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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday February 17, 1920
-Mother Jones News for January 1920
Found Speaking in Johnstown and Altoona, Pennsylvania
From The Pittsburg Press of January 6, 1920:
‘MOTHER’ JONES TALKS AT JOHNSTOWN TEMPLE
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Special to THE PRESS.
Johnstown, Pa., Jan. 6.-Under police surveillance, “Mother” Jones, aged 90, who admits she labor agitator and who often has been arrested for her utterances and her part in labor troubles, spoke to 300 men, mostly foreigners, at Labor Temple, Sunday. Her audience was largely made up of the remnants of the steel strike organization and she harangued the men as if the steel strike had never been ended. Police were present at the meeting and her statements were considered milder than when she appeared here several months ago.
[Photograph of Mother Jones with William Z. Foster added.]
Note: The Great Steel Strike was officially called off by the National Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel Workers on January 8th.
From the Altoona Times Tribune of January 7, 1920:
Mother Jones Talks To Flood City Men
—–Mother Mary Jones, beloved by the miners of the country and the union workers of Colorado, comes to the Mishler theater Sunday afternoon to address the members of the craft unions of the city. She was the guest of the workers of Johnstown on Sunday afternoon and delivered an address in the Labor temple.
Mother Jones is most democratic and her aim in life is to make the workers comfortable. After being introduced to some 600 workers of the Flood City she won their hearts right off the reel by saying “If smoking gives you boys any comfort, keep right on smoking.” She then invited a squad of policemen to the stage but not one of them accepted but when she had finished several of them shook hands and congratulated her.
Her visit to Johnstown was to talk about unionism, strikes, Reds, America and Americanism. She said that America was her home, that she owns a share of stock in every state and that she is related to Uncle Sam. She said that she was shortly going back to Colorado, was going by way of Washington, that she always went that way to let them know down there where she was going and what she was going for. She told of her experience in Colorado, that once she had been taken out of the state by order of the governor and that she returned to the Colorado capital, that she camped within four blocks of the state house and called up the governor on the phone and asked him what he was going to do about it. She stated that the boys out there are in trouble again, that a hundred million dollar Christmas gift by Rockefeller, “one-half for Jesus and the other half for the school teachers” she declared had not made Colorado safe for democracy. The money for the teachers, she declared, was to get the teachers to hypnotize the children so they would love the capitalists.
She emphatically emphasized a statement
America is as dear to me as anyone. This flag was not bought by money of trusts. The trusts did not fight for it. It was bought by the blood of men and we made the first stripe red as the symbol of the blood of freemen. I’ll watch this flag to see that Gary and his gang don’t steal it. The brute force of dollars is going to be eliminated so that we can save the country and the world. We want to take your children out of the slave pen for the benefit of the nation.
She related her experiences in Pittsburg and vicinity, in West Virginia and then concluded by commenting on the troubles of the present day. She said that America was never in so dangerous a position as at the present time. Out of the military warfare she said came the industrial conflict of today.
You can’t stop it, the courts can’t stop it, the military can’t stop it. It’s the electricity of the age.
In closing she said
Don’t be afraid of anything, but obey the law and for God’s sake elect men to office to represent America.
From the Altoona Times Tribune of January 10, 1920:
From Hellraisers Journal of January 14, 1920
-Altoona, Pennsylvania – Mother Jones Speaks at Mishler Theater, Part I:
[From the Altoona Times Tribune of January 12, 1920:]
Mother Jones Elucidates Theories To Altoona Audience
[Part I of II.]
Yesterday afternoon shortly after 2:30 o’clock, the crowd of workingmen and their women folks who had assembled at the Mishler theatre, were given the privilege of seeing Mother Jones in the flesh and of hearing her speak. At that moment there appeared upon the platform a silver haired motherly looking woman in black, wearing a flowing white lace jabot. Looking on her self-composed, benign countenance, the wonder struck one. Is this the Mother Jones who has created a furore in the whole world, whose impassioned waging of her cause for full economical rights of the working man has caused kings of finance to tremble in fear and who by her own admission says she wants “to raise Hell”?
But a second glance at that sturdy upright figure and one recognized a presence that radiates a dynamic force and vitality which gives the impression that it could conquer all obstacles no matter how great. Her strength and power in look and speech bely that 90th mile stone, which she said would reach May 1 of 1920, by many years…..
REMEDY FOR THE DISEASE
With voice ringing out in stentorian notes, Mother Jones exhorted,
Don’t you see how spontaneous the spark is; how essential it is? It is a disease that is gnawing at the vitals of economics systems. You must provide the remedy by removing the cause of disease-remove it by force of law; not by law of force. You working men have the power if you are Americans. Put the pirates out of business; if that won’t do put them in jail.
There’s a light breaking, the Star that rose in Bethlehem is lighting the world. We here in America have the blood of revolution flowing in our veins. The powers of greed can not crush us in spite of the institutions of capitalism, in spite of tyranny.
STEEL’S HAND RULES
J. Pierpont Morgan is head of the steel trust, Elbert H. Gary is only his spokesman. In 1901 the steel trust acquired 160 acres of land and organized the steel trust with a valuation of $150,000,000. Today it is worth $2,751,617,000. The workers have been robbed of that. They own the press, the pulpit, every avenue of communication. But it is a dangerous thing to be a lion that kings it over all. All nations, all men of power have gone down when wealth was in the hands of a few. With this truth in mind I am made to say. “O, America, America! You that have been bought with the blood of men who for eight years waged a pitifully unequal war against a powerfully equipped army!”
Mother Jones, interrupted her address to remark for the benefit of the secret service men, if there were any in the house,
I love America. I love the flag that was bought with the blood of men 150 years ago better than the steel trust and I am going to fight for it.
She also asserted that she wasn’t a bit afraid of jail and that when she is put behind the bars, as is her experience once in a while, she looks out at the robbers and takes the time to rest and think…..
THE STRIKE IN JOHNSTOWN
[Continued Mother Jones:]
In Johnstown, the steel trust wanted to form a Rockefeller union and a McKenzie King union. They brought a guy from Canada to show the men how it ought to be done just as if the men here didn’t know anything. But they didn’t get it done. Instead or having McKenzie King to represent them, the workmen elected Conboy and Foster to head them and the trust didn’t get its union in the steel industry. That was one thing the steel strike accomplished.
In working this thing out, some of us may go to jail, but what of that? We built the jails, they’re ours. But when we get sense enough we will put Rockefeller, Morgan and those fellows in jail.
At this point Mother Jones read a letter from one of the union men in Colorado telling of the progress of the working men’s movement there.
HELL IN CANADA
Stating that she had been to Canada, Mother Jones remarked that she didn’t go there like “you fellows who chew scab tobacco and play poler. When I go I raise Hell.” She declared she did not want any one to fall in love with her, that was not why she was on the platform.
[She declared:]
I am out to fight, and we can’t very well strike one we love.
[She continued:]
When laws are put on the statute books, they must be obeyed. We can’t disobey laws. Get together in the economical field and put the objectionable laws off the books by the ballot.
[…..]
FOR A NORMAL PULSE
They obeyed her behest to go quietly to their homes and for four consecutive nights they congregated and dispersed to the utmost astonishment of everybody. She asserted that
Uncle Sam is all right. The most dangerous thing you have to face is cheap office holders. The pulse of the nation is at fever heat and you must get it back to normal.
You must remove the cause of the disease and social unrest and revolution will take care of themselves. Deportation won’t settle it; imprisonment won’t settle it. Get together, obey the laws of the country, but if you don’t forestall it you will have to face the worst condition in history. Out of the military conflict has come the economic conflict and you can’t crush it.
[…..]
Drastically she said,
You opened wide the gates of immigration and when the stream of foreigners flowed in, you had no schools to educate them in American institutions. You brought the to this hell hole and worked them 12 and 14 hours a day and on their bones built fine churches and Y. M. C. A.’s. The best of the human instincts are dead and the dollar rules.
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From Hellraisers Journal of January 15, 1920
-Altoona, Pennsylvania – Mother Jones Speaks at Mishler Theater, Part II:
[From the Altoona Times Tribune of January 12, 1920:]
Mother Jones Elucidates Theories To Altoona Audience
[Part II of II.]
OVERWORK AND UNDERPAY
She scored the conditions which permit men and women to be overworked and underpaid and results in riots and strikes when women and children are shot by brutes. Under her own personal observation at a time like this in the south, she said, was a case of a woman run down by mounted police who gave birth to a child as she was being taken to the morgue.
[She passionately declared:]
You have no Christianity. If you had conditions like this would not exist.
[…..]
BRUTALITY COVERED UP
[She cried:]
We want to give America a well fed humanity, intellectually, morally and physically. If the ministers do not wake up they will be thrown on a scrap heap.
At this point she derided the idea of saying “Your honor” to the governor of a state, who has permitted the murder of women and children in industrial uprisings…..
Very affectingly she recited the story of a woman whose little son was born at 11 o’clock at night and, through her desire to educate her children and in order to ameliorate their condition, got up at 4 o’clock the next morning to cook breakfast for a dozen men who boarded at her home. Helen Gould, the speaker asserted, carried on her philanthropic work by means of suffering such as that.
JUSTICE, NOT CHARITY
[She cried:]
Why don’t the churches rise as Christ arose? Why don’t you women rise? Not as suffragettes, temperance workers or charity workers. We don’t want charity; we want justice.
[…..]
ADMITTED SHE’S RADICAL
Declaring she was a radical, Mother Jones asseverated that Columbus, Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Lloyd Garrison were radicals. The coming ages will be ashamed of the today, when the nation was degraded with dollars.
If you women were true to the nation, you would follow the example of the women of Faneuil hall and bid the tyrannists, “Shoot now, we don’t believe in the slavery of dollars.”
[…..]
[Her plea to the women in the audience was:]
Women, clean house in the nation as you do in the home.
[And she declared:]
We can controvert the robbers; we can starve them, freeze them…..
[Her prophetic asseveration was:]
I see the clouds of darkness passing away in the dawn of a better day, when the homes and schools will approach the ideal and noble motherhood will sing lullabies and caress her babe without fear; when there will be no need of policemen and gunmen. I see the sun rising. I feel that I have not lived in vain.
AGITATORS, RED
If you are an agitator, you are a Red. I am just as red as God can make me. I have not had time to study Bolshevism, but if Bolshevism is what they say it is, let us have Bolshevism. On every side there is a warning cry-a cry in the night. We are standing on the threshold of a great change.
Pointing out the terrible living conditions that came under her observation in different industrial communities, she reiterated that:
[T]he history of the labor movement of the world has has never been written. It has never been touched by human pen. When the writer attempts to put down a tythe of the struggle, the patience, the submission of the working class of America, the world will stand aghast. It’s up to you; it’s up to me.
You may think I’m a little radical. I am. I have nothing to hide. Our forefathers said to the Europeans, “You oppressed, come over here where we are the sovereigns.” In Europe the king is the sovereign, but in this country the president, the supreme court and congress, are not the sovereigns, they are the servants of the people and it is time that you let them know it…..
[She continued:]
Each of us will have to make our neighbors wrongs our own. Go to your union and discuss these wrongs and don’t fight each other…..
[This was her closing sentence:]
I want this nation to have big men, big women, well cared for, intellectually, morally and physically, and that is my work…..
Note: emphasis added throughout.
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SOURCES
The Pittsburg Press
(Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
-Jan 6, 1920
https://www.newspapers.com/image/141356897/
The Great Steel Strike and Its Lessons
-by William Z. Foster
B. W. Huebsch, Incorporated, 1920
https://books.google.com/books?id=Hbt-AAAAMAAJ
Strike called off January 8, 1920:
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=Hbt-AAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA192
Altoona Times Tribune
“Blair County Labor News
-Organ of County Central Labor Union”
(Altoona, Pennsylvania)
-Jan 7, 1920
https://www.newspapers.com/image/55394348/
-Jan 10, 1920
https://www.newspapers.com/image/55394717/
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday January 14, 1920
Altoona, Pennsylvania – Mother Jones Speaks at Mishler Theater, Part I
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday January 15, 1920
Altoona, Pennsylvania – Mother Jones Speaks at Mishler Theater, Part II
IMAGE
GSS, Mother Jones, WZF, Survey p64, Nov 8, 1919
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=MoEbAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA64
See also:
Hellraisers Journal – Friday January 16, 1920
-Mother Jones News for December 1919
Found Lambasting Judge Gary and Standing with Striking Steel Workers
“I hope that when I die, that I will not go where Judge Gary will be.”
Tag: Great Steel Strike of 1919
https://weneverforget.org/tag/great-steel-strike-of-1919/
Note: Mother Jones described the defeat of the Great Steel Strike:
The Autobiography of Mother Jones
Charles Kerr, 1925
Chapter 24 – The Steel Strike of 1919
https://www.iww.org/history/library/MotherJones/autobiography/24
The strike was broken. Broken by the scabs brought in under the protection of the troops. Broken by breaking men’s belief in the outcome of their struggle. Broken by breaking men’s hearts. Broken by the press, by the government. In a little over a hundred days, the strike shivered to pieces.
The slaves went back to the furnaces, to the mills; to the heat and the roar, to the long hours–to slavery.
At headquarters men wept. I wept with them. A young man put his hands on my shoulders.
“Mother,” he sobbed. “It’s over.”
A red glare from the mills lighted the sky. It made me think of Hell.
“Lad,” said I, “it is not over. There’s a fiercer light than those hell fires over yonder! It is the white light of freedom burning in men’s hearts!”
Back to the mills trudged the men, accepting the terms of the despot, Gary; accepting hours that made them old, old men at forty; that threw them on the scrap heap, along with the slag from the mills, at early middle age; that made of them nothing but brutes that slept and worked, that worked and slept. The sound of their feet marching back into the mills was the sound of a funeral procession, and the corpse they followed was part of their selves. It was their hope.
Gary and his gang celebrated the victory with banquets and rejoicing. Three hundred thousand workers, living below the living wage, ate the bread of bitterness.
I say, as I said in the town of Gary, it is the damn gang of robbers and their band of political thieves who will start the next American Revolution; just as it was they who started this strike. Fifty thousand American lads died on the battle fields of Europe that the world might be more democratic. Their buddies came home and fought the American workingman when he protested an autocracy beyond the dream of the Kaiser. Had these same soldiers helped the steel workers, we could have given Gary, Morgan and his gang a free pass to hell. All the world’s history has produced no more brutal and savage times than these, and this nation will perish if we do not change these conditions.
Christ himself would agitate against them. He would agitate against the plutocrats and hypocrites who tell the workers to go down on their knees and get right with God. Christ, the carpenter’s son, would tell them to stand up on their feet and fight for righteousness and justice on the earth.
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They’ll Never Keep Us Down – Hazel Dickens