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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday July 19, 1911
Mother Jones News Round-Up for June 1911, Part I
Found with “Characteristic Style” at Rally on Behalf of McNamaras
From the Appeal to Reason of June 3, 1911:
Solidarity at Pittsburg.
[Mother Jones Speaks.]By Telegraph to APPEAL.
Pittsburg. Pa., May 27.-The most tremendous labor demonstration Pittsburg ever saw occurred tonight. Thirty thousand indignant working men and women marched through the principal streets in protest against the kidnaping of McNamara, congregated at west side and yelled themselves hoarse at every telling point made by the speakers. Hundreds of policemen guarded the streets in squads and mingled with the monster crowd.
Socialists, Industrial Workers and craft unionists were thoroughly united on this occasion and all made the very earth tremble with their yells of defiance. The spirit of solidarity prevailed as it has never been known to prevail before, and Pittsburg is alive to its power. The echo will be heard in the morning to the cell doors of the victims in Los Angeles and to every nook and corner of America. Capitalists will realize once again that they have to deal with an aroused and awakened class. The chant was started tonight by Comrade Debs that was used in the Moyer-Haywood case “If McNamara die, twenty million working men will know the reason why.”
The first speaker of the evening was Comrade Fred H. Merrick, who is under indictment for libeling a Judge here in Pittsburg. Debs followed, and not only described the McNamara case in detail, but also analyzed the Pennsylvania strike and reviewed the great strike of the Pennsylvania railroad employes. His force and eloquence inspired the multitude and something will drop if the enthusiasm of the crowd was an indication.
Mother Jones in characteristic style appealed to the assemblage to be men and stand together, both on the political and economic field. De Leon, of New York, also spoke.
GEORGE D. BREWER.
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[Photograph added.]
From Westmoreland County’s Ligonier Echo of June 7, 1911:
Mother Jones Here.
Mother Jones, an old woman who goes from place to place and make speeches in favor of the striking miners, was in town Tuesday of last week. She wanted to talk from the music pavilion on the Diamond park but Burges Blair refused to permit her. She then went out the state road toward Oak Grove and delivered her talk near the borough line. She proceeded to play the burgess, Justices of the peace and other officials and everybody not in sympathy with the strikers. She is about 75 years old but a vigorous and caustic talker.
From the Black Hills Daily Register of June 9, 1911:
There was a great demonstration in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, last week to protest against the kidnapping of the McNamara brothers. More than 6,000 members of organized labor paraded the streets, and when Eugene V. Debs and “Mother” Jones, the speakers of the evening, stood on the rostrum of the labor temple they faced a sea of humanity that was gathered to voice their indignation against the blood-hounds of a detective agency that were permitted to snatch men from their homes and families, without regard to their legal rights or constitutional liberties. Every city and town in the United States should follow the example of Pittsburg, as such demonstrations and meetings will give capitalism to understand that labor cannot be nailed to the cross and capitalism escape with impunity.-Miners’ Magazine.
Note: Emphasis added throughout.
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SOURCES
Quote Mother Jones, Powers of Privilege ed, Ab Chp III
https://www.iww.org/history/library/MotherJones/autobiography/3
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-June 3, 1911
https://www.newspapers.com/image/66983587/
The Ligonier Echo
(Ligonier, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania)
-June 7, 1911
https://www.newspapers.com/image/346699685/
Black Hills Daily Register
“Official Organ District Miners’ Union No. 2, W. F. M.”
(Lead, South Dakota)
-June 9, 1911
https://www.newspapers.com/image/91615631/
IMAGE
Mother Jones crpd ed, WDC Tx p5, June 18, 1910
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026749/1910-06-18/ed-1/seq-5/
See also:
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for May 1911:
Found in Pittsburgh Speaking at Huge Protest Rally on Behalf of McNamara
Tag: Westmoreland County Coal Strike of 1910–11
https://weneverforget.org/tag/westmoreland-county-coal-strike-of-1910-11/
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Hold the Fort – Monsieur Jack