Hellraisers Journal – Saturday October 13, 1900 Mother Jones News Round-Up for September 1900, Part II Found in Pennsylvania Supporting Great Anthracite Strike
From The Philadelphia Inquirer of September 21, 1900:
POLISH WOMEN ATTACK POLICE —————
From a Staff Correspondent.
HAZLETON, Pa., Sept. 20.-Outside of a little flurry this morning at Shaft 40, the property of the Lehigh Valley Coal Company, between a half dozen coal and iron police and a crowd of two hundred Hungarians and Polish women, the most startling thing up to noon was the arrival in Hazleton of Wharton Barker, Jr., and Mother Mary Jones. The former came up for a day’s trip only, to study the situation from the standpoint of a student, of social economics and in its political bearing; the latter will remain over until Saturday to rest up after her speech-making of the last week or so, which has worn down her voice to a whisper.
The trouble at Shaft 40, was directly due to the over officiousness of the coal and iron police in going from house to house to collect boys to work in the breakers. They had gathered in about fifty, and were returning to the shaft by way of East Diamond avenue, when a couple of hundred Hungarian women made a dash to rescue the lads. They were repulsed but made another sortie. There was some torn clothing, but nothing worse. The women got the better end of the conflict, as the discomfited officers were not able to corral more than a dozen of the lads, for duty at the colliery.
[Photograph added.]
From the San Francisco Examiner of September 22, 1900:
BATTLE BETWEEN THE COAL MINERS AND THE COAL BARONS NOW RAGING
“MOTHER” JONES IS NOT AFRAID
HAZLETON (Pa.), September 21.-To the Editor of “The Examiner”: I have heard threats of being driven out of town and being tarred and feathered. Well, if any one wants to carry out these threats, I’ll show fight; they don’t frighten me. I am not afraid of European stockholders in these mines, nor of their degraded agents. When they talk of tarring and feathering one who is fighting for principle, they are behind the age.
I had a most interesting experience to-day. I met Father Ducey, a grand man, and, with him, visited the heroes of Lattimer, poor crippled beings, living monuments to the cruelty of the slave drivers who are now facing 140,000 desperate men.
Much of the mining stock is held by English, German and Russian aristocrats, who know little of, and care less, for the conditions of the men, women and children who dig and delve and starve, if only fat dividends may be regularly declared. It is not generally known, but I know that Queen Victoria, through her fiscal agents here, owns a great amount of stock in the Illinois Central Railroad, and the Czar of Russia’s private exchequer contains many certificates of stock of the Pennsylvania lines. The spirit of the Hessians sent over by George III still exists among these representatives of the foreign owners of American mines.
This is a great strike, one of the greatest in history, and its assured success will teach a lasting lesson to the slave masters.
MARY “MOTHER” JONES.
From The Philadelphia Inquirer of September 23, 1900:
Sketched on the Spot by an Inquirer Staff Artist. —————
WOMEN FIRED TO FRENZY MARCH ON MINES AND HUGGING THE WORKERS THEY FORCE THEM TO LEAVE THEIR POST ——- Females Led by Mother Jones Form a Strange and Remarkable Procession-Shouting and Waving Their Arms They Dance to Martial Music
From a Staff Correspondent.
HAZLETON, PA., Sept. 22-Unless there is a speedy close down of the mines whose operators persist in keeping them running with armed protection, there s going to be trouble in this district. When it comes, the women will be at the bottom of it. In the early hours this morning they swooped down upon Coleraine and Beaver Meadows. They were led by Mother Jones. They marched with a band at their head, the men falling back in the rear. In the journey some of the party were girls, who gave way to the wildest abandon and danced and shouted, waving their arms in the air.
On arriving at Coleraine, emotional frenzy reached its limit. The men who on their way to work were seized, When cold argument failed some of the women threw their arms about the miners’ necks and exercised all their powers of pleading. Unable to resist the demonstrative actions of the women, the miners gave in, and consented to return to their homes.
Flushed with victory, the raiding party proceeded on to Beaver Meadow. There were about a hundred women in it, and male recruits had been picked up all along the road, so that the entire aggregation numbered five or six hundred. They reached Beaver Meadow too late for any demonstration with the miners, as they were in the colliery at work.
While here an incident occurred that, had the men lost their heads., might have precipitated a riot. One of the women of the party was seized rather roughly by the arm by a deputy and ordered off the premises, which belong to the Cross Creek Coal Company. Some of the men were disposed to make it warm for the representative of the law, but cooler counsel prevailed…..
From the Philadelphia Times of September 23, 1900:
WOMEN’S TEARS KEPT THEM OUT ——- Wives and Daughters of Miners Doing Excellent Missionary Work.
Special Telegram to THE TIMES.
Hazleton, September 22.
The one dramatic feature in connection with the strike in this region to-day was the march of five hundred women from McAdoo to Coleraine at an early hour this morning. The marchers were headed by Mother Jones, who is doing yeoman service in the cause of labor.
All of the marchers carried brooms and one young Irish girl named Alice McGee amused the crowd by dancing jigs and reels at points along the march.
By the time the marchers reached Coleraine they were joined by a crowd of at least 1,000 men, who were just going to work. The women, who were all wives and daughters of the miners, and who know what it is to endure the hardships of a strike, appealed to the men, and with good effect. Some of the more hardened, however, refused to listen to the appeals, and not until the women approached them and threw their arms about their necks, putting forth appeals that would melt the hardest heart, did they consent to yield. Dinner cans were handed over to the fair maidens by most of the men and those who refused to listen to reason and entered the mines were principally bosses and favorites of the operators.
The work completed at Coleraine, the march was resumed to the Beaver Meadow colliery, but here the miners had reported earlier, and had been lowered down the slope some time before the arrival of the marchers, so that but little was accomplished.
Retracing their steps they returned to Coleraine, where a meeting had been called to receive the answer to a list of grievances presented several days ago. None of the committee was present and after waiting for some time, Organizer James, who was present, demanded that some one of the committee step forward and and announce the result.
Finally one of the men mustered up courage and stopped to the platform. He informed the assemblage that the operators of the Van Wickle mine had prepared an answer, but the result would not be made public until the men returned to work. This was met with a volley of hisses, and the boss was compelled to retire.
Immediately following this scene Organizer James addressed the miners at some length, at the conclusion of which they proceeded to the school house, where fully 500 miners signed the roll and vowed allegiance to the United Mine Workers.
It can be asserted that not a wheel will he turned at Coleraine and Beaver Meadow on Monday.
From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch of September 23, 1900:
WILKESBARRE, Pa., Sept. 20.
Special Correspondence of the Sunday Post-Dispatch.
THERE is only one Mother Jones. Her field is all her own.
Clara Barton has her work of mercy, Susan B. Anthony has her equal suffrage. Mother Jones has her “boys”-the great, patient army that sweats and strives and suffers wherever there is labor to be done.
It is a big brood she mothers-a big, toilsome, troublesome brood, scattered all over the face of the land, delving in the earth and under the earth, swarming in mills and factories and sweatshops. There is seldom a time when some part of it is not on the ragged edge of hunger and in need of a mother’s help.
That is the time for Mother Jones. She has been called the stormy petrel of industry. Her appearance is a signal for those who grow rich by grinding the faces of the poor to “go slow,” and if they disregard the warning so much the worse for them and the better for organized labor.
For Mother Jones is the most successful organizer and sustainer of strikes in the country. That is why she is at Wilkes-barre now. That is why the miners expect to win. That is why the mine owners accompany her name with anathemas.
How does she do it? By the greatest of all powers-the power of love. She love her “boys”-be they Polish or Bohemian or Irish or American-and she teaches them to love her. The combination is irresistible. The ranks of the toilers stand firm at her bidding and the strategy dictated by her woman’s intuition does the rest.
It might be thought that she is an Amazon in physique and voice and gesture; that she sweeps her forces along with her by the sheer power of her vitality. Or else that she is endowed with the youth and beauty and mysterious spiritual influence of a Joan of Arc.
In a Maine city she met the man of her choice. His name was Jones, and she married him.
At that time it was not part of her vocation to address labor unions, but she was interested in the labor questions. The fact that 6 and 10-year-old children were working In the cotton mills of Lewiston, Lowell and Fall River roused her wrath. Writing to her old father in Canada about it, she said that in America there were as great abuses of the poor as there were in old Ireland.
Drifting South and West with her husband, she became interested in the first great battles of the Knights of Labor. Her husband encouraged her in the study of the labor statistics of the various states.
While other women were joining women’s clubs and discussing Shakespeare she was talking with the street car conductors in Chicago, the miners of Hazleton, the mill girls in Fall River, telling them that it was their duty to strike and to drive their employers into giving them the wages that they earned.
The great coal miners’ strike of 1891 brought her into public attention, though she had before that been prominent in many affairs of the kind. In the American Railway Union strike she did a great deal of campaigning and her strong, womanly voice rang from many a stage, and her white head and bent shoulders were seen in many places of danger during the troubles.
In 1898 the miners of Arnatt [Arnot] were practically beaten and the owners were preparing to dictate terms to them at starvation prices when one night a lone woman arrived in town.
She was driven by a teamster from an adjoining town, and she went to the headquarters of the strikers and interrupted the leaders, who were talking of surrender. She delivered a speech that aroused the utmost enthusiasm and the heartiest support of the cause. She organized the women and children and aroused their enthusiasm.
How she did it will never be told, but for nine months she held the strikers together and fed them by co-operative methods, which she knows so well how to organize. At the end of that time financial ruin stared in the faces of the mine owners, and she in turn dictated terms that they were glad to accept.
Mother Jones has a sweet old face, as fresh as a rose in spite of the fine lines that are creeping into it, and her snow-white hair makes a queenly frame for her countenance. Her eyes are sharp and steel gray. They are the kind that look through ore and make deception hard in their light. It is said of her that she is deeply religious at heart.
At Elkton, Md., last May she took hold of the strike when it was on the point of falling through. She saved the situation. One June 3 she addressed 3000 miners in Braddock Park, at Frostburg, and the next morning was in the midst of the mob at Lonaconing trying to forestall the break that discontented miners were making. She strengthened the lines and that night was at the head of 3000 marching strikers.
At Wilkesbarre, just now Mother Jones has full sway. She is the one ruler of the majority of the strikers. The mine owners and operators object to recognizing her as the leader of the trouble, but have to in order to hold any communication with the men. Her eloquent presentation of the wrongs suffered by the miners has made many new members for the United Mine Workers’ Union.
[She said to the Sunday Post-Dispatch:]
We want the laws of the state recognized; 2240 pounds of coal make a legal ton in this state. The mine owners oblige the men to turn out 3300 pounds for a ton. That is only one of the things. We are going to keep on, little by little, till we have secured the best conditions for the miners.
Then the company store is another evil. If you have to buy all your goods from the man you work for, he comes pretty near to being your master.
I want the people to own all public monopolies. The poor will then have the chance to enjoy educative and civilizing things the same as the rich.
Mother Jones is a resourceful woman. From reading of the troubles of the laboring people she took to talking of them. Her hands are small, white and strong. Her emphasis of a statement is made with the hand-a gentle wave.
From The Philadelphia Inquirer of September 24, 1900:
From the Philadelphia Times of September 24, 1900:
UNION OF THE WOMEN NOW TO BE FORMED ——- Mother Jones Tells the Plans to Organize the Wives and Daughters of Coal Miners Into an Auxiliary Association. ——-
(Written for The Times by “Mother” Mary Jone, the famous woman Labor Leader.)
As I have remarked In THE TIMES before, the greatest force in this strike, besides the men themselves, is the women of the coal regions, and we now are going to organize this force so that it can be used to greater advantages. National Organizers Mederiel, Dilcher and myselfhave already gone to work in the matter, and women’s auxiliaries have been organized in McAdoo and elsewhere. This work will be continued until every mother, wife, sister and daughter of the miners are part of the union.
The encouragement thus given to the men will hold them together in such solidity that no one can break the ranks. The position taken by the women in this strike has aroused the union working women in all parts of the country, and, owing to this, offers of help are pouring in from unions in every State. This shows that the united labor of the country is behind the 132,000 men who are on strike, and how hopeless is the struggle of the operators to defeat our organizations.
(Signed) Mary Jones.
From the Philadelphia Times of September 25, 1900:
Funeral of Murdered Man.
[Staff Correspondent reporting from Shenandoah, September 24:]
The victim of the first tragedy of the great strike, John Koniski, who was shot Friday, was buried with extra ordinary pomp and solemnity. Early hundreds of men gathered in various parts of the town and marched to where the body lay in a rickety brown cottage. Most of the Poles, Hungarians and Lithuanians have served in foreign armies. They showed this in their marching today. These columns of men continued to arrive until fully five thousand had gathered. Then the coffin was placed in the hearse, the only vehicle in line, and the march was resumed. Six abreast, a foreign military formation, the army of miners swept along behind the hearse with a rhythmic tread that caused staff officers to look on with wonder.
Guard of Honor Declined.
General Gobin offered a company of the Fourth Regiment and a part of the Governor’s Troop to accompany the procession, as an escort of honor. The honor was declined. The miners marched past the troops without paying any more attention to them than they would to a crowd of street urchins. At St. Ludwig’s Greek Catholic Church services were read and then the procession made its way to the Lithuanian Cemetery, where one of the most dramatic incidents of the day took place. “Mother” Mary Jones was present and delivered an oration over the open grave. “A victim of corporate greed,” she called Koniski, “murdered because he sought a free man’s wages.” She said that if the miners did not stick together now there would never be obtained the good that Koniski died for. There would be nothing to prevent the deadly Deputy Sheriff from killing in the future, as he had in the past.
[Mother Jones cried:]
Men, how many of you here will swear over this open grave never to go back to work until your demands are granted?
Five thousand and more hoarse voices shouted “I” in reply, and the same number of hands were raised. The scene was beautiful and so impressive that it seems as though a man or woman who would break an oath so taken never did or will have good in his or her heart.
After the echo died away the grave was filled and the procession broke up. The five thousand miners made their way home and remained there quietly the balance of the day.
From the Philadelphia Times of September 28, 1900:
From The Philadelphia Inquirer of September 25, 1900:
FRIENDS FOLLOW KAUISKI’S BIER —————
[…..]
From a Staff Correspondent.
SHENANDOAH, Pa., Sept. 24.-John Kauiski, born in an obscure village of Poland, lived an uneventful life, unknown except by a very few, and finally achieved greatness in death. This morning nearly eighteen hundred miners followed the victim of last Friday’s riot to his grave.
His followers to-day formed something more than a mere funeral procession. They formed a parade of strikers calculated to give their friends and the public some idea of their great strength….
The funeral cortege marched to the Roman Catholic Church of St. Casimir, where the Rev. Fathers Joseph A. Lenarkiewicz and Matulaitis celebrated mass and prayers for the repose of the soul of the departed…..
Kauiski was about 35 years old, and leaves a widow in Poland. He was not a member of the United Mine Workers’ Union and was only a spectator in the riot where he met his death. After the service the procession moved to St. Casimir’s Cemetery.
Here remarks were made among the speakers, “Mother” Jones being prominent. There were no passionate appeals to the men or any attempt to incite them to acts of violence. Then back again through the streets of Shenandoah came the procession, and this time bearing branches of green oak, the nearest approach to the olive branch of peace that grows in this mining district…..
A. S. R.
—————
From The Philadelphia Inquirer of September 28, 1900:
From the New York Evening World of September 25, 1900:
EVENING WORLD WOMAN INTERVIEWS “MOTHER JONES.” —————
Strikers Friend Tells Some Plain Truths About the Great Struggle Between the Miners and Operators. ——-
NO. IX. OF THE SERIES. BY OLIVIA HOWARD DUNBAR.
MOTHER JONES, THE STRIKERS’ FRIEND
(Special to The Evening World.)
MAHANOY CITY, Pa., Sept. 25.-“Please tell all the readers of The Evening World for me that we have succeeded in crippling the operators, that the situation is most encouraging, and that we expect an early victory.”
This was the message that “Mother” Jones intrusted to me to-day, and she smiled hopefully as she said it. Ceaselessly vigilant, she had come to Mahanoy City to dull any possible echo of the carnival of strife and slaughter that has resounded so menacingly through Shenandoah.
The situation was tense when she arrived, but there had been no outbreak. Outwardly the little city was unruffled. Early in the morning I had found a group of swarthy, eager-eyed Hungarian women applauding an effigy of a non-union workman that had been bound to an electric-light pole on Eighth street.
Their voices were shrill, their gestures violent. The suggestive spectacle had aroused all their fury against the class that they consider selfishly retards the movement that means life or death to them.
MOTHER JONES WON THEM.
The men, however, had remained passive. And Mother Jones found the audience that gathered about her as gentle and tractable as a kindergarten class. It was composed mainly of foreigners, and the face of the Hungarian, Polish or Lithuanian peasant, born to a slave’s heritage, transplanted to conditions too baffling and contradictory for his brain to grasp, is not sensitive or responsive.
Yet their half-sullen, half-bewildered look vanished as they listened to the slim, white-haired little woman’s familiar phrasing of familiar principles, and they were all aglow with enthusiasm when she had finished.
All that is remarkable about Mother Jones’s oratory is the results that she accomplishes with it. Her skill in reaching the understanding and the emotions of men and women who do not know her language is great enough perhaps to explain the fury directed against her by the class that is opposed to the strike.
I talked with her afterward, and found not so much a woman absorbed in an idea as an idea embodied in a woman.
There is something singularly impersonal in the speech and manner of this delicately pretty, fanatical earnest old lady. Mother Jones has no other thought than of the miners’ emancipation. What she cannot forgive in other women is that they have no thought of it at all.
[She lamented, tolerantly:]
But women are slow to understand reforms. They have no perception of the changes in economic conditions. They are blind to all but personal concerns. That is why I stand alone in this work.
FIELD FOR RICH WOMEN.
How many well-to-do women in this anthracite region ever think, do you suppose, of the condition of these miners’ families or of the misery and barrenness of these poor women’s lives?
Oh, they know that it’s so, but they don’t want to think of it. They’re content to be fed and amused and get their share of the plunder-selfish, pretty poll parrots-nonentities!
The gently little lady became the agitator and her mild blue eyes flashed fire.
[She went on:]
And it’s so easy to appeal to and influence these people. They’re always so gentle with me, even the wildest of them. Do you suppose any cur of a Sheriff’s deputy or twenty of them, for that matter, could quiet them as I can?
Oh, I love them and understand them and they trust me. That’s the secret of it. It isn’t necessary to speak their language or to point a pistol at them if you have a heart that can sympathize!
I asked Mother Jones what use she made of her influence over the women and what advice she gave them at this crisis.
[She laughed:]
Well, I got up at 5 this morning in Hazleton and led fifty of them to close up a colliery. That’s one way I teach them.
MOTHER JONES FORMS UNIONS.
Then I am trying to form in all the towns auxiliaries of the Mine Workers’ Union. That kind of organization develops slowly, but it gives the women confidence.
They have no idea yet what a tremendous factor they are in the labor question. In this way they’ll learn.
Then I talk to them, over and over again, of the emancipation of the mine worker and appeal to them through their children. They are intelligent enough any way, but they will meet you more than half way when you bring the babies into the question, they are such devoted mothers.
Anybody can see what a firm hold of the situation they have now.
Anybody can see how brave they are.-
“And their courage will last?”
Just as long as may be necessary. I know them. It’s they that are going to win the victory for us. And they won’t starve, either, wretched as they are. They’ll find some way to live, because I’ve made them feel that justice is bound to triumph—-
“When?”
Some day, I know it.
Mother Jones is gifted with unconquerable optimism, it will be seen, which lends her a certain buoyancy of spirit. She trips along the street like a schoolgirl, the black bows fluttering on her hat and her white curls dancing.
And when I left her she had been holding a merry court, while the town poet, who is serious and middle-aged, read her an ode addressed to herself and composed of countless vigorous quotations. Mother Jones liked it and was as gracious as the town poet had been adulatory.
WOMEN ANGRY AT DEPUTIES.
The prevailing feeling among the women whom I visited to-day was that of resentment at the calling out of armed men. Sheriff’s deputies are, in fact, being sworn in by the score, a measure which may have been necessary in Shenandoah, but which tends to kindle bitter feeling in towns where violence has not already arisen.
“Who are these sheriff’s deputies?” a group of matrons were fiercely demanding, one of the other. “Insolent cubs who can’t earn a living. Does a hard-working miner like to see them given the authority to shoot him down?”
The calling out of soldiers is considered still further unwarrantable.
Saturday was payday at the local collieries. And it was every where a remarkably self-contained and peaceable line of men that went to draw these last precious earnings. Although every where incomprehensibly patient and plodding, the miners at Mahanoy City seem exceptionally unassertive.
President Richard Northy, of the local union, is justified, apparently, in the pride with which he refers to the character of the men here.
“I doubt if we have violence,” he said to-day, “even if the men starve, and we know that some of them are on the way to it.”
But starvation, as pale, tired Mrs. James McBride reminded me to-day, is not the only thing to fear. Her baby died a month ago.
ALWAYS SICKNESS AROUND.
[She said:]
There’s always sickness around, from those dirty streams you see running right under our windows, and from the houses themselves, too. Heaven knows the best housekeeper in the world couldn’t keep them clean.
Company houses? Why, of course. If we could afford to live in any other kind my baby might still be alive.
It was not far away from this house that I watched a group of children attempt to play “tag.” It was a spiritless performance. The boys trotted soberly about, the little girls made a few impulsive spurts to keep up with them, then one by one wearily dropped out of the game.
Most of them picked up an infant brother or sister to carry about, so strong, even in the youngest, has become the habit of burden-bearing.
There had been no shouts or laughter or any of the excitement of a “game,” and in five minutes it was all over.
Playtime might as well he omitted from the schedule of the children of a mining patch.
OLIVIA HOWARD DUNBAR.
From The Philadelphia Inquirer of September 26, 1900:
STRIKERS HAVE HAZLETON IN FIRM GRASP ——-
From a Staff Correspondent.
HAZLETON, Pa., Sept. 25.-The situation remains practically unchanged today. The big collieries reported closed yesterday are still idle. Two more collieries in the Schuylkill region are also reported closed to-day. Strikers to the number of some two hundred started from Cranberry, about two miles from here, and marched some twelve miles to Nuremberg, taking in the collieries that are still working at Tomhicken, Weston, Humboldt, Hopeville and Derringer. By the time Nuremberg was reached the two hundred strikers had grown in number to three hundred…..
When the line of marchers reached Nuremberg a mass meeting was held, where, among the leaders who spoke were Leaders Soppitt, James, and “Mother” Jones. The men were urged to remain firm, and every reference to “holding out” was received with enthusiasm……
A. S. R.
—————
From the Philadelphia Times of September 27, 1900:
WESTERN SCHUYLKILL MINERS TO STRIKE ————— More Accessions to Ranks of Union Are Assured.
Special Telegram to THE TIMES.
Pottsville, September 26.
The United Mine Workers, whom even the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company’s officials believe will have every colliery in the anthracite field northeast of Pottsville tied up by Saturday night, started to night to organize the western part of the county.
A mass meeting was held to-night at Minersville and the speakers who addressed it were “Mother” Jones, Paul Silitski, John Fahey, president of district No. 9, of the United Mine Workers, and Miles Dougherty. They induced the Lithuanian and other foreign elements of Glendower, Phoenix, East Ridge, Richardson, Lytle and Pine Hill collieries to go out. This faction represents 65 per cent. of the miners working in the western part of the county…..
From the Philadelphia Times of September 28, 1900:
Still Closing Mines.
[Staff Correspondent reporting from Hazleton, Sept. 27:]
[Despite rumors of strike settlement to be proposed by coal operators] President Mitchell and his associates have not relaxed their efforts to close up the few mines still working. As stated elsewhere, the mine workers’ officials are inclined to regard the reports of an impending settlement as a scheme to develop over-confidence in the strikers and thus make them careless, a condition that would soon bring a large number of men back into the mines. Meetings were held in several nearby villages this afternoon and to-night, at which speeches were made by National Organizers Dilcher and Courtwright, Mother Mary Jones and Members of the Executive Board Soppitt, James and Fairley.
The usual picket guard was doubled around the mines, and reports were obtained showing just how many tons of coal were being brought to the surface. These proved to be decidedly few, as compared to the normal output…..
H. B. D.
—————
From the Philadelphia Times of September 29, 1900:
[Part of Special Telegram to THE TIMES from Pottsville, Pa., Sept. 28:]
To-night the labor leaders invaded the lower Schuylkill Valley, and an effort was made to close up the mammoth operations of the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company at Eagle Hill and Silver Creek. A mass meeting was held at New Philadelphia, which is the centralizing point for both collieries, and was addressed by Miles Dougherty, of Shamokin; Mother Jones and John Fadelski. Nearly 2000 miners from Pottsville, Palo Alto, Port Carbon and St. Clair are employed at these collieries. Miners’ trains are run for their accommodation every morning and evening.…..
—————
From the Philadelphia Times of September 30, 1900:
[Excerpt from Special Telegram to THE TIMES from Pottsville, Sept. 29:]
About 1,500 miners and citizens attended a mass meeting held at Centennial Hall, Pottsville, to-night and heard the strike issues discussed by Mother Mary Jones, of Chicago, and Miles Dougherty, of Shamokin.
This afternoon the same speakers addressed a large mass meeting of miners at Glen Carbon.
—————
From The Philadelphia Inquirer of September 30, 1900: -Excerpt from article by Edythe Langdon
BREAKER BOYS ARE HAPPY.
They were having dinner in the row, and every house I looked into they asked me to share their small supply. One good-natured Irish woman sent me out an apple by a little curly-haired fellow, whose name I afterward learned is George Dewey. The Admiral should be proud of him, with his bright eyes and sturdy little legs.
In a large family where two or three boys are old enough to work in the breakers the mother of the home manages to get along nicely. But in a family with five small children it is wonderful how they exist at all.
Four little breaker boys were standing on the corner. They had a very small pipe for the four, so each was taking his puffs and passing it along.
I asked them how they liked striking.
“Fine,” they all spoke up at once. All we do now is stand on the corners, smoke and talk it over.”
“But after while,” I remonstrated, “when the money is all gone, what then?”
“Now,” said a little fellow about ten, “we’re blessing Mother Jones, but when me mudder hasn’t any money to buy grub guess we’ll be cussin’ her.”
The soldiers went by on the next street, and away they went.
“The Anthracite Miners’ Strike of 1900” Author(s): George O. Virtue Source: Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 9, No. 1 (Dec., 1900), pp. 1-23 Published by: The University of Chicago Press https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1086/250711
Tag: September 1900 Note: Majority of posts for this month reported on Mother Jones and the Anthracite Strike in Pennsylvania. View “see also” section of these posts for more links for further study. https://weneverforget.org/tag/september-1900/
They’ll Never Keep Us Down – Hazel Dickens “Well, we’ve been shot and we’ve been jailed, Lord, it’s a sin. Women and little children stood right by the men…”
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