Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for December 1917: Found in Indiana and West Virginia

The devil might possibly scare [Mother Jones],
but a machine gun can’t.
-Claude G. Bowers

Hellraisers Journal, Friday January 18, 1918
Mother Jones News for December 1917: Visits with Claude G. Bowers in Fort Wayne

During the month of December of last year, Mother was found in Fort Wayne, Indiana, visiting with Claude G. Bowers who is writing a biography on the late Senator John W. Kern. Mother Jones has often praised Senator Kern for the role he played in freeing her from the Military Bastile of West Virginia during the Coal Mine strike there in 1912 and ’13. (See story below at Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette.)

We also found her praised for her patriotism due to her call to “lick the kaiser,” and, at the end of the month, we found her in Charleston, West Virginia, “taking part in the street car strike.”

An article by Peggy Dwyer in the United Mine Workers Journal reminds us that the gunthug who recently murdered a union miner is still at large. This is the same thug who pointed a gun at Mother Jones and threatened to blow her head off. Such is the life of a union organizer brave enough to work in the state of West Virginia.

From Oregon’s Daily Capital Journal of December 3, 1917:

MOTHER JONES AND THE KAISER
—–

(Exchange)

The government has gained another able ally in the person of “Mother” Jones, who has probably more influence with miners than any other American, either man or woman. “Mother” Jones despite her record as an inveterate enemy of everything tending to limit the absolute freedom of labor, agrees with Fuel Administrator Garfield’s plan for the settlement of coal-mine disputes, and is trying to line up “her boys” to increase the output.

“It is our duty to stand by the president of the nation in this crisis,” she says. “Help the government now to lick the kaiser, and then we’ll lick hell out of the operators.”

Rather forcible language but very much to the point. The operators may deserve a licking, but they don’t deserve it any more than the kaiser does. Their punishment can wait, if necessary. The kaiser’s can’t or should not. For once “Mother” Jones’ point of view can be heartily approved. Her patriotism in this instance is 100 per cent to the good.

———-

[Photograph added.]

From the United Mine Workers Journal of December 6, 1917:

Operators at Raleigh Refuse to Accept
Federal Mediators’ Terms

Beckley, W. Va., November 30. — Sam Crews, the noted gunman who brutally murdered Tom Baldwin at Raleigh the week before last, has not been apprehended yet. Crews was em ployed by the Raleigh Coal Company and was one of the gunmen that poked a high-powered rille in the face of “Mother” Jones in the Raleigh camp on a Sunday afternoon about two months ago and threatened to blow her gray-haired head off. It might seem strange to people outside of this county how that man is allowed to evade the law. After committing that brutal murder he loafed around that camp until the next morning, and the camp is only two miles from the county court house. And the only way I can account for it is that the whole time of most of our county officials is taken up by them trying to assist E. E. White to force the men who are on strike at the Glen-White mine back to work so that E. E. White can continue to exploit them as he has been doing since he has been operating that mine. The strikers report that on the first Sunday morning after that brutal murder was committed High Sheriff Foster was over there telling the strikers to go back to work, and that if they didn’t return to work within five days Mr. White would put them out of their houses. Is it any wonder that Crews is not captured?

Crews’ crime is that he murdered Tom Baldwin, and the only provocation he had for murdering him was that Tom Baldwin was a union miner. Three days after he is murdered and his murderer is scot free our high sheriff tells the union miners of Glen White that Mr. White is liable to put them out of their houses. I feel that instead of telling the men, that he ought to be telling Mr. E. E. White that if he attempted unlawfully to put the men out of their houses he would arrest him….

We had a government representative here—Mr. F. G. Davis, of the Labor Department of Washington, D. C.—and he was tireless in his efforts to adjust the trouble, and after trying for eight days he returned to Washington. He found that the miners were more than fair, and appeared to want to see the trouble adjusted, but he found the company just the opposite…

LAWRENCE DWYER,
International Board Member of District No. 29.

From the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette of December 17, 1917:

“MOTHER” JONES PAYS VISIT TO FORT WAYNE
—–
Friend of the Coal Miners Gives Information
on Life of Late John W. Kern.
—–

“Mother” Jones, friend of the coal miner, was in Fort Wayne Sunday as the guest of Claude G. Bowers, editorial writer of the Journal Gazette. Her trip here was made for the special purpose of giving information to Mr. Bowers for his biography of the late United States Senator John W. Kern. “Mother” Jones played a prominent part in the recent West Virginia coal miners’ strike, which Senator Kern assisted in ending. The woman is now 85 years of age, but she is in good health and travels to almost every state in the Union without a companion.

———-

From the United Mine Workers Journal of December 20, 1917:

In Memory of a Stanch Friend
—John W. Kern

It is a matter of personal interest to the working classes of the country, and more especially to the miners, that an adequate biography of the late Senator Kern is being written by Claude G. Bowers, his secretary throughout his senatorial career, now editor of the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette. And it is especially interesting to find that Mr. Bowers is one of many who find the most significant and important phase of Senator Kern’s career his life long championship of the rights of the masses, and especially of the labor unions. While a great party leader, he made for himself a place in history, not so much as the leader of a party, but as the foremost party leader in the country fighting primarily for social justice. His fight in the senate which forced an investigation into the mining conditions in West Virginia and opened the prison doors for Mother Jones, is well known to every union miner in the land. Just how hard that fight was, just what influences were brought to bear to turn him from his course is not so generally known, and this will be developed in the biography now in preparation. It is the biographer’s intention to go into the West Virginia troubles exhaustively….

From the Fairmont West Virginian of December 28, 1917:

Charleston has entertained Mother Jones recently as she is taking part in the street car strike.

SOURCES

The Daily Capital Journal
(Salem, Oregon)
-Dec 3, 1917
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn99063957/1917-12-03/ed-1/seq-4/

The United Mine Workers Journal, Volume 28
(Indianapolis, Indiana)
-Nov 1, 1917-May 2, 1918
Executive Board of the United Mine Workers of America
https://books.google.com/books?id=OAxOAAAAYAAJ
UMWJ Dec 6, 1917
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=OAxOAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PT170
“Operators at Raleigh”
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=OAxOAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PT175
See also: “LO SCIOPERO E L’ASSASSINO -Beckley, West Virginia”
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=OAxOAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PT188
UMWJ Dec 20, 1917
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=OAxOAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PT234
In Memory of Senator Kern
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=OAxOAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PT238

Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette
(Fort Wayne, Indiana)
-Dec 17, 1917
https://www.newspapers.com/image/29086040/

The West Virginian
(Fairmont, West Virginia)
-Dec 28, 1917
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86072054/1917-12-28/ed-1/seq-6/

IMAGE
Mother Jones from:
The Sun
(New York, New York)
-Dec 2, 1917
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030431/1917-12-02/ed-1/seq-48/

See also:

Tag: Claude G Bowers
https://weneverforget.org/tag/claude-g-bowers/

Tag: John W Kern
https://weneverforget.org/tag/john-w-kern/

Paint Creek-Cabin Creek Strike
https://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/1798

Paint Creek-Cabin Creek Strike
Articles from the San Francisco Bulletin
http://www.wvculture.org/history/labor/paintcreekolder.html

WE NEVER FORGET: Thomas Baldwin,
Union Coal Miner, Murdered at Raleigh, West Virginia, November 13, 1917