—————
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday June 3, 1913
Pratt, West Virginia – Photo of Mother Jones with Frank Hayes at Military Bastile
From the International Socialist Review of June 1913:
—–
—–
Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones, “The Angel of the Mines” by Nora Gillespie-“The Old She-Devil” to Owners and Operators
—————
Hellraisers Journal – Monday June 2, 1913
Mother Jones, “The Very Incarnation of Aggressive and Fighting Labor”
From the Huntington Socialist and Labor Star of May 30, 1913:
The Angel of The Mines.
———-By NORA GILLESPIE.
Seventy-three years ago there fled from Ireland a political refugee, with a little girl of eight, taking refuge in the land of freedom. Thus the spirit of rebellion and revolt is the heritage of the most noted and talked-of woman in the U. S. today. Mother Jones has stood for so many years as the very incarnation of aggressive and fighting labor, that it is very hard to picture her as a school teacher, and as a busy wife and mother fulfilling her domestic duty in the home. Yet she was all of these. She had a good education and taught school for several years before she married a worker, a staunch union man, and she, soon began organizing other workingmen’s wives into an auxiliary realizing even at that early stage the value of organization for the workers whether they be men or women.
Four children were born to her in rapid succession, and the wives of workingmen will understand what her life was for six years, when the great tragedy took place, which changed her from the mother of four to the mother of the working class.
An epidemic [of yellow fever] broke out in the town [Memphis, 1867] where she lived and in the space of seven days she saw death take from her one after another, her husband and four children. It was overwhelming and the average woman would have succumbed utterly. But not Mother Jones of the great heart and rebellious spirit. All the love, devotion and self-sacrifice she would have bestowed upon her own dear ones became transmuted into a declaration for the cause of labor. Here is heroism for you in comparison with which DYING for a cause seems insignificant. To determine to LIVE for a cause, when your own life is shattered and your whole being pleads-that is the very flower of heroism.
Since that time the story of Mother Jones has been the story of the labor war that goes on and must go on in every country where workers are exploited to make profit for shirkers, and always has she taken her place on the firing line. Neither the bullpen nor the jail have held any terrors for her and she [has] known the inside of both.
“The Angel of the Mines” has other names, one of which is “the old she-devil,” which the owners of the earth and the fullness thereof apply to her. This is a good example of the difference in classes.
[Photograph, paragraph breaks and emphasis added.]
Hellraisers Journal: From The Socialist and Labor Star: Debs, Berger and Germer Investigate Conditions in West Virginia
—————
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 1, 1913
Charleston, West Virginia – Socialists Committee Investigates Industrial Conditions
From the Huntington Socialist and Labor Star of May 30, 1913:
From The Coming Nation of May 24, 1913:
Hellraisers Journal: From the Huntington Socialist and Labor Star: Plant Destroyed, Staff Sent to Jail under Military Despotism
—————
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday May 31, 1913
Huntington, West Virginia -Report on Military Raid of Socialist and Labor Star
From The Socialist and Labor Star of May 30, 1913:
—–
—–
To the ‘Star’ readers who are no doubt wondering why they failed to receive the little truth teller the last few weeks we dedicate this explanation.
There was a reason!
On the morning of Friday May 9th, between the hours of 1 and 2 the printing establishment belonging to the Socialist Printing Co., and in which the mechanical work on the Star had been done for the last few months, was raided by militiamen acting under orders from Governor Hatfield. The raiding party was composed of Major Tom Davis and Lieutenants Rippitoe and Templeton who ruthlessly destroyed job work, type printing material, plates, etc.
The type “forms” of the Star had just been completed and were ready for the regular issue of the paper. Some of the type in the newspaper pages was beaten to a shapeless mass of massed metal. After the types and plates had been beaten and broken, the “forms” were hurled from the composing stones and their contents scattered over the office and street. Portions of the wrecked material were found the next morning two squares from the Star office.
Not satisfied with their destruction of the Star forms, the valiant soldiers proceeded to demolish departments in which the Socialist Printing Co. did commercial job printing. Every job in the department, including forms for several sets of By-Laws for local unions, which had not yet been printed, were smashed and printed matter ready for delivery to local merchants was destroyed.
All of the account books, letters, invoices, files, and copy in the office were confiscated and carried away.
The Socialist Printing Co. incorporated under the laws of W. Va. authorized to do business in this state, has suffered a loss conservatively estimated at $2,000.
[W. H. Thompson, editor of the Star, Elmer Rumbaugh, F. M. Sturm, R. M. Kephart and Geo. W. Gillespie were arrested and transported into the martial law zone of the State. The home of Thompson was then raided ransacked.]
We almost forget to state that these midnight proceedings were ordered because The Labor Star and its owners had dared to disagree with Gov. Hatfield in the matter of the miners strike which he has just settled so satisfactorily-to Tim Scanlon and the Huntington Chamber of Commerce…..
[Emphasis added.]
—————
Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Rejoices as Senate Orders Inquiry into Alleged Abuses in the Coal Fields of West Virginia
—————
Hellraisers Journal – Friday May 30, 1913
Washington, D. C. – Senate Orders Inquiry into West Virginia Coalfields
From the Bridgeport Evening Farmer (Connecticut) of May 29, 1913:
Hellraisers Journal: From The New York Call: Mother Jones Speaks to Socialists at Carnegie Hall, “Cowards! Moral Cowards!”
—————
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday May 29, 1913
New York, New York – Mother Jones Speaks to Socialists at Carnegie Hall
From The New York Call of May 27, 1913:
From The New York Call of May 28, 1913:
This was the scene, as described by the New York Call, when Mother Jones was introduced by Max Eastman last night at Carnegie Hall:
Scarcely had her name left his lips then the audience burst into shouting, stamping, and handclapping. Several women surged down the aisle toward the stage and threw kisses to the aged agitator and flowers at her feet.
Mother Jones spoke at length about the West Virginia strike, the terror inflicted on the miners by the gun thugs, and the mass round-up of strikers by the military. She referred to West Virginia as “The Little Russia in America.” She sounded this warning:
West Virginia is on trial before the bar of the nation. The military arrests and the court martial to which I and others were forced to undergo in West Virginia was the first move ever made by the ruling class to have the working class tried by the military and not civil courts. It is up to the American workers to make sure that it is the last.
The comfortable New York Socialist were not spared the ire of Mother Jones:
What galled me most about my confinement at the military prison at Pratt, West Virginia, was the knowledge that a bunch of corporation lickspittles had the right to confine me. But I must be frank and tell you that the second thing that galled me was the silence of many here tonight who should have shouted out against the injustice. I would still be in jail if Senator Kern had not introduced his resolution… No thanks, then, to you that I am here today. Cowards! Moral cowards! If you had only risen to your feet like men and said, “We don’t allow military despotism in America! Stop it!” A lot of moral cowards you are. Not a word of protest did we get out of you, but instead you sat idly by and let these things be.
The New York Call continued:
After Mother had spoken a collection was taken up and $267.80 contributed. It was intended for the striking miners. Mother Jones announced the miners would take care of the miners, and said the collection could go to the Paterson silk strikers.
[Emphasis added.]
Hellraisers Journal: From Solidarity: Justus Ebert and Ewald Koettgen on the Wonderful Paterson Silk Strike, Determined to Win
—————
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday May 28, 1913
Paterson, New Jersey – General Strike of Silk Workers Continues, Firm as a Rock
From Solidarity of May 17, 1913
-“The Wonderful Paterson Strike” by Justus Ebert
From Solidarity of May 24, 1913
-“Strikers Standing Firmly as a Rock” by Ewald Koettgen
Hellraisers Journal: From the Duluth Labor World: Gatling Guns for West Virginia Miners-Peonage, Bullets and Bloodshed
—————
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday May 27, 1903
West Virginia Miners Face Gatling Guns, Company Guards & Peonage
From the Duluth Labor World of May 23, 1903:
GATLING GUN FOR THE MINERS
———-RIDDLES GREAT TREES IN FOREST
IT IS TRAINED UPON.
———-WORKMEN HELP PRISONERS
———-
Will Resort to More Bloodshed If It Becomes
Necessary to Coerce the Miners.
———-
Labor conditions in West Virginia mines are not enviable. Besides reports of Gatling guns mounted on fortifications to command approaches to the mines, comes the further news that the mining camps are surrounded by armed guards ready to shoot down any of the workers who try to reach the outside world. So, between the guns and the guards, the wage workers of one of the naturally rich states of the Union cannot be said to pass very happy lives.
Though so rich in natural resources-for there are coal and iron mines and virgin forests that have never yet been touched-West Virginia is cursed by monopoly. As a result, the wage workers are not free to employ themselves, but must accept the conditions of those who control the source from which all must draw their subsistence-the land.
For no other reason do the inhabitants of that state submit. Those who are enticed into its boundaries under false pretences, as evidenced by the affidavits of the miners published in the organ of the Mine Workers’ Union; have hard work to get away. They are subdued by their poverty and fear of the armed guards.
The necessity for organizing West Virginia is so apparent that it is a wonder the American Federation of Labor does not flood the state with “agitators” for human freedom and human rights. What the wage workers there need is the knowledge that their own efforts to improve their own condition will be supplemented by the good will and financial assistance of organized labor everywhere. It is a hard proposition, to be sure, to go into territory dominated by such powerful social and political interests, but greater tasks have been accomplished, and it only needs the united power of an aroused commonwealth to bring about great and good industrial changes in that section of the country.
[Newsclip and emphasis added.]
Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones, “The Miner’s Guardian Angel” -by Mary Quinlan Laughlin from The Christian Socialist
—————
Hellraisers Journal – Monday May 26, 1913
“To Mother Jones” -a Poem by Mary Quinlan Laughlin
From The Goltry (Oklahoma) News of May 23, 1913:
Hellraisers Journal: Letter from Mother Jones Published in Iola, Kansas, Newspaper: “If Our Socialist Would Act More and Talk Less We Might Get Some Results.”
—————
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday May 25, 1913
Letter from Mother Jones Sent Out from West Virginia’s Military Bastile
From the Iola (Kansas) Co-Operator of May 24, 1913:
LETTER FROM MOTHER JONES
———-Pratt, W. Va., May 1, 1913.
Military Bastile.Lee J. Dock,
1502 N. Carson
San Antonio, Texas,Dear Comrade:
Your letter of the 8th reached me in due time but I was unable to answer it before owing to the fact that I was locked up in a military prison and had no chance to do any writing. Now that some of the militia has been taken away I am a little freer but still a prisoner.
I appreciate your letter very highly and wish I would have been able to reply to it earlier but owing to the fact that I was here under the militia and you know when the sewer rats are keeping guard on you day and night it is pretty hard to do as you would like to. We have had a hard fight of it here. It was the first time in history of industrial warfare in America, that we the workers, were pulled up and tried before a Military Court and it was a picture to look at. Those representatives of ancient warfare in the days of the Spanish inquisition never presented anything more brutal looking than that court did to me. It was a disgrace to America and every man in it.
There is not a man in America with any pride but what should blush with shame. Just think, a bunch of those guards dressed up as uniformed murderers, watching an old woman 80 year of age in the early dawn of the 20th century. I wonder what Victor Hugo would say if he were alive, how beautiful he would portray this great civilization. If our Socialists would act more and talk less we might get some results.
I wish you would call and see Dr. Zouck and give him my regards and tell him that I often think of him and that I have not forgotten him and never will, for he is a man, every inch of him, but I have been so rushed for the want of time that I have been unable get time to write him.
I hope some day soon to have the pleasure of seeing you in San Antonio, so good bye and believe me
Yours in the cause of Justice,
MOTHER JONES.
Per M. D.[Photograph, paragraph break and emphasis added.]