powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
Hellraisers Journal, Thursday February 14, 1907
Mother Jones News for January: Campaigns for Idaho Prisoners
Mother Jones began the month of January in the city of Chicago where she spoke on behalf of the leaders of the Western Federation of Miners imprisoned in Idaho.
From The Public of January 12, 1907:
NEWS NOTES
— Mother Jones addressed a large meeting in Chicago on the 4th in behalf of the labor leaders of Colorado who are about to be tried in Idaho for the murder of ex-Governor Steunenberg.
The January 17th edition of The Evening Statesman of Walla Walla, Washington, carried the following article regarding the election of William B. Wilson to the U. S. House of Representatives. Wilson is the Secretary-Treasure of the United Mine Workers of America and a close friend of Mother Jones.
LAWYERS IN LEAD
—–OCCUPATIONS OF MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
OF THE UNITED STATES.
—–
Not Many Workingmen or Trades-men at
Washington to Represent the People-
A Comparison With European Parliaments.
The congress of the United States is composed for the most part of what Americans call “eminent citizens.” As a general rule, a senator or member of the house of representatives in this republic has a considerable business or professional standing, if not also wealth and social position. In this respect the American congress differs from some of the parliamentary bodies of Europe…The legislature of the American republic does not represent in its membership as wide a variety of occupations as do some of the parliamentary bodies of monarchical countries…
In America the theory is that laws should be made by lawyers, and consequently of the 388 members of the house of representatives, for example, 249 belong to the legal profession…
Those elected as the special representatives of organized labor are not numerous, though the next house will have at least one such member in the person of William B. Wilson, secretary-treasure of the United Mine Workers of America, who was chosen to the Sixtieth congress from Pennsylvania at the election in November. Much of his life has been spent either as an actual miner or as an organizer of miners…
[Emphasis added.]
———-
In speech given on January 25, 1901, before the Convention of the United Mine Workers of America, held in Indianapolis, Indiana, Mother paid tribute to William B. Wilson:
Sitting here on my left, as Mr. Mitchell is on my right, is one near my heart. In the great conflict we passed through last year for three long months not a dollar came into the home for his wife and children. He walked in highways with his feet out through his shoes while he was fighting labor’s battles; and when the Erie Company could not back him down in any other way they thought to buy him. They went to him with their offers. He said to them, “Gentlemen, if you have come to pay me a friendly visit you can have the hospitality of my house; but if you came to ask me to sell my fellow men, there is the door.” That man was W. B. Wilson. I stand here to shake hands with such men; I thank God such men are here. I thank God that you fellows have such men at the helm. Where they are I have no fear of the future.
From Missouri’s Farmington Times of January 25, 1907:
The Labor-Herald announces that Mother Jones will visit the Lead Belt on the following dates: Doe Run, Feb. 2 and 3; Mine La Motte, Feb. 4; Farmington, Feb. 5; Elvins, Feb. 6; Flat River, Feb. 7 and 8; Desloge, Feb 9; Bonne Terre, Feb. 10; Leadwood, Feb. 11; Herculaneum, Feb. 12. These meetings will be held in behalf of the imprisoned comrades and brothers in Idaho. Socialists and union men please make arrangements for hall for speaker.
———-
Hellraisers Journal of January 26, 1907, republished a letter, written by Mother Jones and sent to Mrs. Potter Palmer, Chicago socialite. The letter had been previously published in the January 24th edition of Miners’ Magazine, official organ of the Western Federation of Miners. The letter stated in part:
Dear Madam:
By the announcement of the daily press I learn that you are to entertain a number of persons who are to be present as representatives of two recognized classes of American citizens-the working class and the capitalist class, and that the purpose of this gathering is to choose a common ground on which the conflicting interests of these two classes may be harmonized and the present strife between the organized forces of these two classes may be brought to a peaceful and satisfactory end.
I credit you with perfect sincerity in this matter, but being fully aware that your environment and whole life has prevented you from seeing and understanding the true relationship of these two classes in this republic and the nature of the conflict which you think can be ended by such means as you are so prominently associated with, and with a desire that you may see and understand it in all its grim reality, I respectfully submit these few personal experiences for your kind consideration….
I was at Stanford Mountain, W. Va., in 1903 where seven of my brother workers were shot dead while asleep in their little shanties by the same forces.
I was in Colorado at the bull pens in which men, women and children were enclosed by the same forces, directed by that instrument of the capitalist class recently promoted by President Roosevelt, General Bell, who achieved some fame for his declaration that “in place of Habeas Corpus” he would give them “Post Mortems.”
The same forces put me, an inoffensive old woman, in jail in West Virginia in 1902. They dragged me out of bed in Colorado in March, 1904, and marched me at the point of fixed bayonets to the border line of Kansas in the night-time. The same force took me from the streets of Price, Utah, in 1904, and put me in jail. They did this to me in my old age, though I have never violated the law of the land, never been tried by a court on any charge but once, and that was for speaking to my fellow workers, and then I was discharged by the federal court whose injunction I was charged with violating.
The capitalist class, whose representatives you will entertain, did this to me, and these other lawless acts have and are being committed every hour by this same class all over this land, and this they will continue to do till the working-class send their representatives into the legislative halls of this nation and by law take away the power of this capitalist class to rob and oppress the workers….
From The Worker of January 26, 1907:
PARTY NEWS.
National.[…]
Local Globe, Ariz., reports having adopted drastic resolutions condemning the Colorado-Idaho capitalist conspiracy, and that they are preparing for a monster protest meeting on Feb. 17, the anniversary of the kidnapping of Comrades Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone. Mother Jones will be one of the speakers, and efforts are being made to secure Comrades Debs and O’Neill [editor of Miners’ Magazine.]…
SOURCES
The Public, Volume 9
Public Publishing Company, Chicago
April 7, 1906 – March 30, 1907
https://books.google.com/books?id=RDIfAQAAMAAJ
The Public of Jan 12, 1907
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=RDIfAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&source=gbs_atb&pg=GBS.PA961-IA8
“News Notes”…”Mother Jones addressed…”
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=RDIfAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&source=gbs_atb&pg=GBS.PA970
The Evening Statesman
(Walla Walla, Washington)
-Jan 17, 1907
(Also source for image of W. B. Wilson.)
https://www.newspapers.com/image/194790182/
The Speeches and Writings of Mother Jones
-ed by Edward M. Steel
University of Pittsburgh Press, 1988
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/797452.The_Speeches_and_Writings_of_Mother_Jones
The Farmington Times
(Farmington, St Francois County, Missouri)
-Jan 25, 1907
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn89066996/1907-01-25/ed-1/seq-1/
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/
The Worker
“An Organ of the Socialist Party [SPA]”
(New York, New York)
-Jan 26, 1907, page 5
http://www.genealogybank.com/
IMAGE
Mother Jones, Mar 11, 1905, AtR
http://www.newspapers.com/image/66992169/
See also:
For more on Mother Jones and the Haywood-Moyer-Pettibone Case see:
Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America
-by Elliott J. Gorn
(search with: haywood; choose pages 152-154)
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015
https://books.google.com/books?id=9gRpCAAAQBAJ
William B Wilson
http://www.blossburg.org/town-info/william-b-wilson-history/
Secretary-Treasurer of UMWA
http://www.blossburg.org/town-info/william-b-wilson-history/william-b-wilson-secretary-treasurer-of-the-united-mine-workers-of-america/
Member of Congress
http://www.blossburg.org/town-info/william-b-wilson-history/william-b-wilson-congress/
For more on John M. O’Neill as editor of Miners’ Magazine:
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=wq03AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&source=gbs_atb&pg=GBS.PA176
For more on the attempt to bribe William B. Wilson:
The Autobiography of Mother Jones
C. H. Kerr, 1925
From Chapter V.
https://iww.org/history/library/MotherJones/autobiography/5
After months of terrible hardships the strike was about won. The mines were not working. The spirit of the men was splendid. President Wilson had come home from the western part of the state. I was staying at his home. The family had gone to bed. We sat up late talking over matters when there came a knock at the door. A very cautious knock.
“Come in,” said Mr. Wilson.
Three men entered. They looked at me uneasily and Mr. Wilson asked me to step in an adjoining room. They talked the strike over and called President [Secretary-Treasurer] Wilson’s attention to the fact that there were mortgages on his little home, held by the bank which was owned by the coal company, and they said, “We will take the mortgage off your home and give you $25,000 in cash if you will just leave and let the strike die out.”
I shall never forget his reply:
“Gentlemen, if you come to visit my family, the hospitality of the whole house is yours. But if you come to bribe me with dollars to betray my manhood and my brothers who trust me, I want you to leave this door and never come here again.”
The strike lasted a few weeks longer. Meantime President Wilson, when strikers were evicted, cleaned out his barn and took care of the evicted miners until homes could be provided. One by one he killed his chickens and his hogs. Everything that he had he shared. He ate dry bread and drank chicory. He knew every hardship that the rank and file of the organization knew. We do not have such leaders now.