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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday October 25, 1911
Mother Jones News Round-Up for July 1911
Found at Greensburg, Pennsylvania, Where Miners Meet to Call Off Strike
From Pennsylvania’s Latrobe Bulletin of July 3, 1911:
The Calling Off of the Strike Is
Declared To Be In Sight
———-Greensburg the Scene of Special Convention.
Ten Delegates Are Present From the Local Union
Behind closed doors, with Francis Feehan presiding, with Mother Jones, Van Bitner and others prominently identified with the strike present, the convention of miners is now on in full swing in Tonkay’s hall, at Greensburg…
The Greensburg Tribune claims to have received authentic information from Indianapolis to the effect that the executive board decided that the strike should end.
Mother Jones, who is at the convention, was in attendance at the International board meeting, last week, and it is said that she made a plea for the strikers…..
[Photograph added.]
From the Pittsburgh Gazette Times of July 6, 1911:
The long and bitter labor struggle of the coal miners in the Irwin-Greensburg field for recognition of the union was brought to a close yesterday. Locals of the United Mine Workers of America met and adopted a resolution to return to work. This action was taken under instructions from the international executive board of the United Mine Workers, which held a special meeting last Monday that resulted in the decision to call a meeting of the locals and order the return to work.
It is believed the miners welcomed the instructions from their executive board. They had been idle for 16 months, during which time many hardships were endured. When notice was served that the payment of strike benefits would cease next week, the men realized that their cause was lost and the struggle hopeless…..
The abrupt ending of the long strike resulted in a divided sentiment among union miners. When it became known yesterday that the locals had concurred in the action of their international executive board, the following circular was sent out to the various locals, signed by Robert Gibbons, Abe Kephart and Andrew Puskar of the miners’ organization of District No. 5:
The miners throughout the Irwin-Greensburg fields today held local meetings at which in every case a vote was taken to call off the strike which has lasted for 16 months. This was compulsory for these poor, misguided brothers, as the International Executive Board in session at Indianapolis headquarters last week voted to discontinue paying strike benefits to them and directed Francis Feehan to call their leaders and arrange to have the strike terminated without recognition or concessions whatever.
Meeting of Leaders.
A meeting of these leaders was held in Greensburg on Monday. International Board Members A. R. Watkins of Ohio, George Dagger of Western Pennsylvania, and Thomas Haggerty of Central Pennsylvania had been delegated to represent the International Union. Mother Jones told the International Board at Indianapolis that it had been a lost cause since last summer. But it was continued until there had been the loss of 18 lives and the useless expenditure of a $1,000,000 of the miners’ money, besides large donations from many of our people and others in sympathy……
From The Progressive Woman of July 1911:
OUR JULY ISSUE
This issue of The Progressive Woman, celebrating, as it does, the tenth anniversary of the present Socialist Party, makes an unique, and, we believe, interesting number. ‘The party member should keep a copy of it filed away for reference, and the non-Socialist should have it because it will tell him something of our movement that he does not know.
It is only possible in so small a journal to touch the prominent points in our career. Were we to go into detail regarding each department with its struggles and development, we might write a history that would fill many volumes. This history will some day be written. Not the least interesting part of it will be the work of the organizer in the field. This work, especially in our pioneer days (if we may consider ourselves so advanced as to speak of “pioneer days”) developed many interesting and even powerful characters. Eugene V. Debs, of course, stands among the first. It is unnecessary here to hint what posterity will think of our Comrade Debs, lover and the beloved of the common people, the man of the great heart, of the “divine tear and the human smile.” There were Ben Hanford and Fred Long, comrades who went down before the storm of battle was over, but who did valiant work, nevertheless. Then there is “Mother” Jones, whose work among striking and starving miners, whose eloquence and force and persistency for many years, have guaranteed her a place in history…..
From The Indianapolis News of July 7, 1911:
MOTHER JONES IN CITY.
———-
Going to Colorado, Where Miners Are on Strike.Mother Jones, an organizer for the United Mine Workers of America, who in view of her seventy-nine years and her long activity in the labor field is regarded as one of the remarkable figures in the labor union movement in the country, was in Indianapolis today.
She is en route to the Colorado field, in which a strike was recently declared. In leaving the Irwin field in Pennsylvania, where she has been moat of the time during the long strike of two years, she says she is doing so because the work In Colorado is just as important. John White, president of the mine workers, who has been absent from Indianapolis several days, has returned from Lexington and Glencoe, O. Edwin Perry, secretary, who has been in Iowa a week, has returned, as has Frank J. Hayes, vice-president, who delivered a Fourth of July address at Montgomery, W. Va.
—————
[Paragraph break added.]
From Denver’s United Labor Bulletin of July 20, 1911:
Miners Jailed by Whitford;
Labor Takes the Aggressive
———-Special Committees Visiting Unions to Present Unfair List
-W. F. of M. to Act-No Patronage for Persecutors.
———-Organized labor has again been forced to the defensive; and in taking the defensive they will protect themselves by retaliation which may be called an aggressive move.
In the county jail on the West Side languish the bodies of 14 coal miners—- members of the United Mine Workers of America—men that are the life and hope of the thousands of striking coal miners of Northern Colorado, former employes of the Northern Coal and Coke company.
These men have been sent to jail to satisfy the “conscience” of an injured court.
They were cited for being in contempt of District Judge Greeley W. Whitford for alleged violation of an injunction issued by him last year which took away from every members of the United Mine Workers all rights guaranteed them under the constitution of the United States.
The Bulletin has covered these cases in previous issues and believes that to go into the details of the farce trial will be a waste of time and valuable space. All workers conversant with the details express themselves as convinced that the men had no chance for their liberty.
Suffice to say that—
One year in the county jail was imposed upon William Crawford, secretary district 15, United Mine Workers of America, and Edward L. Doyle, ex-president of the Lafayette local.
$250 fines upon Jack Cassidy, day marshal of Lafayette; Dan Williams, union miner of Lafayette.
$500 fines upon Walter Gaboury, Martin Koenig, Andrew Burt, Grover Wiseman, Frank Koenig, Guy Gordon, John Bolton, Sr., Joseph Carr, Antone Kochinis, George Bagondis and John H. Newcomb.
———-
All the men were sentenced late Friday afternoon and taken to the county jail, excepting Marshal Jack Cassidy of Lafayette, who was allowed to return home to preserve order Saturday night and Sunday, when a successor could be chosen to fill his place while serving a term in prison because he is alleged to have interfered with the posting of the injunction. He was ordered to return to court Monday morning, which he did, and the same sentence was imposed upon him and not being able to pay was sent to jail. This charge has been hanging over the head of Cassidy since last November, when the injunction was issued, and although he was not sentenced at that time the court was prevailed upon to take advantage of the accusation to get Cassidy out of the way at this time, and Injunction Whitford performed properly and granted the “prayer” of the mine operators……
From Denver’s Rocky Mountain News of July 24, 1911:
After listening yesterday to addresses by J. Rush Bronson, chairman of the publicity committee of the chamber of commerce and Mother Jones, Socialist and enemy of all commercial bodies, the members of the Trades and Labor assembly were left with two widely varying opinions on their action in joining the chamber-“a wise and patriotic move,” as Bronson said, or the “acme of foolishness and a crime against the working class,” as Mother Jones said.
Bronson had the floor first and told the assembly something of what the chamber of commerce is endeavoring to do in the way of building up the city and state through the co-operation of all interests in that direction. He was chairman of the committee which originated the idea of advertising Denver throughout the country by means of pictures taken of the industrial parade given last week, and it was largely through his efforts that the assembly and the various labor unions were brought to aid in making the parade a big success.
Bronson started to leave after he had finished, but Mother Jones, who had already been introduced as the next speaker insisted that he remain, as she had a few words to say about chambers of commerce in general and the Denver chamber of commerce in particular, Bronson knows Mother Jones, but, he was game and remained for her address.
[Mother Jones began, speaking directly at Bronson:]
I want to know why the chamber of commerce does not open the doors of the jail and liberate the fifteen men who have been sent there by Judge Whitford for trying to protect their rights. I have no use for any chamber of commerce. They are all blood-suckers. You want us to get together and hug each other. I want us to get together and hammer each other.
The chamber of commerce has nothing in common with the class to which I belong. It was the chamber of commerce that had me driven from Colorado in 1904. You want us to associate with the chamber of commerce. I would rather go down to hell than to have anything to do with any chamber of commerce.
—————
From Denver’s United Labor Bulletin of July 27, 1911:
-“Official Organ of State Federation of Labor
and Denver Trades and Labor Assembly”
“MOTHER” JONES INSULTS INVITED GUEST
———-
Takes Advantage of Her Sex to
Outrage Trades Assembly.
—–
A duty devolves upon the editor of this paper which, if it were not given heed, would do a great injustice to the cause for which this paper is published to espouse. We trust that adherents to parties will consider that duty well performed when this subject is given the attention it deserves.
There was invited to the Denver Trades and Labor Assembly Sunday, by the committee on publications and lectures, J. Rush Bronson, manager of the Empress theater, representing the Denver Chamber of Commerce. He was asked by that committee to address the assembly on the “get together” campaign that is being made by the Chamber of Commerce and the representatives of organized labor. Mr. Bronson believes that capital and labor can get together and work in harmony, and the subject has been given deep study and days and nights have been spent by him in its advocacy.
Mr. Bronson spoke to the delegates in a vein that showed his belief in the future as well as in human nature. He said that the future held in store the hope that labor and capital in Denver and Colorado would get together and work in harmony. He informed the delegates that the element in control of the chamber were bending every effort in that direction and he believed that his dream of equalizing the forces of capital and labor to a mutual understanding whereby each could live better and happier would be realized. His address was one of the most brilliant heard on the floor of the central body in years. He was applauded to the echo when he had finished.
Chairman French of the committee next introduced “Mother” Jones, a woman who is near and dear to the hearts of every coal miner in the United States. She has spent her life in their cause and her battle for them has caused her banishment from many a camp and many a time has caused her arrest. She took the floor just as Mr. Bronson arose to depart, and meeting him on the floor asked him to remain to hear what she had to say. He did so.
“Mother” Jones then began an attack on the Denver Chamber of Commerce as well as the chambers of commerce and business men’s organizations in other parts of the United States. She told of how she was taken by the militia at night from the state of Colorado and lodged in a federal prison, and then tried before a federal judge for contempt; she told of how women in the prisons of Pennsylvania had to sit up night to keep the rats from devouring the babies that were sent to prison with the mothers in order that they might be nursed. She dwelt on the kidnaping of labor leaders from Colorado and from Indiana, and on the class struggle in Los Angeles. Much of her address was wildly applauded. But aside from this The Bulletin feels that a great personal injustice was done Mr. Bronson. He was personally attacked by “Mother” Jones time and again, and as she thundered a rebuke at him for daring to suggest his theory to laboring men she shook a pointed finger of scorn.
Mr. Bronson was dressed in a neat, light summer suit of no more than ordinary material, and in the course of her remarks “Mother” Jones said:
The workers have votes. We are going to take over the government that you have prostituted; we are going to do it with votes if we can, but if we have to we are going to do it with bullets, and [pointing a finger at Mr. Bronson which shook with rage] make you take off that white suit and go to work.
Granting that all that was said by “Mother” Jones was the truth, and there is no doubt of it; and realizing that there is a life and death struggle on between capital and labor; we must bear in mind that Mr. Bronson was an invited guest and there was due him the courtesy that should be extended anyone invited to the hall of a labor organization to expound a theory.
The writer has spoken to many of the delegates to the assembly, and without exception regret has been expressed that a guest should be invited to remain while such an attack was made.
Mr. Bronson is of the common people, though a member of the Chamber of Commerce. He is working for a salary with the amusement company, and his heart and soul is in the work advocated in his address to the delegates. He feels that a great injustice was done him and the work retarded. Members of the Chamber of Commerce who are opposing his campaign to help the workers jeer at him and flaunt the articles that have appeared in the daily papers in his face. It is believed “Mother” Jones took snap judgment of the situation. The thing is to be regretted.
Note: Interesting that J. A. Conkle, editor of Denver’s United Labor Bulletin, should demonstrate more concern for the hurt feelings of Mr. Bronson than he does for the desperate struggles of the miners of Colorado and Pennsylvania, and the suffering of their wives and children, for example-
From The Seattle Star of November 24, 1910:
From The Butte Inter Mountain of July 31, 1911:
[Convention of Western Federation of Miners
Debates Question of Censure for Editor O’Neill
due to His Defense of Mother Jones]That part of the report of the committee on education and literature, which recommended that the present executive board be censured for allowing John M. O’Neill, editor of the Miners’ Magazine, to “fill the pages of the magazine with slanderous personal attacks on J. M. Barnes,” national secretary of the socialist party in Chicago, aroused a storm of debate…..
Objection was made to his attacking Barnes in defending “Mother Jones,” the septuagenarian labor leader, who was accused by Barnes of forcing him to pay her twice a debt which he owed her. Mrs. Jones had many champions, who ?_____ commended O’Neill’s action, while there were as many who claimed that it was not the business of the editor’s page to dabble in affairs outside those of the W. F. of M…..
Davidson of the executive board said that he had no quarrel with the editor of the magazine on account of the articles and had no reason for censuring the editor or calling him to account for defending Mrs. Jones, who had done so much for the cause of labor…..
Joseph D. Cannon of Bisbee, Ariz., told of what Mother Jones had done for the Western Federation of Miners in the days of the Cripple Creek strike, when she handed over $500, all she had herself, to the cause of the strikers, and said she would go out and work for nothing. He claimed that if the delegates condemned the editor they were condemning Mother Jones, and as far as he was concerned he was going to stand by Mother Jones and the editor…..
[Secretary Mills] claimed that Barnes tried to drag Mother Jones’ name in the mire and all O’Neill did was to defend her.
C. E. Mahoney then moved that the subject under discussion be deferred to Wednesday morning, when the editor of the magazine would be on hand…..
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SOURCES
Quote Mother Jones, Greensburg PA Cmas 1910
The Correspondence of Mother Jones
-ed by Edward M. Steel
U of Pittsburgh Press, 1985
-pages 82-3: letter to Thomas Morgan of Chicago
https://books.google.com/books?id=EZ2xAAAAIAAJ
Latrobe Bulletin
Latrobe, Pennsylvania)
-July 3, 1911
https://www.newspapers.com/image/451239304/
The Gazette Times
(Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
-July 6, 1911
https://www.newspapers.com/image/85905011/
The Progressive Woman
(Chicago, Illinois)
-July 1911
https://www.newspapers.com/image/487665284/
The Indianapolis News
(Indianapolis, Indiana)
-July 7, 1911
https://www.newspapers.com/image/40289604/
United Labor Bulletin
“Official Organ state Federation of Labor
and Denver Trades and Labor Assembly”
(Denver, Colorado)
-July 20, 1911
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn91052295/1911-07-20/ed-1/seq-1/
-July 27, 1911
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn91052295/1911-07-27/ed-1/seq-1/
The Rocky Mountain News
(Denver, Colorado)
July 24, 1911, page 10
https://www.genealogybank.com
The Butte Inter Mountain
(Butte, Montana)
-July 31, 1911
https://www.newspapers.com/image/350703543/
https://www.newspapers.com/image/350703569/
IMAGES
Mother Jones, WDC Tx p5, June 18, 1910
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026749/1910-06-18/ed-1/seq-5/
PA Miners Strike, Tent Colony Greensburg,
-from Article by R Evans, Stt Str p1, Nov 24, 1910
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn87093407/1910-11-24/ed-1/seq-1/
See also:
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for June 1911
Part I: Reporting on Pittsburgh Protest Rally on Behalf of McNamara Brothers
Part II: Found Pleading Cause of Striking Miners of Westmoreland County
Tag: Westmoreland County Coal Strike of 1910–11
https://weneverforget.org/tag/westmoreland-county-coal-strike-of-1910-11/
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday July 29, 1911
Paul Kellogg on the Defeat of the Westmoreland Miners’
The Hearings on H. R. 179, Authorizing Committee on Labor to Investigate Conditions Existing in Westmoreland Coal Fields of Pennsylvania, Committee on Rules, U.S. House of Representatives, May 31, 1911.
https://books.google.com/books?id=6q0qAAAAMAAJ
Peonage in Western Pennsylvania. Hearings before the Committee on Labor on House Resolution No. 90. Committee on Labor. 62nd Congress, First Session, U.S. House of Representatives. Washington, D.C.: Congress of the United States, August 1, 1911.
https://books.google.com/books?id=_n9fxgEACAAJ
https://books.google.com/books?id=0hUoAAAAMAAJ
Report on the Miners’ Strike in the Bituminous Coal Field in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania in 1910–1911, U.S. House of Representatives, June 22, 1912.
https://books.google.com/books?id=w6VOAQAAMAAJ
https://books.google.com/books?id=et03AQAAIAAJ
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/102293885
Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 17, 1911
Mother Jones News Round-Up for March 1911:
–Found in Denver Fighting for Sixteen Miners Jailed by Judge Whitford
From the Black Hills Daily Register of March 6, 1911: Accuses Judge of Bribery
July 17 to Aug 4, 191, Proceedings Convention of
Western Federation of Miners, Butte, Montana
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=5M9JAQAAMAAJ&hl=en&pg=GBS.RA2-PA1
-beginning on page 329, O’Neill addresses the Convention,
answers charges made against him, continues to defend Mother Jones, continues to expose SPA Sec Barnes
-scroll to bottom:
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=5M9JAQAAMAAJ&pg=GBS.RA2-PA329
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday August 29, 1911
Chicago, Illinois – Barnes Resigns as National Secretary of Socialist Party of America (SPA)
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The Most Dangerous Woman – Utah Phillips & Ani DiFranco