Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Grants Interview to Reporter after Her Release from Jail at Parkersburg, West Virginia

Share

Quote Mother Jones, Love Each Other, UMWC Ipl IN, Jan 25, 1901—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday June 24, 1902
Parkersburg, West Virginia – Mother Jones Interviewed at Van Winkle Hotel 

From the Parkersburg Daily Morning News of June 23, 1902:

IF MINERS, THEY Will GAIN
IS VIEW OF “MOTHER” JONES
———-
The Noted Labor Organizer
Talks to Reporter and
Advances Her Theories on
Strike Matters

Mother Jones , Phl Inq p24, June 22, 1902

While in conversation Sunday [June 22nd] with a News reporter, “Mother” Jones, quoted as follows from “Ignatius Donnelly’s Caesar’s Column.”

The world, today, clamors for deeds not creeds; for bread, not dogma; for charity, not ceremony; for love, not intellect.

Society divides itself into two hostile camps; no white flags pass from one to the other. They wait only for the drumbeat to summon them to armed conflict.

The masses grow more intelligent as they grow more wretched; and more capable of cooperation as they become more desperate. The labor organizations of today would have been impossible fifty years ago. And what is to arrest the flow of effect from cause? What is to prevent the coming of the night if the earth continues to revolve on its axis? The fool may cry out: “There is no night!” But the feet of the hours march unrelentingly toward the darkness.

Believing, as I do, that I read the future aright, it would be criminal in me to remain silent. I plead for the higher and nobler thoughts in the souls of men; for wider love and ampler charity in their hearts; for a renewal of the bond of brotherhood between the classes; for a reign of justice on earth that shall obliterate the cruel hates and passions which now divide the world.

Mrs. Jones, after having furnished bond for her appearance at United States court Tuesday moved her quarters from a room in the county jail building to the Van Winkle hotel, where, she will remain until the trial of the agitators take place. She does not seem to be troubled in the least about the outcome of the proceedings as she says she does not believe that either she or the men who were arrested showed any contempt by their actions after the injunction issued a short time ago by Judge Jackson was served.

Mother Jones is an attentive student of human nature. While a woman, she has those observant qualities that give her an opinion on any subject. She has made a life-study of the lives and ways of working men, especially of the miners.

She stated that the agitators, among whom she is considered a member of high standing, have never countenanced the brutality connected with some labor troubles in the past. It is her opinion that fighting does not gain for them the desired end, and that it won’t be long until all troubles of the kind will be settled without compelling the men to overstep the boundaries of prudence.

[Mother Jones stated:]

It should not be necessary at this civilized age for men to battle and cause the loss of life. The time is near when wars will not be the means of settling differences of either nations or men.

It is a fact generally conceded that there are now two classes, each of which could work to the advantage of itself and to the other, but instead they cause agitations that grow and cause disturbances that are widely felt. To make those conditions different it is necessary for the working class to be educated to the realization of its standing, and not until that time comes will there be a a proper feeling between the employers and the employees.

In former years miners were considered a bad class. They came from different countries, and were of the kind that believed in settling all differences by force. Fighting was fun to them. They were not to be blamed for that, for they were educated to that point by those socially and officially their betters. Take for instance the troubles in Ireland years ago. The inhabitants of one county would fight those of the other until there was continual trouble. The same spirit was brought to this country, and, while the hardy miners could stand such hardship and rough treatment at the hands of their employers, they could not stand by and see themselves getting beaten for their wages.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Grants Interview to Reporter after Her Release from Jail at Parkersburg, West Virginia”

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Taken to Jail at Parkersburg after Refusing Offer of Hotel Room; Visited by Young Reporter

Share

Quote Mother Jones, Injunction Shroud, Bff Exp p7, Apr 24, 1909—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday June 23, 1902
Mother Jones Interviewed in Jail at Parkersburg, West Virginia

From The Philadelphia Inquirer of June 22, 1902:

Mother Jones to Jail at Parkersburg WV, Phl Inq p24, June 22, 1902

From the Parkersburg Daily Morning News of June 21, 1902:

[Mother Jones Arrested While Speaking
to Strikers at Clarksburg]

[Clarksburg, June 20]-Mother Jones’ address this afternoon was more than ordinarily bitter. She has good command of language and a powerful voice, which combined with her grey hair and commanding bearing and pleasant face give her undoubtedly much influence. She understands her power and how to use it, and while in private conversation shows a surprisingly cultivated manner and correct speech. Her language, when addressing a crowd of miners, is much after their common style and is thickly interspersed with slang and homely wit. In her speech today she denounced the mine operators as robbers, and defied Judge Jackson, placing him in the same class, and asserting that he, as well as the newspapers, and even the preachers, are in league with the interests of the mine owners against the mine workers. She was vigorously cheered at different times during her address, and especially at the close while the marshal and his deputies were making their arrests. She closed her address by urging the miners not to work, not to drink, to avoid all lawlessness and to stick together and continue to “agitate.”

—————

[Emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Taken to Jail at Parkersburg after Refusing Offer of Hotel Room; Visited by Young Reporter”

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Arrested at Clarksburg, West Virginia; Taken to Parkersburg by U. S. Deputy Marshals

Share

Quote Mother Jones, Injunction Shroud, Bff Exp p7, Apr 24, 1909—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 22, 1902
Clarksburg, West Virginia – Mother Jones Arrested by U. S. Marshals

From the Akron Beacon Journal of June 21, 1902:

MOTHER JONES ARRESTED.

Mother Jones, Ipl Ns p11, Jan 21, 1902

Clarksburg, W. Va., June 21.-“Mother” Jones, Thomas Haggerty, William Morgan, Bernard Rice, George Baron, Andrew Lascavish and William Blakely of the United Mine Workers from different parts of the country, who were arrested here last night, were taken to Parkersburg by four deputy marshals and lodged in jail.

The miners have leased a plot of ground at Clarksburg for the purpose of holding meetings, and will make the arrest their chief defense. The arrest was made under an injunction issued a few days ago by Judge J. Jackson of the United States circuit court. The amount of their bail has not been fixed, but the men were provided with sufficient funds to secure their own releases.

This is the first time that “Mother” Jones has been arrested, although she has been served with innumerable injunctions.

—————

[Photograph, emphasis and paragraph break added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Arrested at Clarksburg, West Virginia; Taken to Parkersburg by U. S. Deputy Marshals”

Hellraisers Journal: Oklahoma Leader: Imprisonment of Ricardo Flores Magón Continues “To Our Everlasting Shame”

Share

Quote Freedom Ricardo Flores Magon, ed, Speech re Prisoners of Texas, May 31, 1914—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday June 21, 1922
Ricardo Flores Magón Denied Clemency, Remains at Leavenworth

Editorial from the Oklahoma Leader of June 15, 1922:

TO OUR EVERLASTING SHAME
———-

Ricardo Flores Magon 14596 Leavenworth Pen, Nov 3, 1919
Ricardo Flores Magon, was transferred from McNeil Prison
to Leavenworth, arriving there on November 3, 1919

The breadth and depth of the ever-widening and deepening gulf which separates this government from the lofty ideals which glorified the minds of the lovers of human liberty who founded it, was never so clearly illustrated than by the recent refusal of the so-called department of justice to extended clemency to Ricardo Flores Magon.

Magon, Mexican patriot, poet and idealist, fled from Mexico when the tyrant and usurper Porfirio Diaz, always popular in this country, sought to take his life because he raised his voice and pen in behalf of his oppressed countrymen. Across the Rio Grande, safe, as he thought, from the power of his persecutor, and in a country which in times past had offered asylum to those who were exiled by liberty hating tyrants, Magon sought to arouse his countrymen to rebel and repudiate the government which was traducing the spirit of liberty and trampling the Mexican constitution in the mire.

Because of his activity in this respect, and at the instance of the secret service agents of Diaz, Magon was arrested and indicted in federal courts for inciting revolution against a friendly nation, and was convicted and given a long sentence twenty years in Leavenworth. Meantime the little flame he had fearlessly kindled burst into a refining conflagration Diaz, the bloody tyrant and usurper, abdicated his throne and escaped to a foreign land, never daring to return to the country he had impoverished and betrayed.

But notwithstanding the goal for which Magon yielded his liberty was won, the usurper removed and his regime destroyed, a servant of the people placed in office, order restored and constitutional government instituted Ricardo Flores Magon is still a poor and miserable prisoner in a stone cell in a penitentiary, the property of the United States, a nation conceived in justice and born in the name of Liberty. More than that, Magon is going blind and unless he is shortly released will never see the result of his humble labor, so fearlessly performed, to achieve his country’s redemption.

The Mexican ambassador, the legislatures of the states of Yucatan and Coahuila de Zeragoza and the Mexican Federation of Labor have memorialized the alleged department of justice at Washington for clemency for Magon, and for his fellow prisoner, Libraro Rivera, all to no avail. The capitalist government at Washington is taking sweet revenge upon the man, who was most responsible for the exile of Diaz, the dear friend of the capitalists of this country.

—————

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Oklahoma Leader: Imprisonment of Ricardo Flores Magón Continues “To Our Everlasting Shame””

Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs Opens Socialist Party Campaign with Speech at Chicago’s Riverview Park, Part II

Share

—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday June 20, 1912
Riverview Park, Chicago, Illinois – Debs Opens Socialist Party Campaign

[Eugene V. Debs Speaks to Thousands at Grand Picnic
Sunday June 16, 1912 –
Full Text of Speech, Part II:]

Ad Socialist Picnic Riverview Park, Chicago, EVD to Speak, Inter Ocn p33, June 16, 1912The national convention of the Socialist Party recently held at Indianapolis was in all respects the greatest gathering of representative socialists ever held in the United States. The delegates there assembled demonstrated their capacity to deal efficiently with all the vital problems which confront the party. The convention was permeated in every fiber with the class-conscious, revolutionary spirit and was thoroughly representative of the working class. Every question that came before that body was considered and disposed of in accordance with the principles and program of the international movement and on the basis of its relation to and effect upon the working class.

The platform adopted by the convention is a clear and cogent enunciation of the party’s principles and a frank and forceful statement of the party’s mission. This platform embodies labor’s indictment of the capitalist system and demands the abolition of that system. It proclaims the identity of interests of all workers and appeals to them in clarion tones to unite for their emancipation. It points out the class struggle and emphasizes the need of the economic and political unity of the workers to wage that struggle to a successful issue. It declares relentless war upon the entire capitalist regime in the name of the rising working class and demands in uncompromising terms the overthrow of wage-slavery and the inauguration of industrial democracy.

In this platform of the Socialist Party the historic development of society is clearly stated and the fact made manifest that the time has come for the workers of the world to shake off their oppressors and exploiters, put an end to their age-long servitude, and make themselves the masters of the world.

To this end the Socialist Party has been organized; to this end it is bending all its energies and taxing all its resources; to this end it makes its appeal to the workers and their sympathizers throughout the nation.

In the name of the workers the Socialist Party condemns the capitalist system. In the name of freedom it condemns wage-slavery. In the name of modern industry it condemns poverty, idleness, and famine. In the name of peace it condemns war. In the name of civilization it condemns the murder of little children. In the name of enlightenment it condemns ignorance and superstition. In the name of the future it arraigns the past at the bar of the present, and in the name of humanity it demands social justice for every man, woman, and child.

The Socialist Party knows neither color, creed, sex, or race. It knows no aliens among the oppressed and downtrodden. It is first and last the party of the workers, regardless of their nationality, proclaiming their interests, voicing their aspirations, and fighting their battles.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs Opens Socialist Party Campaign with Speech at Chicago’s Riverview Park, Part II”

Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs Opens Socialist Party Campaign with Speech at Chicago’s Riverview Park, Part I

Share

Quote EVD, SPA Campaign Opens, Riverview Park, Chicago, June 16, 1912—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday June 19, 1912
Riverview Park, Chicago, Illinois – Debs Opens Socialist Party Campaign

[Eugene V. Debs Speaks to Thousands at Grand Picnic
Sunday June 16, 1912 –
Full Text of Speech, Part I:]

Ad Socialist Picnic Riverview Park, Chicago, EVD to Speak, Inter Ocn p33, June 16, 1912

Friends, Comrades, and Fellow-Workers:— We are today entering upon a national campaign of the profoundest interest to the working class and the country. In this campaign there are but two parties and but one issue. There is no longer even the pretense of difference between the so-called Republican and the so-called Democratic parties. They are substantially one in what they stand for. They are opposed to each other on no question of principle but purely in a contest for the spoils of office.

To the workers of the country these two parties in name are one in fact. They-or rather it-stands for capitalism, for the private ownership of the means of subsistence, for the exploitation of the workers, and for wage-slavery.

Both of these old capitalist class machines are going to pieces. Having outlived their time they have become corrupt and worse than useless and now present a spectacle of political degeneracy never before witnessed in this or any other country. Both are torn by dissension and rife with disintegration. The evolution of the forces underlying them is tearing them from their foundations and sweeping them to inevitable destruction.

We have before us in this capital at this hour an exhibition of capitalist machine politics which lays bare the true inwardness of the situation in the capitalist camp. Nothing that any Socialist has ever charged in the way of corruption is to be compared with what Taft and Roosevelt have charged and proved upon one another. They are both good Republicans, just as Harmon and Bryan are both good Democrats-and they are all agreed that socialism would be the ruination of the country.

Taft and Roosevelt in the exploitation of their boasted individualism and their mad fight for official spoils have been forced to expose the whole game of capitalist class politics and reveal themselves and the whole brood of capitalist politicians in their true role before the American people. They are all the mere puppets of the ruling class. They are literally bought, paid for, and owned, body and soul, by the powers that are exploiting this nation and enslaving and robbing its toilers.

What difference is there, judged by what they stand for, between Taft, Roosevelt, LaFollette, Harmon, Wilson, Clark, and Bryan?

Do they not all alike stand for the private ownership of industry and the wage slavery of the working class?

What earthly difference can it make to the millions of workers whether the Republican or Democratic political machine of capitalism is in commission?

That these two parties differ in name only and are one in fact is demonstrated beyond cavil whenever and wherever the Socialist Party constitutes a menace to their misrule. Milwaukee is a case in point and there are many others. Confronted by the Socialists these long pretended foes are forced to drop their masks and fly into each other’s arms.

The baseness, hypocrisy, and corruption of these twin political agencies of Wall Street and the ruling class cannot be expressed in words. The imagination is taxed in contemplating their crimes. There is no depth of dishonor to which they have not descended-no depth of depravity they have not sounded.

To the extent that they control elections the franchise is corrupted and the electorate debauched, and when they succeed to power, it is but to execute the will of the Wall Street interests which finance and control them. The police, the militia, the regular army, the courts, and all the powers lodged in class government are all freely at the service of the ruling class, especially in suppressing discontent among the slaves of the factories, mills, and mines, and keeping them safely in subjugation to their masters.

How can any intelligent, self-respecting wage worker give his support to either of these corrupt capitalist parties? The emblem of a capitalist party on a workingman is the badge of his ignorance, his servility and shame.

Marshaled in battle array against these corrupt capitalist parties is the young, virile, revolutionary Socialist Party, the party of the awakening working class, whose red banners, inscribed with the inspiring shibboleth of class-conscious solidarity, proclaim the coming triumph of international socialism and the emancipation of the workers of the world.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs Opens Socialist Party Campaign with Speech at Chicago’s Riverview Park, Part I”

Hellraisers Journal: The Literary Digest: Treason, Reason, and the Acquittal of Blizzard at Charles Town, West Virginia

Share

Quote Fred Mooney, Mingo Co Gunthugs, UMWJ p15, Dec 1, 1920—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 18, 1922
Nations Newspapers Opine on Acquittal of William Blizzard

From The Literary Digest of June 17, 1922:

“TREASON” AND REASON

Billy Blizzard and Family, Lt Dg p14, June 17, 1922

THE NAME OF WILLIAM BLIZZARD, West Virginia miner, has been added to the few who have been tried in the United States for treason. Like most of the others, he was acquitted, yet, notes the Washington Herald, “there is plenty of reason to fear that if the case had been tried in Logan County he would have been found guilty and given the severest sentence possible on the treason charge.” That any fair-minded jury must acquit the youthful official of the United Mine Workers of America was obvious from the first to The Herald, the New York Times, and other papers, and why the indictment for treason was brought is more than The Times can understand. “Attorneys for Blizzard,” caustically observes the New York Evening World, “might have claimed that the crime charged was impossible, because no Government existed in West Virginia against which treason was possible.” “In fact,” agrees the New York Herald, “Government in West Virginia had broken down, and its power had passed in part to the mine operators.” The leaders of the union miners who marched against Logan and Mingo counties, last August, according to this paper, were manifestly trying to take the law into their own hands, “which the non-union coal operators, controlling the local government in the two counties, already had done.”

In the opinion of the conservative New York Times:

Whatever their offenses, the unionist miners and their leaders were not trying to subvert the Government of West Virginia in whole or in part. Logan County can scarcely be said to have been under the rule of law or to have had a republican form of government. Private war was answered by private war. Some constitutional guaranties appear to have been suspended by conspiracy of non-union operators. If there was any “treason,” it was on both sides; but there was no excuse for charging the leaders of the misguided invaders of Logan County with the highest of crimes.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: The Literary Digest: Treason, Reason, and the Acquittal of Blizzard at Charles Town, West Virginia”

Hellraisers Journal: From the United Mine Workers Journal: Coal Operators of Logan County Fail to Convict William Blizzard

Share

Quote Fred Mooney, Mingo Co Gunthugs, UMWJ p15, Dec 1, 1920—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 17, 1922
Charles Town, West Virginia – William Blizzard Found Not Guilty of Treason

From the United Mine Workers Journal of June 15, 1922:

After a trial that lasted five weeks, a jury at Charles Town, West Virginia, returned a verdict of not guilty in the case against William Blizzard, who was charged by the Logan county coal operators with treason against the state of West Virginia. The jury reported its verdict at 9:30 Saturday night, May 27. The court room was crowded at the time, and when the verdict was read and it was learned that Blizzard was free the crowd broke out with cheers that shook the building. There was a wild demonstration. Friends lifted Blizzard from the floor and carried him on their shoulders, while hundreds of people shouted and cheered. The demonstration continued for fully an hour. Charles Town people joined with the miners who were present for the trial in marching up and down the streets of the town in celebration of the failure of the Logan county coal operators to carry out their purpose to send Blizzard and many other members of the United Mine Workers of America to the penitentiary.

Attorneys for the coal operators announced later that they would next try Rev. J. [E.] Wilburn on a charge of murder in connection with the march in August of last year, and his trial was set for Monday, June 12. They also said they would try President C. F. Keeney and Secretary-Treasurer Fred Mooney, also, on treason charge, but no date was fixed for their trials.

The coal operators failed miserably in their attempt to convict Blizzard, who is president of Sub-District 2, of District 17. They placed about 150 witnesses on the stand, but even with all of that array of help they were unable to convince the jury of level-headed and fair- minded citizens of Jefferson county that Blizzard was guilty of the high crime of treason. The fact is that as the trial progressed it was not so much Blizzard who was on trial as the coal operators themselves and their Logan county methods. The defense succeeded in bringing out before the jury a large amount of evidence showing how the coal operators run Logan county with the aid of their hired gunmen and thugs.

One of the bits of testimony that caused much resentment among those who heard it was given by an aviator. He was not connected with the army nor with any other military force, but was a private flyer. He testified that he flew his airplane over the miners’ camps in Logan county and that he dropped bombs on them. Some of these bombs were explosive and were filled with scraps of iron. Others were gas bombs. This aviator testified that he worked at this job four days and that the Logan county coal operators paid him $100 a day. Another witness testified that one of the gas bombs landed near his house, and that the gas sickened his wife and children, killed two pigs in his lot and withered the vegetation.

Attorneys for the coal operators decided to try Blizzard first because they believed they had a stronger case against him than any of the other defendants. If that was true, they have little chance to convict any one else.

It was evident that the coal operators failed to make much of a hit with the jury or with the people of Charles Town by permitting their witnesses to testify in regard to the activities of the armed guards and gunmen and the methods employed by Sheriff Don Chafin and his deputies in their handling of the mining situation in Logan county. Chafin was a witness for the prosecution, but even his evidence failed to convict Blizzard.

[Emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the United Mine Workers Journal: Coal Operators of Logan County Fail to Convict William Blizzard”

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for May 1912: Speaks in Anaconda, Montana, on Behalf of the Harriman Lines Shopmen’s Strike

Share

Quote Mother Jones re Wealth Power Government, Anaconda Standard p5, May 4, 1912—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 16, 1912
Mother Jones News Round-Up for May 1912
Found Speaking in Anaconda, Montana, on Behalf of the Shopmen’s Strike

From The Anaconda Standard of May 4, 1912:

URGES WORKERS TO JOIN THEIR FORCES
———-

MOTHER JONES ADDRESSES MEMBERS OF LOCAL UNION.
———-
IN INTEREST OF STRIKERS
———-
Speaker is well known as strike aider and
advocate of labor unions in general
-Speaks on behalf of Southern Pacific men.

Mother Jones, Tacoma Tx p3, Feb 14, 1912

Mother Jones, the strike worker and speaker for labor unions, was in the city yesterday in the interest of the strikers on the Harriman lines. She addressed the members of the Mill and Smelter Men’s union at last night’s session. Mother Jones is known the world over. Last night she made a plea for the strikers on the Southern Pacific, stating that if this strike was lost it would be much harder to win the next. She said, in part:

I am here tonight in the interest of the strikers on the Harriman lines. From time immemorial all our wars were based on economic principles. It is a conflict between classes, and always has been. It is not a struggle between parties, it is class war. The great system you are grappling with the world has never known before. We are in the midst of a great industrial war such as the world has never seen before. Everything is changing; our newspapers, ideas, ways of living, ways of thinking and everything that is connected with us. What are our newspapers? Organs in the control of the ruling class.

We are producing more wealth today than ever before. We produce more wealth than ever did Rome or Greece. There is something wrong with the people when they let this wealth get in the hands of a few. Wealth is power, power rules, consequently we have a despotic government. The power is not in the government, but in Wall Street. The president who is elected is named two years before election by the banks on Wall street. The press is controlled by that power and it molds public opinion. The magazines are the same. Religion fits in with this system of the capitalists. You did not see any Salvation Army 60 years ago. It was not needed. The Salvation Army came with the controlling class. The same is true of the temperance movements. The controlling class needs these devices to keep the working class hypnotized so they cannot think. Everything is in conflict. We are all after the dollar. We betray ourselves for the dollar, as well as for a smile from the boss.

Mother Jones continued in a similar strain at some length. 

—————

[Photograph added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for May 1912: Speaks in Anaconda, Montana, on Behalf of the Harriman Lines Shopmen’s Strike”

Hellraisers Journal: From Mother Earth, San Diego Edition: Emma Goldman and Ben Reitman Describe Brutal Cossack Regime

Share

Quote re IWW FSF San Diego Tribune, Mar 4, 1912 fr Mother Earth p106, June 1912—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 15, 1912
San Diego, California – Emma Goldman and Ben Reitman Report on Free Speech Fight

From Mother Earth of June 1912:

Mother Earth Cv IWW San Diego FSF Edition, June 1912

—–

Mother Earth Contents p96, IWW San Diego FSF, June 1912

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From Mother Earth, San Diego Edition: Emma Goldman and Ben Reitman Describe Brutal Cossack Regime”