———-
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday December 11, 1920
Mother Jones News for October & November 1920
“Veteran Organizer” Found in West Virginia and Washington D. C.
From The Charleston Daily Mail of October 2, 1920:
COAL COMPANIES AFTER
RESTRAINT ON MINERS
———-
Petition Federal Court for Injunction
to Prevent Officials Organizing.
———-
The United Mine Workers have made defendants in two injunction suits brought in the southern district federal court by the Red Jacket Coal company of Red Jacket, Mingo County, and the Pond Creek Colliery to restrain them from interfering with employes of the two companies in efforts to unionize the mines operated by the coal concerns. Notices were reported as served yesterday evening from the United States marshal’s office, and arguments will be heard October 11, at Huntington.
John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers of America; William Green, secretary and treasurer of the United Mine Workers; C. F. [Frank] Keeney, president of district No, 17, United Mine Workers; Fred Mooney, secretary and treasurer of the district; Harold W. Houston, attorney; Mary Harris, (“Mother Jones“), J. A. Baumgardner, president of Local Union, No. 4804, at Williamson; C. L. McShan, secretary of the local union; Dock Wolford, president of Local Union No. 4181 and Bud Auzier, secretary of the union, and a score of others are named in the petition.
Petitions in both cases are said to be based on the allegation that activities of agents and organizers of the mine workers interfere with contracts which the companies have made with the miners and would prevent the delivery of coal to customers. The further charge is made that the purpose of the United Mine Workers in organizing is illegal.
[Photograph added.]
From The Butte Daily Bulletin of November 13, 1920:
MORE TROUBLE EXPECTED
IN WEST VIRGINIA SOON
———-(By the Federated Press.)
Washington, Nov. 13–“Mother” Jones, veteran organizer of the United Mine Workers, here on a trip from West Virginia, predicts that “war will break out” in that state between the coal operators and the organized miners, 55,000 strong, after Governor-elect Morgan takes office. Morgan is expected to encourage the breaking of union contracts by the operators in the well-organized fields, as a step toward a wholesale attempt to stamp out unionism. The miners are going to resist any attack upon their right to organize.
———-
From The Butte Daily Bulletin of November 19, 1920:
‘MOTHER’ JONES STANDS BY FOSTER
—–
Secretary Machinists’ Union Replies to Press Canard
about Cleaning Movement of the Reds.
—–(By LAURENCE TODD.)
(Federated Press Correspondent.)
Washington, Nov. 19.–[Request of Mother Jones to the Federated Press:]
Say to the world of labor for me that never since the beginnings of the labor movement in this country were there finer, straighter, braver, more sincere or more unselfish men in its service than John Fitzpatrick, William Z. Foster and Jay G. Brown of the steel strike committee.
All this stuff in the capitalist press about the repudiation of Fitzpatrick and Foster by organized labor, and the cleaning out of the reds and Bolsheviks, is rot. The bosses are mighty anxious to stir up one set of union men against another, and it looks easy to them to call one set reds, and to tell the other set that this first lot is plotting against them. Any man who makes the fight for the workers against the oppressions of capitalism is my brother, no matter what he calls himself, and every good labor man and woman feels the same way. This bugaboo about radicals and reds is played out.
General Secretary Davison of the International Association of Machinists remarked that “if there were any reds in the ranks of organized labor who were trying to destroy the labor movement, our enemies wild be very glad to leave them undisturbed. It is the effective trade unionism that is branded as red by the anti-union forces. We have no dangerous radicals in our organization. The dangerous people are those outside.”
[…..]
[Emphasis added; photograph of Mother Jones with W. Z. Foster added.]
Note: emphasis added throughout.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SOURCES
Quote Mother Jones, June 20, 1920, Speeches Steel p213
https://books.google.com/books?id=vI-xAAAAIAAJ
https://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt%3A31735035254105/viewer#page/1/mode/2up
The Charleston Daily Mail
(Charleston, West Virginia)
-Oct 2, 1920
https://www.newspapers.com/image/8282343/
The Butte Daily Bulletin
(Butte, Montana)
-Nov 13, 1920
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045085/1920-11-13/ed-1/seq-4/
-Nov 19, 1920
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045085/1920-11-19/ed-1/seq-3/
IMAGES
Mother Jones, UMWJ p11, July 15, 1920
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=2hg5AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PT328
GSS, Mother Jones, WZF ed, Survey p64, Nov 8, 1919
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=MoEbAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA64
See also:
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday October 23, 1920
Mother Jones News for September 1920, Part I
“Famous Woman Leader of Miners” Found in Missouri and Illinois
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday October 24, 1920
Mother Jones News for September 1920, Part II
Found in Stone Cutters’ Journal: Los Angeles Speech of March 7th
Note re Injunction:
It appears Injunction restraining UMWA was granted on Nov 3, 1920, by U. S. District Judge Edmund Waddell, Jr., see:
West Virginia Coal Fields
-Hearings Before the Committee on Education and Labor U.S. Senate, 67th. Congress, First Session Pursuant to S. Res. 80
WDC, 1921
(search: injunction “united mine workers” mingo october 1920) 1920)
Note: did not find Mother Jones on list of persons to be restrained by this Injunction.
https://books.google.com/books?id=EQQ9AAAAYAAJ
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=EQQ9AAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA754
Note: for more re WZF, Great Steal Strike and Red Scare of 1918-1920, see:
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday November 24, 1920
Washington, District of Columbia – Mother Jones Stands by W. Z. Foster
Note: for more on UMWA and Mother Jones in West Virginia during 1920, see:
United Mine Workers Journal, Volume 31
(Indianapolis, Indiana)
-Jan 1-Dec 15, 1920
Official Publication of the United Mine Workers of America
(search: “west virginia”) (search: mingo) (search: “mother jones”)
https://books.google.com/books?id=2hg5AQAAMAAJ
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/012261589
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Fire in the Hole – Hazel Dickens