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Hellraisers Journal – Friday December 20, 1918
Mother Jones News for October 1918
-Mother Found Campaigning for Coal Baron in West Virginia
It seems our dear Mother Jones has left off swearing when she talks to the mighty coal barons and commenced to campaigning for them. Such is the case in West Virginia, where we found her, during the month of October, campaigning for Colonel Clarence Watson, head of the Consolidated Coal Company and Democratic candidate for U. S. Senate. Not everyone was pleased with that state of affairs as the following demonstrates.
From The Wheeling Intelligencer of October 14, 1918:
Intelligence received from Charleston advises that Mrs. Clarence W. Watson and “Mother” Jones held a conference with Governor Cornwell a few days ago. It is learned since then that “Mother” will campaign among the “boys” up on Cabin Creek, as well as in the Fairmont region. It will be recalled that Colonel Watson, after years and years of antagonism to union labor, and particularly to the union miner, a few months ago “let down the bars” he had erected against unionism and invited the miners to organize. “Mother” Jones was made his principal mouthpiece in that little bit of political strategy, and she served her new master well in, making public Colonel Clarence’s handspring in the direction of union labor votes. She extolled him to the skies, christened him “the friend of the miner,” and told he “boys” that he ought to he elected to the United States senate.
Will she fool ’em? Hardly. The West Virginia miner is not so green as he used to be when “Mother” first introduced herself to him. They cannot so soon forget the Watsonian antagonism, the manner in which the Watsons treated organizers who were sent to that field, the Watson’s “special police patrol of the mines to keep organization.” Colonel Watson will have to prove his case, with them first, and they will hardly aid him to get to the senate and then run the risk of the “proof” falling down, being relegated to the rear or transported to the isles of the sea of oblivion.
“Mother” is going to find her task not so easy as other tasks have been for her in West Virginia. In her support of Watson she is going up against a man who has been a friend of labor all his life, whose forbears were the friends of labor when the Watsons certainly were not; a man who has proven, by his past record, that he is the friend of labor, and whose pledge that he will continue to be, is assurance enough for the laboring man. The union miners will hardly place in the hands of any man a club to knock off their own heads.
———-
[Emphasis and paragraph breaks adde.]
Note: Who the author of this opinion piece was, we do not know. The author described Watson’s opposing candidate thus: “a man who has been a friend of labor all his life.” Clarence Watson had two opposing candidates that we know of. There was Davis Elkins, Republican and well known industrialist, whose father was the late Senator Stephen B. Elkins. We find it hard to believe that Mr. Elkins has been a life-long friend of labor while simultaneously looking out for his interests in railroads, banking, coal mining, etc. That would leave the Socialists candidate, H. M. S. Holt as the only candidate running who had the interest of working class men and women as his first concern, since, sadly, the Democratic Party decided to chose a coal mining baron as their candidate. Elkins was elected in the November election.
More Mother Jones News for October 1918
From the United Mine Workers Journal of October 1, 1918:
Fairmont Mine Workers Ratify Wage Agreement
On Saturday, September 14, a special convention was held in the city of Fairmont, West Virginia, representing the mine workers of the newly organized Fairmont coal field. This convention was called to hear the report of the scale committee who had been meeting with the operators in joint conference and to vote on the question of the adoption of the joint wage agreement that had been negotiated.
When President Keeney of District 17 called the convention to order upward of 100 delegates were present. Secretary Mooney read the agreement, which was received with enthusiasm by the assembled delegates. The Fairmont agreement represents one of the greatest achievements of the mine workers’ organization, inasmuch as it carries with it the complete check-off and provides for a closed shop organization in a field that has been regarded as one of the most powerful strongholds of nonunionism to be found anywhere in America. The agreement also provides for the installation of scales at the mines and checkweighmen in place of the old system where men were paid by the car, and carries with it a tonnage rate that represents a wage increase to the miners of the Fairmont region varying from 10 to 25 per cent.
It is small wonder that the delegates received this agreement enthusiastically, because to them it represented an industrial emancipation proclamation.
Before the vote was taken on the question of adopting the agreement the convention was addressed by Mother Jones, and by Robert H. Harlin who was present representing the international organization. The agreement was then ratified by a practically unanimous vote of the delegates present, and the miners went back to their respective locals pledged to do their utmost to build up an organization in the Fairmont region of West Virginia that will be a credit to themselves and to the United Mine Workers of America.
From the United Mine Workers Journal of October 15, 1918:
I Minatori Di Fairmont Ratificano
Gli Accordi Sulle PaghePrima che si passasse alla votazione dell’accordo, Mother Jones e Robert H. Harlin, rappresentante dell’organizzazione internazionale, pronunziarono avanti la convenzione imponenti discorsi. Quindi l’accordo venne ratificato alla quasi unanimità dei delegati presenti e quindi i minatori ritornarono alle loro rispettive unioni locali deliberati a rendere più solida la organizzazione di Fairmont e ciò a loro maggior credito e a maggior vanto di tutti gli United Mine Workers di America.
MOTHER JONES, ANARCHIST?
The support of Mother Jones for the Democratic Party and its candidates has not stopped the kept press from classifying her among the anarchists. For example, we find this comment from an article in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle of October 26, 1918:
The sentence of a girl [Molly Steimer] to fifteen years in prison and of three of her men associates to twenty years each, breaks up a nest of anarchistic sedition…
A woman leader of revolutionary groups is familiar in Russian fiction and in Russian fact, and we can understand the potency of such leadership from our experiences with Emma Goldman and with Mother Jones among our strikers…..
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SOURCES
Quote Mother Jones, Praying Swearing, UMWC, Jan 17, 1918
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=8fQUAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA358
The Wheeling Intelligencer
(Wheeling, West Virginia)
-Oct 14, 1918
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86092536/1918-10-14/ed-1/seq-4/
Clarence Wayland Watson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Wayland_Watson
Davis Elkins
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davis_Elkins
D. M. S. Holt
https://www.ourcampaigns.com/CandidateDetail.html?CandidateID=26758
United Mine Workers Journal, Volume 29
(Indianapolis, Indiana)
-May 9 to Dec 15, 1918
Executive Board of the United Mine Workers of America,
https://books.google.com/books?id=iwxOAAAAYAAJ
UMWJ-Oct 1, 1918
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=iwxOAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PT528
Page 3: Fairmont Agreement Ratified
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=iwxOAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PT530
UMWJ-Oct 15, 1918
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=iwxOAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PT552
Page 18: Fairmont Agreement Ratified (Italian)
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=iwxOAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PT569
UMWJ-Oct 15, Google Translates:
Fairmont Miners Ratify Payroll Agreements
Before the vote on the agreement was passed, Mother Jones and Robert H. Harlin, representative of the international organization, delivered impressive speeches before the convention. So the agreement was ratified almost unanimously by the delegates present and then the miners returned to their respective local unions deliberated to make the organization of Fairmont more solid and this to their greater credit and to greater boast of all United Mine Workers of America.
American Political Prisoners:
Prosecutions Under the Espionage and Sedition Acts
by Stephen Martin Kohn
Greenwood Publishing Group, 1994
(search: steimer)
https://books.google.com/books?id=-_xHbn9dtaAC
IMAGE
Mother Jones, DRW small, St L Pst p3, May 13, 1918
https://www.newspapers.com/image/138329040/
See also:
Elkins, Watson, Holt, West Virginia-1918
http://politicalgraveyard.com/geo/WV/ofc/ussen.html
Tag: Fairmont WV
https://weneverforget.org/tag/fairmont-wv/
Mollie Steimer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mollie_Steimer
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