was angry talk. The jailer got scared. He thought there might be lynching and he guessed who would be lynched. The mayor was in the jail, too, conferring with the jailer. He was scared. He looked out of the office windows and he saw hundreds of workers milling around and heard them muttering.
The jailer came to Mr. Brown and asked him what he had better do.
“Why don’t you let Mother Jones go out and speak to them,” he said. “They’ll do anything she says.”
So the jailer came to me and asked me to speak to the boys outside and ask them to go home.
I went outside the jail and told the boys I was going to be released shortly on bond, and that they should go home now and not give any trouble. I got them in a good humor and pretty soon they went away. Meanwhile while I was speaking, the mayor had sneaked out the back way.
We were ordered to appear in the Pittsburgh court the next morning. A cranky old judge asked me if I had had a permit to speak on the streets.
“Yes, sir,” said I. “I had a permit.”
“Who issued it?” he growled.
“Patrick Henry; Thomas Jefferson; John Adams!” said I.
The mention of those patriots who gave us our charter of liberties made the old steel judge sore. He fined us all heavily.
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Fannie Sellins – Anne Feeney
Lyrics and Music by Anne Feeney
https://www.antiwarsongs.org/canzone.php?lang=en&id=21573