———-
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday January 22, 1919
Mother Jones News for December 1918, Part III
-Mother Found in Taft, California, Organizing Oil Field Workers
Following her audience with the Governor of California on behalf of Tom Mooney, Mother Jones spoke in and around the San Francisco area urging working men and woman to take action to free Mooney and all other political and class-war prisoners. Mother then traveled to Taft, near Bakersfield, at the request of the oil field workers there with the intention of organizing them into the United Mine Workers of America.
We next find her in the pages of the The Kalamazoo Gazette as the author of a “Message to Women in Industry.” Here she states that the organization of women into “men’s” unions will strengthen organized labor for both working women as well as for working men:
Women ought to join men’s unions-not organize separate unions of their own. The battle against unpatriotic greed, the struggle for a free America, is no sex matter.
An infusion of women into men’s unions works for good to both men and women. Man has studied the disease longer than woman; he has a broader vision of society’s problems. Woman is less indifferent to suffering than man. She will contribute energy and inspire to action.
A woman will not see the hair torn from the scalp of a ten-year-old girl by unprotected cog-wheels, without wanting to do something about it.
Note: the photograph above is from The Buffalo Enquirer of December 26, 1918.
———-
Mother Jones News for December 1918, Part III
From the San Francisco Examiner of December 21, 1918:
COUNCIL DENIES MOONEY PLEA
—–
Labor Men Refuse to Send Delegate
to Chicago to Plan New Trial.
—–The San Francisco Labor Council last night, after a protracted debate, refused to send a representative to the proposed labor conference to be held at Chicago, January 14 to devise ways and means of furthering the movement to secure a new trial for Tom Mooney and Warren K. Billings.
This action was taken despite an address by “Mother” Mary Jones special representative of the Illinois State Federation of Labor, urging the council to send a delegate to the Chicago conference.
“Mother” Jones also made a plea for Mooney, stating that the fight for the bomb defendants will be carried to the United States Senate, the Department of Justice and the President of the United States.
There were 82 votes against the motion to send a representative to the Chicago conference and 63 in favor. Delegate Selig Schulberg moved a reconsideration and this question will come up next Friday evening as a special order for 9 o’clock….
———-
From The Los Angeles Times of December 22, 1918:
CHARGE HEARST EDITOR WITH
CRIMINAL LIBEL.
—–FREMONT OLDER ARRESTED IN SAN FRANCISCO
ON STATE WARRANT.
—–(BY A. P. DAY WIRE.)
SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 21.-Fremont Older, editor of the San Francisco Call [which newspaper first published the Densmore Report], was arrested here today on a charge of criminal libel sworn to by John O’Gara, former Assistant District Attorney here. He was released on his own recognizance. The charge followed statements concerning O’Gara’s official conduct, made by Older in recently published reminiscences…..
A statement that the case of Edward D. Nolan, co-defendant of Thomas J. Mooney in the Preparedness Day bomb murder cases here, might well be dismissed because of an apparent lack of evidence was made by Superior Judge Franklin A. Griffin here today when Nolan’s case came up before him to set…..
“Mother” Mary Jones, aged eastern labor leader, who is investigating charges that Mooney’s conviction was brought about by malfeasance practiced by the District Attorney, expected to leave for Taft today to address a meeting of oil workers there tomorrow. She will go from there to Los Angeles and from Los Angeles to Washington, according to her programme.
———-
From The Seattle Star of December 27, 1918:
“Mother of Wretches” Battles for Mooney
Mary Jones, “mother of wretches,” has answered another cry from her children.
This time is to right the wrongs that labor feels in the case of Tom Mooney, sentenced to life imprisonment in San Quentin after a trial that has drawn international criticism upon the prosecution methods.
“Mother,” pleaded 550,000 of her Illinois Federation of Labor children, “go out to California and see what you can do. There’s something frightfully wrong with the legal machinery that can permit a man to be sent to the penitentiary without a fair trial.”
It’s Her Life Work
All her life Mother Jones has been answering such calls from the men and women who toll.
And so this silver-haired, pink-cheeked, blue-eyed matriarch of the masses packed her carpet bag and took the first train for California.
She presented her appeal for a new Mooney trial to Gov. William D. Stephens. Failing of results from the state executive who commuted Mooney’s death sentence to life imprisonment, she said she would carry the case to President Wilson.
What the great men of the nation, and the organized working manhood of the nation failed to accomplish in this case, the force of universal motherhood which she embodies may achieve, believes the grand old woman of the labor world.
In behalf of the Illinois Federation, Mother Jones is empowered to carry the contest to the highest tribunal of the nation should Gov. Stephens refuse his influence.
Commutation of sentence she characterized as a cheap evasion of an issue that he has become worldwide-an issue that Mooney is regarded as symbolizing.
[She said after interviewing the governor:]
We want no charity. We only want justice. Mooney is nothing, but what the courts do to him is as big as civilization.
Ninety.year-old Mary Jones, whose life has been a battle and a march, carries in her features the traces of the years spent in mothering the oppressed. But the imprint of bitter struggles and of terrible pictures has not taken from her that remarkable beauty of benevolence that glows in eye and cheek.
[She said:]
The world is all right. Its heart is in the right place. But so few people know what’s going on. They have to be educated.
[She concluded:]
And so, I have to be a teacher as well as mother to my wretches.
———-
From The Kalamazoo Gazette of December 27, 1918:
The Woman Worker
—–Mother Jones’ Message to Women in Industry
—–By “Mother” Jones.
(Ninety-Year-Old Champion of Labor’s Causes.)
Should women in industry help labor to struggle toward freedom?
Many women, otherwise clever at their new jobs, would reply: “No; it would not be lady like,”
Ladies have been created by the masters. A lady submits to prevailing standards.
Women are created by God Almighty. A woman submits to no one.
As long as women in industry have that word “ladylike” lodged in their minds, they will make no progress and help the world to make none. The question: “Will this be nice?” is a slave-chain about a woman’s neck.
Women who enter the labor world must get into the labor fight. They cannot escape it-they can only avoid their duty. The woman worker must break her individualistic shell and amalgamate.
NOT A SEX ISSUE.
Women ought to join men’s unions-not organize separate unions of their own. The battle against unpatriotic greed, the struggle for a free America, is no sex matter.
An infusion of women into men’s unions works for good to both men and women. Man has studied the disease longer than woman; he has a broader vision of society’s problems. Woman is less indifferent to suffering than man. She will contribute energy and inspire to action.
A woman will not see the hair torn from the scalp of a ten-year-old girl by unprotected cog-wheels, without wanting to do something about it. But she does not yet know what to do and how to do it. She must learn.
UNFIT FOR STRAIN.
Many women, of course, will be retired within the next year or two from lines of work to which women are unfitted. The bosses are after money, and unfit labor wins them no dollars.
As I rode on the New York street cars during the rush hours and the period after midnight. I observed, in the quivering hands and tense faces of the women acting as motormen, the effects of awful strain. Street car driving is a hard business. If women are induced by the masters to remain under such pressure, what will it do to the future?
In the more normal occupations, women have come to stay. Returned soldiers will find employment in many new industries, and I foresee no conflict between men and women as to which shall hold the jobs.
WOMEN, NOT “LADIES.”
The woman who wants to be really useful must stay out of women’s clubs, settlement work, and so-called “charitable” organizations. These are breeding places of convention and ladylike submission. Woman must cease to query: “Is this lady-like? and ask only, “Is this woman-like?”
The woman at home can be as great in her service as the woman in industry-perhaps greater. She can study to educate and arouse her husband, breathe into her children revolt against greed and wrong, buy only union goods, work to open the eyes of her neighbors. The true woman’s home can be a vast school of freedom.
Woman does not need to work for wages in order to progress. All she needs is to open her eyes.
———-
Note: emphasis added to articles above.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SOURCES
San Francisco Examiner
(San Francisco, California)
-Dec 21, 1918
https://www.newspapers.com/image/458016277/
The Los Angeles Times
(Los Angeles, California)
-Dec 22, 1918
https://www.newspapers.com/image/380388315/
The Buffalo Enquirer
(Buffalo, New York)
-Dec 26, 1918
https://www.newspapers.com/image/326358533/
The Seattle Star
(Seattle, Washington)
-Dec 27, 1918
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn87093407/1918-12-27/ed-1/seq-1/
The Kalamazoo Gazette
(Kalamazoo, Michigan)
-Dec 27, 1918, page 9
https://www.genealogybank.com/
IMAGES
Mother Jones, Bff Enq p14, Dec 26, 1918
https://www.newspapers.com/image/326358533/
Mother Jones, Stt Str p1, Dec 27, 1918
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn87093407/1918-12-27/ed-1/seq-1/
Mother Jones, Kalamazoo Gz p9 gen, Dec 27, 1918
https://www.genealogybank.com/
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
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday January 21, 1919
Mother Jones News for December 1918, Part II
-Mother Found in San Francisco on Behalf of Tom Mooney
Tag: Densmore Report on Tom Mooney Frame-Up
https://weneverforget.org/tag/densmore-report-on-tom-mooney-frame-up/
Note: for more on Fremont Older and the Densmore Report.
“The report was leaked to Fremont Older who published it in the San Francisco Call on 23rd November 1917.”
https://spartacus-educational.com/USAdensmore.htm
Tag: John B Densmore
https://weneverforget.org/tag/john-b-densmore/
Women In Industry Service
https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/women-industry-service
Note: Mary Van Kleeck, Director of “Woman in Industry Service” was much in the news at this time, as was the “Report of a Survey ” below.
The Evening Star
(Washington, District of Columbia)
-Dec 12, 1918
-re Mary Van Kleeck and standards for women in industry.
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1918-12-12/ed-1/seq-4/
Labor Laws for Women in Industry in Indiana
-Report of a Survey by the Woman in Industry Service
-Dec 31, 1918, Bulletin No. 2
U. S. Department of Labor
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=h6JGAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA1
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Letters Written by Mother Jones
During December 1918
SOURCES
The Correspondence of Mother Jones
-ed by Edward M. Steel
University of Pittsburgh Press, 1985
Pages 185-188.
https://books.google.com/books?id=EZ2xAAAAIAA
Mother Jones Speaks: Collected Writings and Speeches
-Philip S Foner
Monad Press, 1983
Pages 622-626
https://books.google.com/books?id=OE9hAAAAIAAJ
Note: emphasis added to letters below.
Letter from Mother Jones to President of WCTU:
San Francisco, Cal.
Dec. 16, 1918.Mrs. Sara J. Dorr, President,
Womens Christian Temperance Union,
3 City Hall Avenue,
San Francisco, Cal.
Dear Mrs. Dorr:Permit me to extend to you the deep appreciation of Organized Labor the country over for the stand you have taken in behalf of justice. It is not a question of Thomas Mooney-the question goes further than Thomas Mooney. The great issue now before Organized Labor and the thinking American people is the integrity of the courts. They are the bulwark of our institutions and their integrity must be preserved, for once the workers lose faith then all hope is blasted and no one can be responsible for the outcome.
it is the duty of every citizen to awaken to the fact that not alone is America interested but the eyes of the world are focused upon the courts of California and it is really up to her noble womanhood whether the terrible stain that is cast upon them in the Mooney case shall remain unchallenged.
The light is breaking. The maps of the world are being changed. A new world is in the making and our American woman can participate in that making. She can make it a safe and happy place for the generation yet to come to dwell in.
If thru our indifference, suspicion has been placed upon our courts then it is thru our vigilance and our spirit for love and freedom that we must transform them and surely the women of California will not let this issue die.
I shall convey to Organized labor the world over that the women of
San Francisco, particularly the members of the W. C. T. U. are the first to demand a revolution in our courts and your action I am sure will awaken other women of our nation. It was the Dreyfus case in France that changed the spirit of the people and to you fair women of San Francisco all honor shall be due.With deep appreciation for your good work, I remain
Sincerely yours,
Mother Jones
Letter from Mother Jones to John H. Walker:
San Francisco, Cal.,
Dec. 18, 1918John H. Walker, President
Illinois State Federation of Labor,
Springfield, Ill.
My dear John:I arrived here pretty tired but the train men were very good to me coming out and I got them all so interested that they wrote a vote of appreciation to Fremont Older, Editor, of the San Francisco Call.
I saw the Governor last Thursday. I was accompanied by Mr. Scharrenberg [Secretary, California Federation of Labor] so as to be safe and I don’t know of any safer person I could have taken with me. I didn’t get any satisfaction out of him but he gave me a hearing any how but I have been keeping the newspapers busy since I came here. I will enclose you a number the clippings.
How did things go in the [UMWA] election? I haven’t heard a word out here any more than the papers carried that Frank Hayes won out by 60,000 [for President, over John H. Walker].
I am going down to the oil fields to talk to those poor fellows on Sunday next. Then I shall leave for Los Angeles and from there I will go to Kansas City and try and see Howat and have a talk with him. Under no circumstances surrender an inch to those fellows. The fight is only begun, John.
I am visiting the unions at night to urge them to send a delegate to that Congress at Chicago on the 14th of next month [National Labor Convention for Mooney]. You have got to make that a success. Some of these pirates out here are getting a little alarmed. We want to give them a shaking up and let them know we are not asleep.
My regards to all the boys, and take good care of yourself. We will stand together till death. The brave and true die only once. Cowards and traitors die often and they have some horrible deaths at that.
I’ll close up now because I have a lot to do this afternoon, I am
Yours,
Mother Jones
Letter from Mother Jones to John H. Walker:
Los Angeles, Cal.
2759, Marengo St.,
Dec. 28, 1918John H. Walker,
State Federation Office,
Springfield, Ills.
Dear John:I received your telegram forwarded to me from San Francisco. It was not very plain owing to the transmission but it gave me to understand that you were elected president [of the UMWA] but I warn you now to keep close watch or they’ll count you out as they did in the last election.
You know, John, you’re dealing with a terrific, powerful combination and the interests will do anything and spend any amount of money to keep you from getting control of the United Mine Workers Organization. They know they can’t play the game with you and when you do get in, I hope to God you’ll have a housecleaning. The leeches that those poor fellows have carried on their back for years, [if only?] they themselves knew it and understood it, I’m inclined to think they’d shake the nation and all thinking people would endorse them.
I read just a few days before where they said you were beat by sixty thousand. I knew, John, the statement was false, but the honest men that read it, regretted that you failed to take care of the destinies of those poor hounded and deceived slaves. The pirates now will sit up and take notice and I slept good that night when I read that telegram.
I did not get the full meaning of it, I concluded that the victory was yours. There’s a new day breaking for the Workers and you, no doubt, will help to bring the sunlight to the poor wretches who have been deceived, robbed and plundered by their own people that they were paying.
I probably would have been back in Chicago by this time only the Oil Workers in Taft, held me up and after I spoke in Taft, they urged me to remain with them for a week or ten days and tour the Oil Fields so I concluded that I would comply with their desires. After all, John, it makes no matter where we do the good. They told me they’d pay my expenses. I told them that was not the question-the question was, could we bring them together into the organization and they said that if I toured their Oil Fields they knew that 95% of them would be in the Union. I am also working to get them to join the United Mine Workers, for their industry in reality is mining. They mine the oil while the subterranean miners mine the coal. It’s a wonderful field, John. I think we must consolidate the workers and put an end to these jurisdictional disputes.
I have not heard from Olander [Victor A. Olander, Secretary-Treasurer of Illinois F. of L.] since I left. I hope he is feeling better. He’s a valuable man and we can’t afford to lose him. Such men are rather scarce, John, in these days.
I will not be in Chicago for that Congress that’s going to meet but the Densmore expose [published by Fremont Older in the San Francisco Call] has stirred things up on the coast here. They squashed all the indictments against Nolan. I could not get anything out of the Governor -more than that he said he was giving me a hearing. But Sharrenburg [Scharrenberg] said that I said a great deal more to him than any man would dare to say-The Governor is a perfect tool of the interests-he has no love for the workers.
I’ll close by wishing you and all at home the happiest New Year and Prosperity to all around us.
Mother Jones
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
See also:
Woman’s Christian Temperance Union
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman%27s_Christian_Temperance_Union
Dreyfus Affair
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreyfus_affair
John H Walker
http://www.illinoislaborhistory.org/hall-of-honor-articles/2011
Alexander Howat
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Howat
Tag: National Labor Convention for Mooney Chicago 1919
https://weneverforget.org/tag/national-labor-convention-for-mooney-chicago-1919/
UMWA-List of Presidents
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Mine_Workers#List_of_presidents
Tag: Densmore Report on Tom Mooney Frame-Up
https://weneverforget.org/tag/densmore-report-on-tom-mooney-frame-up/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I Am a Union Woman – Deborah Halland
Lyrics by Aunt Molly Jackson
https://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/unionwomanmollyjackson.html