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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday July 12, 1900
Mother Jones News Round-Up for June 1900, Part III
Found Returning to Georges Creek Coal District to Assist Striking Miners
From the Washington Times of June 28, 1900:
WARRANTS FOR STRIKERS.
—–
The Lonaconing Editor’s Assailants
to be Arrested.
CUMBERLAND, June 27.-Warrants have been issued for the arrest of Lonaconing rioters. Joseph J. Robinson, editor of the Lonaconing Star, Robert A. L. Dick, who addressed tho anti-strike meeting; Mayor Thompson and others have made information. It is expected that another batch will be sworn out in the case of the brutal assault on James Stapleton, the roadsman yesterday. The region is being patrolled by union miners and a fresh outbreak is expected at any time. “Mother” Jones, the famous woman agitator, has returned to the region and is lending to the excitement.
Hugh Muir, a prominent resident of Lonaconing and a member of the United Mine Workers, was here yesterday to obtain advice regarding entering a libel suit against one of the strike leaders. The charge grows out of a publication by a strike organization. The organization seems to be divided and is believed by many to be disintegrating.
[Photograph added.]
From Hellraisers Journal of June 29, 1900:
Lonaconing, Maryland
–Mother Jones Stands with Striking Coal MinersFrom the Appeal to Reason of June 23, 1900:
Mother Jones has been doing her usual amount of good work with the coal miners of Lonaconing, Pa [Maryland]. A local paper says in an account of a strike meeting: “Mother Jones was then introduced and proved herself beyond question a remarkable woman. She received liberal applause, and a number of ladies were present to hear her.”
[Drawing and emphasis added.]
From the Washington Times of June 23, 1900:
VIEWS OE MOTHER JONES
—–
Woman Labor Leader Explains Her
Interest in the Cause.BALTIMORE, June 22.-“Mother” Jones, the widely known labor leader, was in Baltimore today in the interest of the striking coal miners of the Georges Creek region. The Federation of Labor is arranging a series of mass meetings for the near future to be addressed by her.
Mrs. Jones does not look like the fiery agitator that she has been described. A motherly, good natured face is lighted by kindly blue eyes and crowned by silver hair. She is evidently over the half-century mark, but is as active as a young girl. “I love my work and it loves me,” she said when her physical vigor was commented upon. She speaks deliberately, with a pleasant voice suggestive of an ancestry to be credited to Ireland, and uses excellent language.
“Why shouldn’t a woman take part in all efforts for the benefit of labor?” she asked in response to a question. ”
Labor is the basis of all society. A woman should surely be interested in her surroundings and her home and do her part to uplift both. When did I begin this work? So many years ago that I have forgotten. I go wherever I think I can be of use. I have taken part in strikes all over the country, and have always urged peaceful methods. All these complex problems will be solved peacefully in time through the molding of public sentiment and the ballot box.
Am I a woman’s suffragist? Well, I have never been identified with the movement or belonged to any organization that was. I think beneficial results have always followed the placing of the ballot in woman’s hands. The excellent labor laws of Australia and New Zealand came only after women began to vote. Colorado, where women vote, is the only State that has taken steps to investigate the labor laws of Australia and New Zealand with a view of adopting them.
A woman becomes no less a woman when she studies social and political conditions and takes part in public affairs. A broadened intellect teaches her to love her home better. Such a woman, as a rule, loves her home and family better than the society woman who hands her children over to hired people to rear.
“Mother” Jones returned to western Maryland today, but will come to Baltimore again next week to make several speeches.
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[Emphasis added.]
From Hellraisers Journal of June 30, 1900:
Georges Creek Coal Region, Maryland
-Mother Jones Organizing Coal MinersFrom Wisconsin’s Kenosha Evening News of June 26, 1900:
MOTHER TO STRIKERS
—–
One of the most conspicuous figures in the strike of the Maryland coal miners is Mrs. Mary Jones, who is popularly known in labor circles as “Mother” Jones. She is an organizer and is apt to be found anywhere in the country during a strike.
“Mother” Jones is a matronly looking old lady of 60, with plump, red cheeks, pleasant blue eyes and abundant white hair.
As a writer,speaker and propagandist for socialistic doctrines, “Mother” Jones has been successful. She has been in reform movements for 20 years, mostly in the west, and for some time has been a newspaper correspondent, but her penchant is a strike, the harder the better. No matter where the trouble comes, there she goes-some way, somehow. She always refuses to take pay for her work and says she does not “help the boys” for what little money she can get.
Four years ago she stumped the state of Georgia for the child labor bill, and she tells some interesting stories about the children between 6 and 10 years working 14 hours a day for about 10 or 15 cents.
She took part in the coal miners strike of 1894, the American Railway union strike, the textile workers’ strike and countless other smaller strikes. When the miners were practically beaten in Arnatt [Arnot] last year, she went and organized the women and children. How she did it no one knows, but for nine months she held those miners together and finally won a settlement. When she left there a few weeks ago, the whole little coal region turned out in a body to see her go. Mrs. Jones says she will not leave the George’s creek coal region until the operators consent to meet the miners.
[Emphasis added.]
From The Baltimore Sun of June 30, 1900:
THE STRIKING MINERS
—–
Mother Jones Will Address Fourth
Of July Meeting.(Special Dispatch to the Baltimore Sun.)
CUMBERLAND, Md., June 29.-Organizers Warner and Haggerty will address a mass-meeting in the Broad Top region Sunday in behalf of the Maryland strikers. The George’s Creek Coal and Iron Company boarded up their Pine Hill mine today and will, it is reliably stated, board up their mine No. 2 tomorrow. Both mines are at Lonaconing. It is stated that the company will discharge their mine bosses, engine-men and other employes that have been at work pending the settlement of the strike. Hugh McMillan, chairman of the miners committee that conferred with President Lord, of the Consolidation Coal Company, has reported to him that it is the wish of the miners, as expressed at the Wright’s Crossing meeting, that he do all in his power to have the other operators meet their men in a similar way.
The miners are arranging for a big Fourth of July celebration at Lonaconing, under the auspices of local Union No. 148, to be held at Knapp’s Meadow. “Mother” Jones and Organizer Warner will deliver addresses.
The miners’ relief fund has received supplies from Bernheimer Bros., and Julius Hines & Son, Baltimore; Schoolfield & Watson, tobacconists, Danville, Va.; Manufacturers’ Tobacco Company, Louisville, Kentucky.
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SOURCES
Quote JA Wayland, Mother Jones, AtR p1, Mar 17, 1900
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/appeal-to-reason/000317-appealtoreason-w224.pdf
The Times
(Washington, District of Columbia)
-June 28, 1900
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85054468/1900-06-28/ed-1/seq-2/
-June 23, 1900
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85054468/1900-06-23/ed-1/seq-3/
Hellraisers Journal of June 29, 1900
Appeal to Reason: Mother Jones Doing Good Work for Striking Coal Miners of Lonaconing
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-June 23, 1900, page 4
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/appeal-to-reason/000623-appealtoreason-w238-DAMAGED.pdf
Hellraisers Journal – June 30, 1900
Mother Jones is “one of the most conspicuous figures in the strike of the Maryland coal miners.”
Kenosha Evening News
(Kenosha, Wisconsin)
-June 26, 1900
https://www.newspapers.com/image/595263678/
The Baltimore Sun
(Baltimore, Maryland)
-June 30, 1900
https://www.newspapers.com/image/365284557
IMAGES
Mother Jones, Atlanta Constitution p9, June 8, 1900
https://www.newspapers.com/image/34091818/
Mother Jones, Kenosha Ns WI p7, June 26, 1900
https://www.newspapers.com/image/595263678/
See also:
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday July 11, 1900
Mother Jones News Round-Up for June 1900, Part II
Fondly Remembered in Birmingham as “Labor’s Joan of Arc”
From the Appeal to Reason of June 30, 1900:
“A Tribute to Mother Jones”
Tag: The Georges Creek MD Coal Strike of 1900
https://weneverforget.org/tag/georges-creek-md-coal-strike-of-1900/
Georges Creek Coalfield -with map
http://www.coalcampusa.com/westmd/george/george.htm
Tag: Arnot Miners Strike of 1899
https://weneverforget.org/tag/arnot-miners-strike-of-1899/
-for more on Life of Mother Jones:
The Autobiography of Mother Jones
CH Kerr, 1925
https://archive.iww.org/history/library/MotherJones/autobiography/
Ninth Annual Report of the Bureau of
Industrial Statistics of Maryland, 1900
Baltimore, 1901
https://books.google.com/books?id=yg8oAAAAYAAJ
Pages 17-55: The George’s Creek Coal Strike
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=yg8oAAAAYAAJ&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA17
Pages 37-39: A Woman Organizer Appears
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=yg8oAAAAYAAJ&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA37
Page 41: “Trouble and Arrests”
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=yg8oAAAAYAAJ&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA41
On June 26 a vicious assault was made on James Stapleton, a mine road man, who was on his way to repair the machinery and tracks in Eckhart Mine which had been damaged by rising water. The assault on Stapleton was a serious one and resulted in keeping the other work men away from the mine who were going to assist in the same work. It was reported that the assault was made by strangers who were in the region.
A number of warrants were taken out for the arrest of the men engaged in the rioting at Lonaconing on Thursday and Friday, June 21 and 22.
On June 27 Organizer Warner, of the United Mine Workers, who had charge of the strike, was arrested on a charge of criminal libel, preferred by Hugh Muir, of Lonaconing, a member of the organization. He (Warner) gave bail in the sum of five hundred dollars and was held for the grand jury. The charge was based on an article in the Mine Workers’ Journal, in which it was alleged that Warner wrote that Muir was a traitor and an enemy of the laborer.
The grand jury for the April term was reconvened in special session for the purpose of investigating the Lonaconing riots.
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Mother Jones, No More Deaths For Dollars
-performed and written by Ed Picford
http://www.ed-pickford.co.uk/motherjonesnomoredeathsfordollars.html