You, the wives of the strikers,
ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
Hellraisers Journal, Thursday November 9, 1916
Mother Jones News Round-Up for month of October, 1916
During the month of October, Mother was first found in New York City advising the wives of the street car strikers to put on their fighting clothes and go out and raise hell. Her words greatly shocked the kept press, the same press which is never much shocked whenever workers are killed on the job, or beaten, shot, and otherwise brutalized on the picket line by the powers-that-be.
Mother was next found in Illinois and Kentucky campaigning for the re-election of President Wilson and Senator Kern. She was sent into the region by the United Mine Workers of America to speak to the miners and other working men.
From Hellraisers Journal of Friday October 6, 1916;
New York, New York–Mother Jones on Scene of Turbulent Strike
Mother Jones arrived in New York City on Tuesday evening to assist the striking street carmen who are now threatened with the importation of scabs. At noon on Wednesday, she spoke to the strikers at Lyceum hall. According to The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, she said, in part:
Boys, I have come to New York to help you win your fight for better homes, to win more time in them and more comfort in them. You’ve been working here for 25 cents an hour for a lot of high class burglars who reward you if you are good boys by giving you another cent and hour. A lot of good a cent will do you.
O, boys, boys, there are so many of you and so few of the high class burglars. Get together and you can lick —- out of them. You can do it without the women but to make sure, have the women with you.
From Hellraisers Journal of Saturday October 7, 1916:
New York, New York–Mother Jones Speaks, Blamed for “Riot”
On Thursday October 5th, Mother Jones spoke to the wives of the striking street carmen of New York City. She spoke at Mozart Hall where she told the women:
You, the wives of the strikers, ought to be out raising hell. This is the fight age. Put on your fighting clothes.
A few women left the hall and attacked one of the surface cars of the New York Railways Company resulting in a few arrests. This was termed a “riot” in blaring headlines from The New York Times and others of the kept press.
The Address of Mother Jones
During her speech at Mozart Hall, Mother spoke of the lives of the street car workers and the effect of the long hours of labor upon family life. She advised the women to stop being “sentimental” and to put on their “fighting clothes.”
I know something of what life is like for street car workers. I have talked to men who work on the cars from one end of the country to the next and I know how terribly exploited they are. But none are more exploited than the carmen in this, the leading city of the United States. You know and I know that your husbands have to work seven days a week with no provisions for days off; that their basic work day consists of ten hour time actually spent on a car run, but that it frequently takes 15 hours of working time to receive their ten hours pay. No provision exists for any overtime pay. It is not unusual, as you know, for your husbands to spend upwards of 80 hours a week on the cars. The car runs are frequently not consecutive but are split by three-or four hour breaks. When do your husbands have time for you and your children? The church and the press are worried about families breaking up, but when the workers go on strike to have the time to keep their families together, these same lackeys of the employers denounce them for doing so. And on top of this, the wages your husbands bring home for the longest work week of any car workers in the country are the lowest earned by men in this trade anywhere.
From Hellraisers Journal of Sunday October 8, 1916:
New York, New York–Mother Jones Blamed for Thursday’s “Riot”
When a few of the wives of striking street carmen, out of the 500 in attendance Thursday afternoon at Mozart Hall, left the meeting and proceeded to attack a scab-run railway car, the kept press of New York City decided that this constituted a “riot” and put the blame for the disturbance on the “wild talk” of Mother Jones. There will be no apology forthcoming from Mother Jones who told reporters yesterday:
Let the working women realize what they can do and they will join with the men, and industrial troubles will soon be over.
From the New York Evening World of October 6, 1916:
WOMEN THE WORST
THE rioting women responsible for the disgraceful scenes at Eighty-sixth Street and Third Avenue yesterday afternoon furnish an example of the peculiar danger of letting professional agitators practice upon female audiences.
Even the most militant male advocates have failed to incite the striking car men to any such concerted acts of violence as those indulged in by these hundreds of women after listening to wild talk from Mother Jones.
Women are more easily persuaded to riot and revolution than men. Respect for law restrains them less, and beyond a certain pitch of excitement fear of consequences restrains them not at all.
From Hellraisers Journal of Thursday October 19, 1916:
Moline, Illinois–Mother Jones Speaks and Encourages Illegal Street Music
From The Monmouth Daily Atlas of October 17, 1916:
MOTHER JONES HAS A GOOD TIME
IN MOLINE
—–Moline, Oct. 17. – “Mother” Jones needs music to start off her meetings.
Mayor Martin T. Carlson of Moline Saturday refused to issue a permit for a band to play Sunday afternoon on the streets but “Mother” Jones told the boys to go ahead. There was a musical program on the streets before the meeting and at a late hour this afternoon, city officials had taken no notice of the disregard to the mayor’s order.
The meeting at the Moline theater was a monster one and “Mother” Jones delivered one of her dynamic talks touching on several phases of modern life, touching political religious, civic and individual questions of the hour.
—–
[Photograph added.]
Mother Jones Interviewed by The Davenport News:
LABOR LEADER SCORES HUGHES, BOOSTS WILSON
—–
‘Mother’ Jones, National Celebrity,
in Davenport for Short Time.
Decries Past Conditions.
—–
Says U. S. Home of Nation of ‘Dollar Hogs’
Holding Down Toilers.
From The Courier-Journal of October 19, 1916:
“MOTHER JONES” URGES SUPPORT FOR WILSON
—–
ADDRESSES TWO IMMENSE GATHERINGS
AT CENTRAL CITY-SCORES HUGHES.
—–Special to The Courier-Journal.
Central City, Ky., Oct. 18.-Speaking to two immense crowds here, Mrs. Mary Jones, known throughout the United States as “Mother Jones,” champion of organized labor, told her hearers to go to the polls election day and
vote for the man who freed the little children and gave the railroad men an eight-hour day.
She said she was a member of neither of the old parties and was not traveling under auspices of any party, yet the time was at hand when all laboring men and others should strip themselves of prejudice and re-elect the only man who, as President, had done everything for the toilers of the nation. She condemned Hughes and Roosevelt and characterized them as the representatives of the plutocrats. She also paid her respects to the Hughes ladies’ special [the so-called “Golden Special”].
—–
[Photograph of President Wilson added to article is from page one of this issue of Courier-Journal.]
Note: The photograph caption reads:”President Wilson is shown above in a characteristic attitude responding to the ovations which have been showered upon him every time he has made a trip away from Shadow Lawn, the summer White House.”
From The Cincinnati Enquirer of October 22, 1916:
Speaking of feminine activities, Mother Jones, champion of organized labor, is in Kentucky speaking to the miners and other toilers in behalf of President Wilson. She is condemning Hughes and Roosevelt and is picturing them as representatives of the money kings. Her advice to the workers is
vote for the man who freed the little children and gave the railroad men an eight-hour day.
From the Decatur Daily Review of October 31, 1916:
Edward Carbine Visits Decatur.
Edward Carbine, second vice president of the Illinois Federation of Labor, was in Decatur Monday night, leaving early Tuesday morning. He was just returning from southern Illinois coal fields, where, with “Mother” Jones, he had been conducting a campaign for the Democratic administration.
Carbine left a bunch of official bulletins issued by the state officers of the federation and signed by the members of the executive board to be sent to all union labor officials. The bulletin attacks Hughes and Lowden as enemies of labor.
—–
SOURCES
HJ Oct 6, 1916
Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Arrives in New York City to Assist Street Car Strikers
https://weneverforget.org/hellraisers-journal-mother-jones-arrives-in-new-york-city-to-assist-street-car-strikers/
HJ Oct 7, 1916
Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones to Wives of New York Carmen: “You ought to be out raising hell!”
https://weneverforget.org/hellraisers-journal-mother-jones-to-wives-of-new-york-carmen-you-ought-to-be-out-raising-hell/
HJ Oct 8, 1916
Hellraisers Journal: “Women The Worst” -Easily Led by Mother Jones to “Riot and Revolution”
https://weneverforget.org/hellraisers-journal-women-the-worst-easily-led-by-mother-jones-to-riot-and-revolution/
HJ Oct 19, 1916
Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones: “The United States has become the home of a race of dollar hogs.”
https://weneverforget.org/hellraisers-journal-mother-jones-the-united-states-has-become-the-home-of-a-race-of-dollar-hogs/
The Courier-Journal
(Louisville, Kentucky)
-Oct 19, 1916
https://www.newspapers.com/image/119253516/
The Cincinnati Enquirer
(Cincinnati, Ohio)
-Oct 22, 1916
https://www.newspapers.com/image/34463004/
The Daily Review
(Decatur, Illinois)
-Oct 31, 1916
https://www.newspapers.com/image/7252410/
IMAGES
UMWJ, Feb 10, 1916, Cover, Mother Jones, TVP, Pres White
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=NQpQAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&source=gbs_atb&pg=GBS.RA11-PA1
Mother Mary Harris Jones, Decatur Herald IL, May 14, 1916
https://www.newspapers.com/image/87746467/
Wilson Waving, Cr-Jr, Louisville KY, Oct 19, 1916
https://www.newspapers.com/image/119253358/
See also:
Regarding “the Hughes ladies’ special”
-here Mother is referring to the so-called “Golden Special:”
https://archive.org/stream/californiahistor65cali#page/92/mode/2up
Mother Jones, the Socialist Party,
and the Elections of 1916
Oct 26, 1916-Letter from Marguerite Prevey:
Akron, Ohio,
Oct 26th 1916Dear “Mother Jones”
We have been informed that you are campaigning for the Democrat Party in the 5th Indiana Dist.-the District from which the Socialists expect to elect Debs. I should be pleased to have you either deny or verify this report.
I can hardly believe you would use what influence you have with the workers to defeat Comrade Debs for Congress.
Sincerely yours
Marguerite Prevey
In 1916, Mother Jones was no longer a member of the Socialist Party of America, and, therefore, she did not owe Mrs. Prevey, nor any other member of the SPA, any explanation regarding whichever candidate she chose to support. Nevertheless, Mother Jones did respond to Mrs. Prevey’s demand for an explanation:
Oct 31, 1916
Mrs. Margaret Prevy,
140 High St.
Akron, Ohio.
My dear Mrs. Prevy:Your letter reached me yesterday. Permit me to say to you that whoever wrote you the falsehood should take a day off and learn to tell the truth. I went in to the mining districts of Indiana to have Senator Kerns returned to the Senate, because he saved me from serving five years in the state penitentiary of West Virginia with twenty-one of my fellows, I think the miners of this country owe him a debt that they should pay by returning him to the Senate. If we did not do it we would be ingrates. No political party in this nation ever paid me five cents. I was not there in the interest of any political party. I was sent there by the United Mine Workers to explain to the miners why they should return Senator Kerns. I had nothing to do with Debb’s [Deb’s] campaign. I was not sent there by the National office to interfere with any party affairs. Senator Kerns befriended me on more occasions than one in Washington. I could always go to him in behalf of those who needed assistance.
The socialists in their whole lives never gave me a dollar. I have given them a good many. I know how they treated Miss Flaherty [*] and others who served them in the days gone by. They are not running my affairs and they don’t own me and they had better learn to quit slandering people if they are going to revolutionize the nation. They had better revolutionize their own brains first. The democrats did not bring me there nor would I go out for any political party. I went out for the Labor Organization that I am directly interested in. The political parties don’t bother me very much. It is the individual. I have no apologies to offer to any member of the Socialist Party for any act of mine. If they would clean house they might have many more members. I have no earthly use for people who are forever digging up the actions of other people and overlooking their own. I hope this explanation will be satisfactory to you. The socialists of Terre Haute brought me there some eight or ten years ago. I had to pay my own railroad fare and pay my own expenses. It was a May Wood Simons, or a Lena Morrow Lewis or people who had never been in the trenches nor ever in their lives fought one of labor’s battles and the only interest they had was to bleed the wretches who were putting up the money, they would have been highly entertained and been paid generously, but whenever you go in the trenches and face the bayonets of the comon enemy against the gang, they have nothing to say. I want to say here that I owe the socialists no apology, nor will I offer one to them. I have seen enough of their treachery to those who have fought the battle and want to keep the party clean; but one of these days, Margaret Prevy, we are going to clean house and we will have a real revolutionary socialist movement and we will see that neither lawyers nor sky pilots are running our affairs.
With love to Mr. Prevy and you, I remain
[Yours?] in the struggle for better days,
Mother Jones
SOURCES
The Correspondence of Mother Jones
-ed by Edward M. Steel
University of Pittsburgh Press, 1985
https://books.google.com/books?id=EZ2xAAAAIAAJ
*The reference to Miss Flaherty concerns a long drawn out case between Mother Jones and John Mahon Barnes of the SPA. More on this bitter disagreement and legal action can be found in the correspondence of 1910-1911 in both Steel and Foner.
Mother Jones speaks: collected writings and speeches
-ed by Philip S Foner
Monad Press, 1983
https://books.google.com/books?id=T_m5AAAAIAAJ
See also:
“The West Virginia Court-Martial of Mother Jone”
by JayRaye
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/3/10/1188855/-ACM-The-West-Virginia-Court-Martial-of-Mother-Jones