Hellraisers Journal – Thursday May 25, 1922 Report Describes Child Labor in Shrimp and Oyster Canning Industry
From the Pittston Gazette of May 23, 1922:
POOR CONDITION FOR CHILD WORKERS IN FISH CANNERIES ———-
Josie, six year old, Bertha, six years old, Sophie, 10 years old, all shuck regularly at Maggioni Canning Co, Port Royal, South Carolina. -by Lewis Hine, February 1911
A report made public today by the U. S. Department of Labor through the Children’s Bureau describes child labor in the oyster and shrimp-canning industry during the period between the first and second Federal child labor laws, when no Federal regulation of child labor existed. Special significance attaches to the report in view of the decision of the U. S. Supreme Court, rendered on May 15, which held the Federal Child Labor Tax Law unconstitutional and thus leaves the children again without the protection of a Federal law. The report, entitled “Child Labor and the Work of Mothers in Oyster and Shrimp canning communities on the Gulf Coast,” calls attention to the very young ages of many of the children employed, the detrimental conditions under which they worked, the poor school facilities, the marked retardation in school, and the employment of mothers of young children.
The work of both the children and their parents was subject to all the irregularities of the canning industry, the report states. Since the work depended on the catch, it began any time between 3 and 7 o’clock in the morning and lasted a few hours, a whole day, or sometimes on into the evening. Of the 544 working children under 16 years of age included in the study, more than three-fifths worked whenever the factory was open. The others worked only occasionally or before and after school and on Saturdays. The majority of the children-334 of the 544 who worked-were under the age of 14 years, the minimum fixed by both of the Federal laws. Some were as young as six years of age or under.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday May 24, 1912 Los Angeles, California – Great Funeral Demonstration Held for FW Mikolasek
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of May 23, 1912:
GREAT FUNERAL DEMONSTRATION FOR MIKOLASCK.
(Special Telegram to the “Worker.”)
Los Angeles, Cal., May 13.-Fifteen hundred rebels were in line at the funeral of our brave fellow worker and comrade Joseph Mikelasck [Mikolasek], who was murdered by the San Diego police on the seventh inst. It was the greatest demonstration in the history of the city. The banner of the Industrial Workers of the World led the procession and the groups which followed carried red flags. Along the line of march the “Red Flag” and “Marseillaise” were sung. Parade traversed the business district and the police were forced to aid the parade by stopping traffic. The banners carried in the parade read:
“With the suppression of free speech our liberties are gone.”
“We are organized, not for riot and disorder, but for universal peace.”
“The defenders of liberty are jailed and murdered. The vigilantes go free.”
“He had nothing to give but his life, that he gave freely.”
“Our fellow worker who was murdered in the fight for free speech in San Diego.”
“Our silence in the grave will be more powerful than the voices you strangled today.”
Going along Hill Street the procession was joined by a body of Mexicans who threw down their tools in response to the cry of
“ONE BIG UNION FOR ALL”
J. J. McKELVEY.
[Emphasis added; newsclip added from Los Angeles Express of May 13, 1912.]
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday May 21, 1912 Mother Jones News Round-Up for April 1912, Part III Found Traveling and Speaking in Minnesota, North Dakota and Montana
From The Labor World of April 20, 1912:
Mary Jones, the little mother of the miners, and familiarly known throughout the country as Mother Jones, was a visitor in Duluth Monday and Tuesday. She delivered an address Monday evening at the Lincoln Park Auditorium in the interest of the shop employes of the Harriman lines who are on strike.
Mother Jones has been sent out by the United Mine Workers’ Union to help the striking railroad men. She is meeting with much success in soliciting funds. A fairly good collection was taken up at the Lincoln Park meeting.
During her visit to Duluth, Mother Jones spent much of her time in the office of the Labor World. We have’ known her for almost twenty years, and blamed if she does not look younger today than she did two decades ago. She attributes her youthful appearance to the fact that she has not been in jail lately nor has she been quarantined for smallpox.
Is Eighty Years of Age.
Mother Jones will be eighty years of age on May first. She is as active and as sprightly as a woman of thirty. She never looked better in her life. Her complexion is as clear as that of a baby and there is not the sign of a furrow on her kind old face.
Fight? When she is asked a question about labor conditions in the mining regions of America, her eyes flash, her mouth is set firm, her fist is clenched and she stretches out her arm with the vigor and force of an athlete. She tells a story of social injustice that reaches the heart of the most hardened.
In her speech at Lincoln Park the daily newspapers dwelled only upon the shafts she hurled at men and women of the toady type who “bend the cringing hinges of the knee that thrift may follow fawning.”
Knows the Labor Movement.
Mother Jones understands the philosophy of the labor movement. She has a peculiar way, which is distinctly her own, of driving her points right to the hearts of her listeners. For a moment she will philosophically discuss the growth and development of production; then like a flash she will clinch her argument with a militant attack upon both men and women who are responsible for injustices that have been permitted to creep into the industrial system.
Mother Jones is said to be without fear. During her strenuous life she has been cast into prison, confined in bull pens, driven at the points of bayonets, and once or twice has had a pistol aimed close to her face by willing servants of the capitalistic class…..
Hellraisers Journal – Monday May 20, 1912 Mother Jones News Round-Up for April 1912, Part II
Found Traveling Through Montana, North Dakota and Minnesota
From The Butte Miner of April 1, 1912:
“Mother” Jones, a national figure in labor circles, a woman who has done a life’s work in the furtherment of the cause of humanity, regardless of position or circumstance, last night, with a vigor at her 89 years that would put to shame the lassitude of her sisters with less milestones to account for, made a stirring address before the Silver Bow Trades and Labor council that, in lasting an hour or more, was considered too short.
She spoke first as an accredited representative of the federated employes of the Harriman system of railroads, now on strike. But she went further and covered details of the labor situation generally that appealed with telling force to her audience. Her talk was frequently interrupted by applause and was given with a spirit of conviction that carried weight…..
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From The Fargo Forum of April 9, 1912:
MOTHER JONES SCORED TEDDY
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NOTED INDUSTRIAL WORKER’S LECTURER WHO APPEARED AT ASSEMBLY HALL LAST NIGHT, SCORED ROOSEVELT AND J. P. MORGAN. ———-
“Mother” Jones, 80 years of age and well known the country over as the industrial worker’s lecturer, appeared at the Assembly hall last night in a lecture on Social Conditions, which was heard by a large number of laboring men and others. “Mother” Jones is the official organizer of the United Mine Workers of America, and has traveled the world over in her efforts in this movement. Last night she was introduced “from God Knows where.”
“Mother” Jones took a fling at Col. Theodore Roosevelt in her address last night. She accused him of selling out the coal miners in the strike of 1912 [1902] soon after he came into the White House.
Then she also rapped the Men and Religion Forward movement, which she said was but another scheme of J. Pierpont Morgan to get money from the laboring men and classes he could not otherwise reach. Her speech was a firey one and she electrified her audience with her denunciations of different nation-wide movements.
She was accompanied here to Fargo by Rev. C. H. Doolittle of Chicago, called the workingman’s friend, who opened the meeting last night with prayer which he followed with a short address on the present situation of the strike on the Harriman lines.
Another speaker at the meeting was C. M. Fielder, organizer of the journeymen barbers, who has been here for several weeks, who also talked about the Harriman strikers.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday May 19, 1912 Mother Jones News Round-Up for April 1912, Part I
Found as Author of Series on Her Work Among Nation’s Coal Miners
From The Kentucky Post of April 1, 1912:
MOTHER JONES, 8O, SENDS WORD TO MINERS THAT SHE WILL HELP THEM TO WIN STRIKE
Staff Special.
DENVER. COLO., April 1-Great heavy blankets of snow stretched from Rocky Mountain top to valley below as the Transcontinental Limited plowed on to Denver on its own made-to-fit-the-tracks schedule, going forward when the “beautiful” was’t hugging the streaks of steel too thickly, and standing still, when the snowplows whirled and plastered the landscape with frozen moisture vainly.
In the tourist car a little, old, motherly woman was the only person who didn’t seem to mind this helter-skelter method of running trains from snow pile to snow pile. She was sewing-mending, maybe. The silver-crowned bead bent down over the needle and thread and cloth. Presently she raised her head to thread a needle and I caught the kindly, motherly twinkle of eyes I had seen before. Where? On fields of great industrial battles.
“How are you Mother Jones?” I asked, grasping the worn, wrinkled hand. “What are you doing away up here in this snow-buried country?”
“I am well” she replied, carefully removing her “sewing” from the other half of the seat. “I am traveling along this road preaching ‘in union there is strength’ to the shopmen. You see, they have ‘borrowed’ me from the miners for a short time”
“Mother, I am going East to the coal fields, shall I carry them a message from you?”
“Tell my boys that when they strike to get justice,” replied the woman who is known as “the mother of every mother’s son” in the ‘coal mines of America, “tell them that Mother Jones will come and help them if it takes the last hour of her life!”
On May-day Mother Jones will celebrate her eightieth birthday. In the last 35 years of her life she has led the advance guard in so many strikes that the number has long since crept from her memory. Judges have sent her to jail for defying anti-labor injunctions. She has faced the Cossacks of Pennsylvania, the ‘’commercialized bloodhounds” of West Virginia, sheriffs and private detectives the country over.
Born in Ireland in 1832 she was brought to America when six years old. Before she married she taught school. At 35 she was left a childless widow. Then she became a “mother” to the wives and babies of the railway strikers at Pittsburg in the conflict of 1877. Soon the woes of the coal miners drew her to them and to them and their families she has been steadfast ever since.
“I will go to where their ranks are thinnest,” the little old woman said, as she read the strike news in the newspaper I had handed her.
“Will you tell the readers of The Post some of your experience among the coal miners?” I asked.
“Oh, I couldn’t now, it would take too long, but I’ll tell you I what I’ll do. When I get to Denver I will write down some incidents I have seen myself.”
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And thus was concluded an arrangement whereby The Post is able to announce a series of articles from the pen of Mother Jones, the best known person, man or woman, in American labor circles. There is hardly a workingman or woman who does not admire her, and many of them love her as a second mother. The first of her articles will appear soon in The Post.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday May 18, 1912 San Diego, California – The Death of Fellow Worker Joseph Mikolasek
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of May 16, 1912:
San Diego, Calif., May 9, 1912-The climax in the free speech fight came Tuesday, May 7. as a result one unarmed worker [Joseph Mikolasek] was murdered by the police, the town was practically under martial law, workers were clubbed on the streets, and over one hundred deported.
Tuesday morning it was reported that 84 members of the Industrial Workers of the World who were coming to participate in the free speech campaign, had arrived in the city on a freight train and were at Old Town, about three miles from the heart of the city. The police excitedly sent out all the reserves and special police men, who held up the train and took from a box car 84 free speech fighters on their way to battle. The men were lined up and herded into an old schoolhouse.
At 2 o’clock it became apparent that the vigilante outrages would be repeated for the business men were hurriedly arming themselves with rifles and shot guns. At 3 o’clock Attorney Moore of the free Speech League applied for a writ requesting the sheriff to take possession of the 84 prisoners. He also presented to the court an affidavit charging that it was the intention of the police to hand the men over to the “Vigilantes.” The writ was refused, the judge stating later in the evening he might grant a writ of habeas corpus. This was done at 8:45 p. m., too late to serve it.
Late that night, under cover of darkness, the police and the Vigilance Committee escorted the 84 Socialists and Industrial Workers out to the county line, and after tying them to trees, horsewhipping them and otherwise brutally treating them, they were told to “March north and keep going.”
Among the men thus deported were several members of the American Federation of Labor and the Socialist party.
At 7 o’clock Tuesday evening the men in town decided to make another attempt to speak on the streets. Accordingly 70 men went to the corner of Fifth and E streets and started to speak. The fifth man had mounted the rostrum when the reserve squad of the police charged the crowd which had gathered, clubbing indiscriminately. One small man named Catallon was knocked down and jumped on by a vigilante. Several citizens were injured and many speakers were arrested.
During the melee on the street some policemen were heard to say that the I. W. W. hall would be raided that night, and word was sent by sympathizers to vacate the hall, which was done, and at 7:30 p. m. when four policemen appeared at the hall it was empty. The policemen came to the doors and without demanding entrance, they poured a volley of shots into the building. They then broke into the hall and finding no one present they approached a group of I. W. W. men standing on the sidewalk around the corner. These men they proceeded to “beat up” but did not arrest them.
They then went back to the hall and saw Joe Mickolasek [Mikolasek] an I. W. W. who had just entered the building. According to Mickolasek’s dying statement the police immediately opened fire on him without any provocation.Mickolasek thereupon picked up an axe and although mortally wounded, attempted to defend himself. He wounded a policeman with the axe. The policeman who was hit with the axe was named Heddon. Thereupon Policeman Stevens opened fire upon Mickolasek. Nine shots took effect in Mickolasek’s body. During the excitement Policeman Stevens was shot in the shoulder it is supposed that this was an accident, but Woodford Hubbard, a socialist organizer, was charged with attempting to murder, although he was not in the crowd at the time of the shooting.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday May 17, 1922 Charles Town, West Virginia – No Evidence of Treason at Trial of Miners
From the United Mine Workers Journal of May 15, 1922:
At the time that this article was written the trial of William Blizzard, at Charles Town, W. Va., on a charge of treason against the state of West Virginia had been in progress for two weeks, and there appeared to be no end in sight, Judging form the number of witnesses that had been summoned by both sides. Up to end of the second week there had been no evidence of any treasonable intent on the part of Blizzard or any of the other officers and members of the United Mine Workers of Ameria who are under indictment with him.
[…..]
The trial is attracting nation-wide attention. Many of the largest newspapers of the country have special correspondents in attendance, and all of the press associations also are represented. Citizens of Charles Town and vicinity have treated the indicted miners and the witnesses with every courtesy and kindness. The hotels in Charles Town were unable to care for all of the visitors, and practically every home in the town was thrown open to them. Scores of miners are rooming in many of the best homes in Charles Town. A fraternal feeling has sprung up between the miners and local people.
One of the interesting events was a baseball game between a team composed of miners and the local Charles Town team, which resulted in a victory for the miners. New uniforms were provided for the members of the miners team, and they were every inch a ball team. A large crowd attended the game, and the proceeds were given to the Charles Town hospital…
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday May 16, 1922 Charles Town, West Virginia – Accused Union Miners Play Ball with Home Team
From the Duluth Labor World of May 13, 1922:
ACCUSED MINERS PLAY BALL WITH HOME TEAM ———-
CHARLES TOWN, W. Va., May 11.—Town folk “rooted” for the miners’ baseball team in its game with the local champions for the benefit of a hospital fund controlled by the citizens. The miners won by the score of 7 to 3.
All of the miners are charged with treason or murder. William Blizzard, the first miner to face trial, played right field for his team.
The miners have secured baseball uniforms’with the initials “U.” M. W. of A.” across their breasts. As they walked the diamond, they, were given a rousing cheer by Charles Town citizens, who show their admiration for the accused on every occasion.
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