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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday January 21, 1919
Mother Jones News for December 1918, Part II
-Mother Found in San Francisco on Behalf of Tom Mooney
From the San Francisco Examiner of December 12, 1918:
‘Mother’ Jones to Aid Mooney
in His Fight for Liberty
—–Labor Leader Represents 500,000 Workers
in Appeal for Man’s Release.
—–
“Mother” (Mary) Jones, labor leader, arrived in San Francisco last night from Chicago to urge a new trial for Thomas J. Mooney, serving a life sentence for the Preparedness Day bomb murders.
Armed with credentials from the Illinois State Federation of Labor and the Chicago Federation of Labor and a letter from Governor Lowden of Illinois, “Mother” Jones said her first errand will be to obtain an audience with Governor William D. Stephens, who recently commuted Mooney’s death sentence.
“Mother” Jones declared her dissatisfaction with the imprisonment of Mooney, who, she said, was innocent and so held by the great mass of the labor organizations that had sent her here. She said:
I believe this is an issue that goes to the very heart of the judicial system, not only of California, but of the entire nation. That is what I shall try to present to Governor Stephens.
The organizations that sent me to San Francisco number many hundreds of thousands of workers and behind them are 500,000 more, the mineworkers, who are with me on this mission.
The visitor was met by San Francisco and Oakland members of the International Workers’ Defense League at the Ferry building. She went to the Hotel Clark. “Mother” Jones will address some of the labor bodies during her stay in California.
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[Photograph added.]
Mother Jones Interviewed by Elenore Meherin for The San Francisco Call:
Mother Jones Demands a New Trial for Tom Mooney
-by ELENORE MEHERIN
Vindication for labor, justice for Thomas J. Mooney, and honor for the courts of the land.
This is the three-fold purpose which today brought. Mother Mary Jones, patriarch of the masses, to San Francisco to demand from Governor William D. Stephens a new trial of the Mooney case. Mother Jones came as the special representative of the Illinois Federation of Labor, whose 550,000 members voted unanimously to fight to the limit for a new hearing of the Preparedness parade bomb outrage.
Commutation of sentence, Mother Jones characterized as a cheap evasion. An immediate rehearing, not a pardon, is the demand which will be made on Governor Stephens. Every peaceable force in the state will be used to win victory in the fight. Should Governor Stephens refuse to use his influence, the matter will be brought directly to President Wilson. This is the decision reached by the Illinois Federation at its state convention, which closed last Saturday. Mother Jones is empowered to carry the contest to the highest tribunal in the nation.
Only Want Justice
Pardon! We want no charity. We want justice! We will use every possible means within our power-if that fails, then we’ll use other means.
Mother Jones is nearly 90 years old, but she stood up like one inspired, her face struck with intense emotion, her deep, resonant voice ringing with power. The memory of bitter struggles, of women shot down by machine guns in Colorado, of little children burned to death in capital’s fight against strikers, trails like an echo in every vibrant tone.
“If Mooney is guilty, let him hang,” her sharp gray eyes snapped emphatically.
The crime was terrible. It deserves the full penalty that the law allows. But prove the defendant guilty. That’s what our courts are for. The American people are not going to stand by and see their courts made a laughing stock.
Labor Will Not Rest
The laboring classes are not what they were twenty-five years ago. They will not cower down like grateful dogs to lick the hands of the master class. Labor will not rest under the damning disgrace which capital seeks to fasten upon it through the conviction of Mooney. We demand and shall win vindication. The Illinois Federation voted against strikes in all except the Mooney case.
Commutation of sentence is a direct blow struck at the efficiency of our courts. What are these tribunals for if not to decide upon the merits of the evidence before them? Are they just to offer benches for professional loafers to sit upon?
“And if Governor Stephens gives you no satisfaction?”
“Well, then, President Wilson will,” Mother Jones answered with serene confidence. “He will find some means to redeem the honor of the nation.”
Most Treacherous of Ages
This is the most treacherous and insidious age the world has ever known. The workers are passing through a bitter crisis, but they are awakened to its significance. The wretched, blighting miseries of starvation and oppression have been their teachers. They know and they are proclaiming their economic needs.
Down the stairway of all the centuries the history of labor has never been written. The workers are born and struggle and die in the trenches. They are forgotten. Wall street grows fat on their blood and their flesh. But they are breaking free from the hypnotism which has kept them obedient.
Mother Jones was selected by the Illinois convention because of her profound knowledge of economic problems and because of her lifelong fight to win a just share of the profits for the producers of the world’s wealth. It was she who interceded for the miners in the bitter Colorado feud. It was she who raised her voice against child labor and every oppression which robs and degrades the minds and bodies of the nation’s little citizens.
World Calls Her Mother
For her services a devoted world family called her “Mother.” In repose, she might be that quiet, gentle essence of the young grandmother of happy youngsters.
Until she spoke. And then she was the dynamic champion of oppressed multitudes. She was motherhood roused to frenzy against the oppressors of her children.
She is fulfilling her conception of woman’s mission in the world.
[Mother Jones said:]
Women have stood by and allowed their children to be starved and crushed and they have not raised the sword to strike down these murderers who are sacrificing their little ones on the altar.
Mould Minds of Young
No nation can be truly great, until its women turn their skill to moulding the minds and bodies of the young,. Women have allowed themselves to be downtrodden. It is time for them to shake off this vicious heel, to stand up in their full stature and do the work that has been left for them.
These clubgoers, these welfare workers, these uplifters-they are all collecting salaries off the evils which they are employed to decrease. They are lazy shirkers. They are dodgers and temporizers. Let them begin at the bottom where the dirt lies and sweep house from the corners out. Let them demand a decent world for their children. Let them build a new order instead of trying to patch up the decaying walls of the capitalistic edifice.
Task Up to Mothers
That is the task for the nation’s mothers. How many women rose as the custodians of law and order and defied the privileged few to outrage their courts?
Did any? But the war, horrible as it has been, is bringing a better day. No one thinks as he did a few years ago. A bunch of highway robbers had the world by the throat and we should have gone down as Rome went centuries ago. Never again shall gold pollute the nation as it has in the past.
In the mud of the trenches labor’s eyes were opened. We shall prove with this Mooney case that no group of oppressors shall ever agin blind them with the dirt of special privilege.
From the San Francisco Examiner of December 14, 1918:
MOTHER JONES VISITS GOVERNOR
—–
Aged Labor Leader Pleads With State Executive
to Grant Mooney New Trial.
—–SACRAMENTO, December 13.-A plea for a new trial for Thomas J. Mooney was made today to Governor Stephens by “Mother” Mary Jones, 88-year-old labor leader.
She reached the capitol while Governor Stephens was at lunch, but was received immediately upon his return and made her statement in an interview which lasted about fifteen minutes.
After her meeting with the Governor “Mother” Jones said she had no comment to make.
She left the capitol with Paul Scharrenberg, secretary-treasurer of the State Federation of Labor, who accompanied her from San Francisco, to which city they returned on an afternoon train.
Before meeting Governor Stephens “Mother” Jones said she was “officially delegated as a representative of organized labor in America to intercede with the Governor” in the Mooney case.
Her interview occurred on the date Mooney would have been executed had not the Governor on Thanksgiving Day commuted his sentence to life imprisonment.
—–
From the Oakland Tribune of December 19, 1918:
‘MOTHER JONES’ TALKS TO UNION
—–“I am not a lady, I am a woman, Social distinction made the lady, but God made the woman,” said Mother Jones, noted labor speaker, in opening her address last evening to the members of the Boilermakers’ Union in the Downtown Garage. Continuing, she said;
I do not condone the acts of destruction nor the methods of the I. W.W.s but I am sorry for them. They were created by the suppressive acts of capital.
Approximately 3500 of the nearly 5000 members of the organization were in attendance at the meeting…..
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Note: Emphasis added to all articles above.
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SOURCES
San Francisco Examiner
(San Francisco, California)
-Dec 12, 1918
https://www.newspapers.com/image/457994091/
-Dec 14, 1918
https://www.newspapers.com/image/457998507/
Oakland Tribune
(Oakland, California)
-Dec 19, 1918
https://www.newspapers.com/image/82280356/
Mother Jones Speaks: Collected Writings and Speeches
-ed by Philip S Foner
Monad Press, 1983
Page 525: Mother Interviewed by Elenore Meherin
-about Dec 12, 1918-after arrival in San Francisco
and before visit with Governor.*
https://books.google.com/books?id=T_m5AAAAIAAJ
* Note: re interview by Elenore Meherin:
Foner gives source as San Francisco Chronicle, as undated and as possibly published early 1919. However, I searched the Chronicle for all of 1918 and 1919, and could find no such interview. I believe the article appeared in the The San Francisco Call where Meherin was a staff writer. The interview took place after Mother’s arrival on Dec 11th of 1918 and before she saw the Governor on Dec 13th of 1918. More research needed, could not find The Call online.
Re Meherin as feature writer for The Call, see:
San Francisco Blue Book and Club Directory,
the Social Reference Book
J.J. Hoag, 1919
https://books.google.com/books?id=PqZLAQAAIAAJ
San Francisco Call, Fremont Older and Staff, SF Blue Book of 1919
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=PqZLAQAAIAAJ&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA318
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=PqZLAQAAIAAJ&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA319
IMAGE
Mother Jones, Ft Wy Jr Gz p3, Dec 17, 1917
https://www.newspapers.com/image/29086040/
See also:
Hellraisers Journal – Monday January 20, 1919
Mother Jones News for December 1918, Part I
-Mother Found Speaking before Illinois Federation of Labor Convention
From The Boilermakers and Iron Ship Builders Journal of Jan 1919:
“THE CORRUPT PRACTICES OF DISTRICT ATTORNEY FICKERT OF SAN FRANCISCO EXPOSED.”
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=qgQdAAAAYAAJ&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA14
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In memory of the women and children of Ludlow: