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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday February 13, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for January 1901, Part III
Found Speaking in Indianapolis on Evils of Child Labor in Pennsylvania
From the Indianapolis Sunday Journal of January 27, 1901:
“Mother” Jones and Mr. Debs.
Eugene V. Debs and “Mother” Jones will deliver public addresses in the Criminal Court room to-morrow night. Mrs. Jones will speak especially to the women, and particularly to women who belong to labor or trades organizations. To-morrow afternoon Mr. Debs will speak to the miners at their convention.
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[Photograph added.]
From The Indianapolis Journal of January 29, 1901:
OFFICERS’ REPORT
[-from Miners’ Convention]In the afternoon many resolutions, principally of importance to the miners only, were passed then the committee on officers’ reports was heard. After some discussion the report was adopted by sections. Of important bearing was the adoption of President Mitchell’s recommendation to organize a woman’s auxiliary union. The convention adopted the recommendation and gave the power of appointing an organizer to President Mitchell. It is understood that “Mother” Jones will be appointed organizer…..
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DOWN IN THE COAL MINES.
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“Mother” Jones Graphically Describes
Child Labor In Pennsylvania.“Mother” Jones addressed a meeting of mine workers and their friends in the Criminal Court room last evening on the subject of “Employment of Child Labor in the Mines.” Although her address was primarily intended to be in the interest of the miners, she made a general plea for all branches of labor. Quite a number of working girls were present and the eloquent appeals made in their behalf met with hearty applause from them. The speaker described the condition which prevails among the breaker boys of the mines of Pennsylvania, where boys of eleven years work thirteen hours a day for a wage scale of 1 cent an hour.
The miners and their families, she declared, are the helpless slaves of the great combinations of capital and the operators who own and control the mines. In those regions when a child is born, the day is eagerly looked forward to when he will be old enough to do a day’s work, and when that day arrives he is taken by his father to the operator of the mine, to whom his services are offered for a pittance. Some of the worst details of the present system were gone into and the need of organization among all the miners of the country was strongly urged.
[She said:]
Let us arouse ourselves. Let us get together and form a combination that will protect and not destroy. Let us do what our brothers have done, and are doing in other countries. In France and Germany and Italy our brothers are beginning to realize the necessity of organization, and they are beginning to study social conditions and to reach down into the depths of economic questions. They are beginning to ask what right a company has to compel a man to dig twenty tons of coal out of the ground before he receives pay for one ton? We believe that the mines should be owned and operated by the government. We believe in compelling a man to work for what he gets, and by that token we would tell the operator who wants coal to get down and dig it out like we do.
I am a Socialist. I believe in getting all I can out of the operators, and keeping all I get. But if we expect to keep what belongs to us we must get together and organize. We cannot do it under present conditions. Remove the name of McKinley and you have a czar; remove the name “Supreme Court” and you have a star chamber. That is the way things are now. The men who have worked in the mines, who have built the ships that plow the seas, who have created the industries of the Republic, are now lying robbed and plundered. The rich men who own the mines and all of the great industries of the country live in palaces, and their children sleep in beds of luxurious ease, while the men who have made all this possible live in shanties, while their children work all day with hardly enough clothing to cover them, and barely sufficient food to keep the spark of life within their bodies.
Some people may be surprised to hear these statement, but I have seen all these things; I have seen the poor, wan faces of bright children as they marched in the early morning down into the awful mines, and in their eyes I read the judgment the final day of reckoning will accord to those who are their masters. The troops shoot us down, but no power on earth could make us take up arms to kill our fellow-men. We do not believe in murder; we believe in life for all of God’s creatures. We believe that man was created for better purposes, and with God’s help we shall use our endeavors to the end that man may be uplifted to his true station.
The ministers of the churches do not help us as they ought. If we were to ask their help we would not get it. Saloons stand at every corner, but do you see any clubs built for the purpose of dispensing economic knowledge? No. The men who are able to do such things are careful not to give us anything that will help to show the people the way out of their misery.
Should a mother be blamed when she protests against sending her daughter to work in a department store? What sort of a mother do you think a woman would make who has spent all of the best days of her girlhood standing behind a counter? What kind of a man will a boy become who has spent all the hours of his youth in the depths of a mine or in a factory?
There should be a law passed by Congress that no child in the Republic under the age of sixteen years shall be employed at labor. Conditions should be changed so that no man shall be the slave of another. That is the doctrine of socialism, and that is what will eventually occur. The time will come when all of the industries will be owned and operated by the government, just as the postoffice now is, and to this end will I bend all the energies or my life.
After “Mother” Jones had finished a great many pressed forward to grasp her hand.
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[Paragraph breaks added.]
More from Indianapolis Journal of January 29, 1901:
CENTRAL LABOR UNION
—–A LENGTHY AND WELL-ATTENDED
BUSINESS MEETING HELD.
—–[…]
The meeting of Central Labor Union last night was attended by probably more delegates than has any meeting in many months. It is also probable that fewer of the delegates left the hall before the adjournment than at any other meeting in its history. There was nothing of startling interest to require their presence, but there was a general interest which held all. Adjournment was not taken until after 11 o’clock…..
“Mother” Jones, of the mine workers, came in with a number of miner delegates, and she had not been in the room more than five minutes before she was called upon for a talk. She opened with the statement that she started out yesterday morning with a few soiled handkerchief, and after visiting many laundries found there was only one union laundry in the city. This she understood was about to close because of lack of patronage. She urged the members to patronize the union laundry. She talked for about forty minutes and insisted that members of unions were not loyal unless they required in their purchases goods with the union label. She referred to the working classes and their complaints about capitalism, and said they were as a rule not alive to their own interests, as the place to remedy the existing evils was in the election of legislative and executive officers and not by attacking through labor organizations the men and their enactments after casting their ballots for them…..
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From The Indianapolis Journal of January 30, 1901:
BANQUET AND SMOKER.
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The United Mine Workers Enjoy
Themselves at Tomlinson Hall.One of the pleasant closing features of the United Mine Workers convention was a banquet in Tomlinson Hall last night, given to the miners by Central Labor Union. About 1,000 were seated at eight tables running the entire width of the big hall. It was 10 o’clock before the order was given to be seated. The delegates assembled in the galleries before the banquet, and filed into the lower hall from two of the rear doors. The procession was led by President John Feltman, of Central Labor Union. Next to him were “Mother” Jones and Mrs. [T. H.] Symonds, labor editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, who is here attending the convention as correspondent. Next came President Mitchell, of the United Mine Workers, Secretary [William B.] Wilson, Vice President [Thomas L.] Lewis, members of the executive board and the officers of the several districts. They were seated in the center of the hall and then came the miners…..
“Mother” Jones was escorted to the stage while the programme was in progress and delivered an address….
The later part of the programme was carried out by the miners themselves, each State sending representatives to the stage to sing. An orchestra played during the banquet and between the numbers of the programme. The banquet ended by all joining in singing “America” and “Auld Lang Syne.” President Feltman, of Central Labor Union, presided.
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From The Indianapolis Journal of January 31, 1901:
MINERS CONCLUDE WORK
———-CLOSING SESSION OF CONVENTION
HELD YESTERDAY AFTERNOON.
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Amendments to Constitution Adopted
-Delegates Will Go to Meet
the Operators To-Day.
——The United Mine Workers’ convention adjourned yesterday afternoon and a special train will take the delegates to Columbus, O., this morning at 9 o’clock to meet the operators in joint convention and adopt the wage scale for the ensuing year. The session yesterday was taken up in the adoption of the amendments and new constitution. Although the delegates were up late Tuesday night on account of their banquet, all were on hand at the opening of the session and a spirit of liveliness and good humor prevailed during the day.
In the middle of the afternoon the smoking rule that was made effective at the opening of the convention was abolished. “Mother” Jones secured recognition from the chair in the midst of a debate and said, “Mr. President, I believe everyone should have all the enjoyment out of life they can get, and us I know the delegates in this convention would like to smoke, I move you that they be allowed to smoke.” A loud and unanimous second went up from the floor and was followed by a roar of “ayes” when the question was put without debate. No sooner was the anti-smoke rule revoked than the hall resounded by the rapping of pipes on chair rounds and little blue columns of smoke began to make their way toward the celling…..
“Mother” Jones, who has been attending the convention, will not go to the joint conference at Columbus, but instead will leave on an early train this morning for Evansville, where the women textile workers are on strike. She will do what she can to adjust matters…..
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Note: Emphasis added throughout.
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SOURCES
Quote Mother Jones re School for Little Breaker Boys, Ipl Ns p3, Jan 29, 1901
https://www.newspapers.com/image/40112473
The Sunday Journal
(Indianapolis, Indiana)
-Jan 27, 1901
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82015679/1901-01-27/ed-1/seq-8/
The Indianapolis Journal
(Indianapolis, Indiana)
-Jan 29, 1901
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82015679/1901-01-29/ed-1/seq-8
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82015679/1901-01-29/ed-1/seq-6/
-Jan 30, 1901
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82015679/1901-01-30/ed-1/seq-8/
-Jan 31, 1901
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82015679/1901-01-31/ed-1/seq-8/
IMAGE
Mother Jones, at Her Lecture Stand, Detail, Phl Iq p1, Sept 24, 1900
https://www.newspapers.com/image/167226270/
See also:
Jan 29, 1901, Indianapolis News-Mother Jones Speaks on Evils of Child Labor, Parts I & II
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/70338091/jan-29-1901-indianapolis-news-mother/
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/70340002/jan-29-1901-indianapolis-news-mother/
-for names:
President John Feltman, of Central Labor Union
-from Proceedings…Convention of the United Mine Workers of America, 1901
(search: feltman central labor union)
https://books.google.com/books?id=hSotAQAAMAAJ
Mrs. [T. H.] Symonds, labor editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer
– from Report of the Industrial Commission, Vol XIV, 1901
(search: “t. h. symonds”)
https://books.google.com/books?id=3TtAreKhKLMC
Secretary [William B.] Wilson
https://blossburg.org/town-info/william-b-wilson-history/william-b-wilson-secretary-treasurer-of-the-united-mine-workers-of-america/
Vice President [Thomas L.] Lewis
-from Jan 29, 1901, St Louis Globe Democrat MO-Miners to Organize Women w Mother Jones, VP-TL Lewis
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/70363553/jan-29-1901-st-louis-globe-democrat/
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Breaker Boys – Anthony Slick
Breaker Boys Song – Lex Romane