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Hellraisers Journal, Thursday March 14, 1907
Mother Jones News for February: Found in New Mexico and Arizona
Mother Jones travelled to Missouri, New Mexico and Arizona during the month of February 1907. She spoke out on behalf of Bill Haywood, Charles Moyer, and George Pettibone of the Western Federation of Miners who are now imprisoned by the state of Idaho on charge of conspiracy to murder Ex-Governor Steunenberg. At one of her speeches in Arizona, it was reported that she gave warning to the ruling class:
If these men are hanged, we will hang some of them.
In our February review, we first found Mother mentioned in the pages of The Fairmont West Virginian of February 2nd. It seems her letter to Mrs. Potter Palmer (previously published by Hellraisers) was still making the rounds of various newspapers. The letter was introduced to this paper via a letter to the editor from Hoult, West Virginia, dated January 31st, and proceeded with this explanation:
Many persons in this part of West Virginia, especially the coal miners, are acquainted with the name as well as face of Mother Jones, the respected and gray haired advocate of labor’s cause, as she made many speeches here during the attempt of the United Mine Workers to organize this region. Therefore probably many will read with interest and perhaps an answering throb of sympathy, the following letter from Mother Jones to Mrs. Potter Palmer, on the occasion of a meeting at Mrs. Palmer’s palatial residence of representatives of capitalists and labor unions to find the ground for unity of interest supposed to exist…
News of Mother Jones appeared in and article in the New York Volkszeitung of February 3, 1907, with the following headline:
Mother Jones Klagtan Schildert die Zustande
im Gruben-Distrikt in West Virginia
The article was sent from Charleston, West Virginia, and written February 2nd. Our German is not perfect, but we believe the headline states: “Mother Jones Describes the condition in the mining district in West Virginia.”
From Missouri’s St. Joseph Observer of February 9, 1907:
“Mother” Jones, the labor leader, is visiting the mining districts of St. Francois and Madison counties this week.
From the Albuquerque Morning Journal of February 10, 1907:
FAMOUS AGITATOR WILL SPEAK IN THIS CITY
—–
Mother Jones, Organizer of the
United Mine Workers and a
Prominent Figure in Colorado Labor War,
to Be Here Soon.
—–“Mother Jones” the women organizer of the United Mine Workers, who won much notoriety and an arrest during the late labor war in Colorado by her work among the striking miners, will deliver an address in Albuquerque Thursday night next, when she will appear in Colombo hall at 8 o’clock in the evening. Mother Jones is one of the few successful women labor union organizers. During the mine workers’ strike in Colorado she took an active part in maintaining the organization and in encouraging the miners to maintain the strike. She was arrested and confined by the soldiery during several weeks of the strike. The public is invited to the lecture here.
———-
From the Albuquerque Morning Journal of February 15, 1907:
“MOTHER JONES” IS STILL STRENUOUS AT 70 YEARS
—–
Remarkable Woman Addresses Large Audience
at Colombo Hall and Makes Appeal
for Federation Officials
—–Full of fire and determination at seventy years, with snow whited hair, but all the energy and endurance of a woman of thirty, “Mother” Jones, organizer of the Western Federation of Miners, is a most remarkable woman. She addressed an audience last night which comfortably filled Colombo hall, and she was listened to with close attention all the way through the address.
“Mother” Jones has become well known through her adventures during the union labor war in Colorado, during which she was arrested and jailed by the militia for stirring things up. She agitated ceaselessly throughout the whole trouble in behalf of the Federation, and was largely instrumental in causing that organization to maintain the stand it did during the “hostilities.” She is the patron saint of the union miners of Colorado. At present she is making a lengthy speech-making tour, chiefly in behalf of Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone, now accused of complicity in the murder of Governor Steunenberg, of Idaho. Last night she took up a collection here to be used in defraying expenses of the defense of the Federation men.
“Mother” Jones talk was characterized by some very extreme views and by a great deal of common sense. Her voice is stronger and has more carrying power than that of the average man in the prime of life, and her energy is surprising.
[Said the speaker last night:]
I am just entering my seventieth year and probably shall not have many more years to devote to the uplifting of the laboring class.
Mrs. Jones among other slightly radical measures, advocates emptying the jails and placing in them what she calls the “ruling, robbing, oppressive, debauched oligarchy of the wealthy class.”
She roasted President Roosevelt cordially, saying that he was not a good union man, as he had never even paid his dues.
Mrs. Jones is attractive personally and there can be no doubt that her heart is thoroughly in her work. She made a strong appeal in behalf of the Federation officials last night.
From here she goes to Globe, Ariz., and thence to Texas, where she will speak at nearly fifty different towns.
———-
From the Globe Daily Arizona Silver Belt of February 17, 1907:
“Mother” Jones, a noted Socialist speaker, arrived in the city last evening from the east and will take an important part in the Moyer-Haywood-Pettibone demonstration at Dreamland today.
From the Daily Arizona Silver Belt of February 19, 1907:
DEMONSTRATION DRAWS BIG CROWD
—–
“Mother” Jones Takes a Fall Out of the
“Ruling” Class and Many Others
—–Those who attended the Socialist demonstration Sunday at Dreamland, expecting to hear vituperation and vilification and to see grim-visaged anarchy stalking across the big stage, headed by a blood-hued banner, were disappointed. True, that there was a noticable absence of “The Stars and Stripes,” to which many in the audience had but recently come from lands where oppression and persecution dwarf minds and intellects; and it is true that the “Marseillaise” came before and after the speaking to the exclusion of any of our national anthems, which the immigrant learns to sing with eyes uplifted before the statue of Liberty in New York harbor comes into view.
The big auditorium was packed to the doors before the speaking began and it is estimated that there were at least two thousand people in the house, including many women. The principal speaker, “Mother” Jones, received an ovation when she began her address in the evening. At the afternoon meeting, when speeches of more or less extremeness were made in Spanish, Italian and Slavonian, “Mother” Jones was introduced, and in a few words pertinent to the situation which caused the demonstration, intimated that her evening address would contain more “medicine” for the “ruling class” and its disciples.
“Mother” Jones is a kind, motherly looking old lady, who looks as though she had just laid aside her knitting to ask how the herb tea worked on the youngster who had the croup. That is, until she gets into action. Then she loses that motherly expression and becomes a spirit militant seeking vengeance for wrongs real or fancied, which have been heaped upon the proletariat of the country. At times she would assume the pose of Senator Spooner when he descants on the unconstitutionality of the income tax laws, and then in a jiffy she would take the after-dinner attitude of a Depew as she told her amusing experiences while confined in eastern jails, in one of which she could sit in her cell and see a
church across the way with its doors unlocked and no one inside-the jail with its every door padlocked and every body in.
All of the labor problems and the labor troubles which this country has had in the last generation were covered in the address of “Mother” Jones; she told of the child slavery evil, and other evils of our present system and spoke briefly on the kidnaping of Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone, which she characterized as the crime of the age. She spoke of the consequences of their probable execution for the murder of Ex-Governor Steunenberg of Idaho and likened it to the execution of the anarchists in Chicago in 1888 [November 11, 1887], blaming the city for the throwing of the bomb which caused such a loss of life among the Chicago-policemen. Her most extreme utterance, however, was that
if these men are hanged, we will hang some of them.
Original, although wholly impossible, aphorisms, pointless epigrams and unanswered sociological riddles were plentifully interspersed throughout the two and a half hours’ address, with occasionally a sharp dig at the labor employer or the “Two by four corporation press.” A pathetic incident of a starving family in one of the New England mill towns, was closely followed by the remark that temperance was wholly a capitalistic issue, not affecting the working man.
[Said this motherly old lady:]
When we get on a jag, we pay for it, and when the other man gets on a jag, we pay for that too.
These bursts of humor were enthusiastically applauded.
The speaker also paid her respects to the courts of this country, which she declared were rotten to the core and wholly under the thumb of the capitalist class. There was no fine distinction made; all were in the same category.
At the close of the evening meeting resolutions were adopted by the rising of the audience, protesting against the kidnaping of the Western Federation officials, the methods in not allowing them a trial when they were arrested and the action of the federal supreme court in legalizing the former.
There was an absence of any disorder at either of the meetings, the demonstration being orderly in every way.
———-
From The Tucson Citizen of February 22, 1907:
“MOTHER” JONES HAD ARRIVED IN BISBEE
—–
Famous Woman Socialist Will Endeavor to Aid
in Attempt to Unionize the Camp.
—–BISBEE, Feb. 22.-“Mother” Jones famous for her activity in encouraging the striking miners in the big Pennsylvania coal fields several years ago, has arrived in Bisbee.
She has come here to preach socialism and to encourage the miners who have been discharged because of their union affiliation. Her arrival is the latest feature in the labor difficulty which may be decidedly serious in a commercial way for both Bisbee and Douglas.
“Mother” Jones is the nomenclature by which the venerable old lady of nearly three score and ten is best and most widely know from ocean to ocean in the ranks of the laboring masses, whose cause she had espoused, and whose rank and file have affectionately dubbed her with an appellation that has made her a world-known character.
She arrived from Globe on Tuesday and spoke to a large street audiences last evening, her subject being the old and stereotyped one of socialism, not at all unlike or different from the same harangue we have heard from the throats of a hundred Socialist disciples.
But the woman herself! None who has seen and heard her can but feel a deep respect for the powers, the magnetism of the woman-a reverence for the aged lady whose life is fanatically devoted to the men who toil. And when she scolds her followers in the mock severity of a critic, her words are always tempered with that underlying tinge of the love of a mother for her offspring. Truly she is a remarkable woman who can so broaden her field of thought as to include the thousands, yea, hundreds of thousands and millions to whom and over whom she plays the role of mother.
———-
Hellraisers Journal of February 26, 1907 republished an article, entitled “The Dawning of a New Era,” and written by Mother Jones for the Appeal to Reason of February 23rd. Mother stated in part:
IN the history of the country-I go farther, in the history of the world-there is nothing more criminal and heartless than the kidnaping of Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone and walling them in alive without the shadow of a charge against them. Two governors, in league with the money power, are guilty of this crime. We who know these men know them to be innocent and we also know that they are worthy to receive our loyal support and that they shall have it to the end.
This diabolical deed, accomplished at night, upon honest workingmen is enough to set one’s brain in a whirl and stir one’s soul to revolt….
Now let the working men and women of the United States say to Gooding and those behind him: You have issued the challenge, you have started this fight, you have attacked our comrades, and now we shall rally to the rescue of our fellow-workers and fight it out to a finish on any line you choose.
We have the right on our side, they have the power, but one honest-hearted workingman, whose cause is just and whose conscience is clear, has more moral power, more real strength that counts, than a thousand hirelings in the cause of crime.
If workingmen are now true, as seems evident upon every hand, then the last bull-pen has been built and the last soldiers have insulted and outraged the wives and children of their imprisoned fathers, husbands and brothers.
I personally know Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone. They are the last men to be guilty of assassination. No one who knows them believes in his heart that they have had anything to do with the crime for which they are now in jail. They are as innocent as any of us, and the mine owners know this as well as anybody.
But these men were a menace to the capitalist anarchists that ruled with blood and iron in Colorado and this is why the charge of murder must be fastened upon them and an end put to them forever.
The real murderer is McPartland [McParland]. He put up the job, with Guggenheim and his crowd to back him up, supply the funds, the special train and the hundred other factors in the conspiracy.
Let us protest from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the lakes to the gulf. Let the workers every where arise and swear that this crime shall not be committed.
To our imprisoned comrades in Idaho I have this to say: I am as ready to die with you now as I have been to fight with you in the past.
———-
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SOURCES
The Fairmont West Virginian
(Fairmont, West Virginia)
-Feb 2, 1907
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86092557/1907-02-02/ed-1/seq-3/
New York Volkszeitung
(New York, New York)
-Feb 3, 1907, page 1
http://www.genealogybank.com/
The St. Joseph Observer
(St. Joseph, Missouri)
-Feb 9, 1907
https://www.newspapers.com/image/228902858/
Albuquerque Morning Journal
(Albuquerque, New Mexico)
-Feb 10, 1907
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84031081/1907-02-10/ed-1/seq-5/
February 15, 1907
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84031081/1907-02-15/ed-1/seq-5/
Daily Arizona Silver Belt
(Globe, Gila County, Arizona)
February 17, 1907
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn87082863/1907-02-17/ed-1/seq-6/
February 19, 1907
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn87082863/1907-02-19/ed-1/seq-1/
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn87082863/1907-02-19/ed-1/seq-6/
The Tucson Citizen
(Tucson, Arizona)
-Feb 22, 1907, page 1
http://www.genealogybank.com/
Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday February 26, 1907
“The Dawning of a New Era” by Mother Jones
-from the Appeal to Reason of Feb 23, 1907
“Mother Jones Calls for Nation-Wide Protests on Behalf of Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone”
https://weneverforget.org/hellraisers-journal-mother-jones-calls-for-nation-wide-protests-on-behalf-of-moyer-haywood-and-pettibone/
IMAGE
Mother Jones, Mar 11, 1905, AtR
http://www.newspapers.com/image/66992169/
See also:
Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones to Mrs. Palmer, Remembers Lattimer: “In this fight I wept at the grave of nineteen workers…”
https://weneverforget.org/hellraisers-journal-mother-jones-to-mrs-palmer-remembers-lattimer-in-this-fight-i-wept-at-the-grave-of-nineteen-workers/
For more on the activities of Mother Jones in Pennsylvania and Colorado prior to 1907, see her Autobiography. During the 1903-1904 Colorado Coalfield Strike, she was a paid organizer for the United Mine Workers of America. She was very active in that coal strike, and spent time with the miners and their families in the very dangerous district of southern Colorado. At the same time, the Western Federation of Miners (representing mostly metal miners) had strikes ongoing in Cripple Creek and Telluride. Some of the papers above are conflating these strikes, as did Mother in her Autobiography (written in 1925) and, sadly, not corrected by her editor.
https://iww.org/history/library/MotherJones/autobiography
The Pittston Strike Commemorative Edition (1990) of the Autobiography offers an afterword by Fred Thompson which helps to correct some of the errors.
https://www.abebooks.com/9780882861661/Autobiography-Mother-Jones-0882861662/plp