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Hellraisers Journal – Monday October 14, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for September 1901, Part III
Found Writing on Behalf of Working Class Men, Women, and Children
From the International Socialist Review of September 1901:
A Picture of American Freedom
in West Virginia
———-[By Mother Jones]
SOME months ago a little group of miners from the State of Illinois decided to face the storm and go to the assistance of their fellow-workmen in the old slave state of West Virginia. They hoped that they might somehow lend a hand to break at least one link in the horrible corporation chains with which the miners of that state are bound. Wherever the condition of these poor slaves of the caves is worst there is where I always seek to be, and so I accompanied the boys to West Virginia.
They billed a meeting for me at Mt. Carbon, where the Tianawha Coal and Coke Company have their works. The moment I alighted from the train the corporation dogs set up a howl. They wired for the “squire” to come at once. He soon arrived with a constable and said : “Tell that woman she cannot speak here to night; if she tries it I will jail her.” If you come from Illinois you are a foreigner in West Virginia and are entitled to no protection or rights under the law—that is if you are interested in the welfare of your oppressed fellow beings. If you come in the interest of a band of English parasites you are a genuine American citizen and the whole state is at your disposal. So the squire notified me that if I attempted to speak there would be trouble. I replied that I was not hunting for trouble, but that if it came in that way I would not run away from it. I told him that the soil of Virginia had been stained with the blood of the men who marched with Washington and Lafayette to found a government where the right of free speech should always exist.
“I am going to speak here to-night,” I continued. “When I violate the law, and not until then will you have any right to interfere.” At this point he and the constable started out for the county seat with the remark that he would find out what the law was on that point. For all I have been able to hear they are still hunting for the law, for I have never heard from them since. The company having called off their dogs of war I held my meeting to a large crowd of miners.
But after all the company came out ahead. They notified the hotel not to take any of us in or give us anything to eat. There upon a miner and his wife gave me shelter for the night. The next morning they were notified to leave their miserable little shack which belonged to the company. He was at once discharged and with his wife and babe went back to Illinois, where, as a result of a long and bitter struggle the miners have succeeded in regaining a little liberty.
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Up on New river last winter I was going to hold a meeting when the mine owner notified me that as he owned half the river which I had to cross to get to the meeting place, I could not hold the meeting. I concluded that God Almighty owned the other half of the river and probably had a share or two of stock in the operator’s half. So I crossed over, held my meeting on a Sunday afternoon with a big crowd. The operator was present at the meeting, bought a copy of “Merrie England,” and I hope has been a fairer and wiser man since then.
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One of the saddest pictures I have among the many sad ones in my memory is that of a little band of unorganized miners who had struck against unbearable conditions. It was in a little town on the Tianawha where I spent an Easter. When the miners laid down their tools the company closed their “pluck me” store and started to starve them out. While they were working the poor wretches had to trade at the company store and when pay-day came their account at the store was deducted from their check. The result was that many a pay-day there was only a corporation bill-head in their pay-envelope to take home to the wife and babies. Enslaved and helpless if they dared to make a protest or a move to help themselves, they were at once discharged and their names placed on a black list.
Ten tons of coal must go to the company each year for house rent; two tons to the company doctor who prescribes a “pill every five hours” for all diseases alike. You must have this corporation doctor when sick whether you want him or not. Two tons must go to the blacksmith for sharpening tools ; two tons more for the water which they use and which they must carry from a spring half-way up the mountain side, and ten tons more for powder and oil. All this must be paid before a penny comes with which to get things to eat and wear. When one hears their sad tales, looks upon the faces of their disheartened wives and children, and learns of their blasted hopes, and lives with no ray of sunshine, one is not surprised that they all have a disheartened appearance, as if there was nothing on earth to live for.
Every rain storm pours through the roof of the corporation shacks and wets the miner and his family. They must enter the mine early every morning and work from ten to twelve hours a day amid the poisonous gases. Then a crowd of temperance parasites will come along and warn the miners against wasting their money for drink. I have seen those miners drop down exhausted and unconscious from the effects of the poisonous gases amid which they were forced to work. The mine inspector gets his appointment through a political pull and never makes any thing but a sham inspection. He walks down “broadway” with the mining boss, but never goes into “smoke alley” where men are dropping from gas poisoning. Then he walks out to the railroad track and writes his report to the government telling how fine things are.
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I sat down on the side of the railroad track the other day to talk to an old miner. “Mother Jones,” said the poor fellow, “I have been working in this mine for thirty-three years. I came here when it first opened and have worked faithfully ever since. They have got every penny I ever made. There has never been a ray of sunshine in my life. It has all been shadow. To-day I have not a penny in the world. I never drank. I have worked hard and steady.” Just then he suddenly rose and walked away saying, “Here comes the superintendent. If he saw me speak to you I would lose my job.”
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As I look around and see the condition of these miners who produce the wealth of the nation, and the injustice practiced on these helpless people, I tremble for the future of a nation whose legislation legalizes such infamy.
“Mother” Jones.
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[Photograph added.]
From the Appeal to Reason of September 14, 1901:
An Interview With Mother Jones.
“Mother” Jones, as she is affectionately called by her boys, for whom she labors in season and out of season, was interviewed by an Indianapolis reporter at the time of her visit to that city, in which she said:
The issues of the day are capitalism and Socialism. We have our rights and I will I fight for them until the bitter end. We are now in a great industrial battle with the two armies of labor and capital arrayed against each other. We want to bring harmony out of chaos. A great industrial war is on. There is no question about it. We will have a number of strikes and other uprisings, but the workers are educating themselves. While they are producing they are reasoning. They will resort to the ballot and not to the bullet. Out of this industrial chaos they will bring industrial harmony. They will not be begging their masters to give them a day’s work or a loaf of bread, They will simply take that which is theirs by rights. They produce it, and in producing it, they should own it. We are after the machinery of production, distribution and exchange.
The era of Socialism is dawning. From the records I find that in 1850 the wealth of the American nation was $8,000,000,000. The share of the working people was 62½%, and the people who exploit had but 37½%. In 1880 the producer’s share went down to 24%, while the wealth of the nation had increased to $48,000,000,000, and the share of the non-producers had increased to 76%. In 1901 the nation’s wealth is estimated at $100,000,000,000, and the exploiters have 90% of that amount, and the producers only 10%. After $22,000,000 were raked in on the first of July as dividends, the workers had not even 10%.
Here is the point I am getting at: The capitalist class can do but little more exploiting in America. The people are disinherited, but they do not seem to realize it.
Inside of the next ten years the capitalists will have reached into eastern nations for new fields, and the middle class capitalists will have disappeared from society. The proletariat of nations will have molded its parts together and will come on the field as the conscious revolutionary party for the first time in the history of the world and will demand the surrender of the keys of nature’s storehouse. If the ruling class takes notice of the past it will surrender gracefully.
I look for the possible solution of the industrial problem in the dawn of the era of Socialism. Then will the masses of oppressed men and women of the nations of the earth rally to its bright banner and hail the advance of the Co-operative Commonwealth when all laborers will be capitalists and every capitalist will be a laborer, and industrial harmony will at last have come to a patient, long-suffering people.
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From the Brewton, Alabama, Laborer’s Banner of September 28 1901:
The Slavery of Today.
Slavery just as horrible as existed before the war exists in this so called land of the free today in West Virginia. The poor miners are forced to work ten hours a day in the bowels of the earth for a mere pittance. I have seen them when they have come to the surface after their day’s work was done. Many of the poor fellows would drop from exhaustion as they stepped out. Forced to drudge all day, with two or three biscuits to keep up their strength, they are in worse bondage than were the colored men. They mast live in the capitalistic dog kennels owned by the company; they must buy all their necessities of life from the company store and contribute to the support of a company doctor. Every cent they earn finds its way back into the hands of the trust.-Mother Jones.
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Note: emphasis added throughout.
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SOURCES
International Socialist Review
(Chicago, Illinois)
-Sept 1901, page 177
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v02n03-sep-1901-ISR-gog-Princ.pdf
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-Sept 14, 1901
https://www.newspapers.com/image/67053350/
The Laborer’s Banner
(Brewton, Alabama)
-Sept 28, 1901
https://www.newspapers.com/image/237554555/
IMAGE
Mother Jones, Drawing, SDH p4, Mar 9, 1901
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/social-democratic-herald-us/010309-socdemherald-v03n38w140.pdf
See also:
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for September 1901
Part I: Found in Cleveland, Ohio: Gives Interview, Celebrates Labor Day
Part II: Found in Carbondale, Speaking at Golden Jubilee Celebration
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday September 7, 1901
Mother Jones Paints a Picture of American Freedom in West Virginia (ISR-Sept 1901)
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday September 18, 1901
Mother Jones, Interviewed in Indianapolis, Advises Ruling Class (AtR-Sept 14)
Note: interview covered here:
The Indianapolis Journal of Aug 30, 1901
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82015679/1901-08-30/ed-1/seq-3/
Note re “Slavery of Today”: sadly socialist and unionist of the day often made this claim that conditions under wage slavery were just as bad, or worse, than conditions under chattel slavery. They seemed to forget that under chattel slavery a human being (as well as their children, grandchildren, etc) was owned by another human being exactly as if they were a head of cattle. No working condition under wage slavery, good or bad (usually very bad), could be worse than the condition of chattel slavery, even in those rare circumstances where the enslaved person was treated relatively well.
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The Death of Mother Jones – Bobbie McGee
Through the hills and over the valleys in every mining town,
Mother Jones was ready to help them; she never let them down.
In front with the striking miners, she always could be found;
She received a hearty welcome in every mining town.