Hellraisers Journal – Friday December 23, 1921 Coal Mining Region of Southeastern Kansas- “Amazon Army” Raises Hell
From the New York Evening World of December 20, 1921:
SIX MORE WOMEN RIOTERS ARRESTED Police of State and Nation Extend Drive in Kansas Coal Field Against Bootlegging.
PITTSBURG, Kan., Dec. 20. Six more women, charged with unlawful assemblyin connection with the coal mine riots were under arrest today as State and county officials broadened their offensive against illegal rum venders, radicals and other undesirables of the mine fields….
From Washington Evening Star of December 21, 1921:
From the Albuquerque Evening Herald of December 22, 1921:
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday December 22, 1921
Mother Jones News Round-Up for July 1921
Found in Washington, D. C., at Senate Hearings on Conditions in W. V. Coal Fields
From The Cincinnati Enquirer of July 15, 1921:
Unionization Back of Strife,
Senate Mingo Inquiry Shows
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SPECIAL DISPATCH TO THE ENQUIRER.
Washington, July 14.-In the opening hour of its investigation to-day the select Senate committee investigating conditions in the West Virginia coal fields, elicited from spokesmen for operators and for the miners the admission that the virtual warfare there centers about unionization of the fields.
At the prompting of Senator William S. Kenyon, of Iowa, the committee Chairman, both agreed that unionization is “the issue.”
[…..]
A distinctly West Virginia atmosphere permeated the committee room.
Attorneys for both factions were powerful man, husky voiced and tanned. Others present were: Sid Hatfield, former Chief of Police of Matewan, who participated in the gun battle there; Frank Keeney, President of the district organization; Samuel B. Montgomery, state labor leader; Sheriff Jim Kirkpatrick and Mother Jones, silvery haired matriarch of labor welfare.
Secretary Mooney described general conditions in the mining region and paralleled them with the situation there in 1913 when a Senate Committee investigated.
[…..]
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[Photograph added.]
From The Scranton Times of July 16, 1921:
Sid Hatfield Describes Pistol Battle In Mingo —————
Takes Stand In Senate Committee’s Probe of Strike Trouble
-Denies He Took Credit For Killing Detectives.
Washington, July 16.-“Sid” Hatfield, ex-chief of police of Matewan, W. Va., today took the stand in the senate labor committee’s investigation of the Mingo mine war.
Word that the member of the famous West Virginia family was testifying spread through the capitol and the room soon was soon crowded.
“Mother” Jones pitched her chair closer to the witness table to catch what the man who is under indictment on charge of shooting Baldwin Felts detectives would say.
Without the slightest sign of nervousness the lanky, blonde mountain youth described the pistol battle in which he was the central figure. His suit was neatly pressed and a Masonic charm dangle from his watch chain. His quick gray eyes watched the members of the committee intently and he frequently gave a sneering laugh at questions from counsel for the operators…..
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday December 21, 1921
Mother Jones News Round-Up for May and June 1921
Found in Mexico City, Standing for Organization of Mexican Workers
From the Tucson Citizen of May 11, 1921:
MOTHER JONES WILL RESIDE IN MEXICO.
In January Mother Jones, the noted socialistic agitator who has been in the public eye throughout the United States through many years, went to the City of Mexico to attend an international congress of workingmen and women.
It is announced now that Mrs. Jones has decided to make her permanent residence in Mexico. She is quoted as saying that after many years of story experience in the United States including six penitentiary sentences served she finds Mexico “the only country where she can live la tranquility.”
[Photograph added.]
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Note: Mother has been taken into custody many times during her long life of standing with working people, but has never served a sentence in any penitentiary sentence that we know of.
From the Cleveland Toiler of June 4, 1921 -excerpt from article by Geo. N. Falconer:
MOTHER JONES.
Seemed as if she had been imported specially to boost the Workers’ Mexican Government. “Workers,” she shouted during her several addresses during the Pan-American Congress, “stand by your government and it will stand by you.”
“The pulse of the world is throbbing today,” declared ‘Mother’ Jones. “Humanity is watching the new Mexico. I want to tell you that there will be no intervention by the capitalist robbers of the United States in the affairs of Mexico. We won’t stand for it. We are going back to the United States and appeal to the workers there to stand by the workers here.”
When she shouted, “You are going to bring the new day in this country and center the eyes of the world on Mexico as well as Russia,” the applause was tremendous.
Didn’t Mother Jones boost for Woodrow Wilson in 1916? And Mother Jones paid many compliments to that “grand old man of labor,” King Gompers. Why? Is she so ignorant of Samuels’ labor history?
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From Proceedings of the Convention of American Federation of Labor at Denver, Colorado, June 13-25, 1921:
…..Ernest Greenwood representing the International Labor Office at Geneva, Frank Bohn, publicist, together with Mother Jones as the invited guest of General Villarreal, minister of agriculture of Mexico, accompanied the party [of representatives of the American Federation of Labor] from St. Louis to Mexico City. Mother Jones attended the meetings of the convention and spoke on two occasions.
On arrival at Nuevo Laredo we learned that that the government of Mexico had sent a reception committee representing the government and labor to the boundary line to meet and greet us…..
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday December 20, 1911 Report on Child Labor in Mississippi by E. N. Clopper, Part II
From The Hattiesburg News (Mississippi) of December 18, 1911:
CHILD LABOR IN MISSISSIPPI ———————- By E. N. CLOPPER, Mississippi Valley Secretary National Child Labor Committee.
III.Why Mississippi Should Adopt the Uniform Child Labor Law.
[Part II of II]
Oyster Shuckers, Beloxi, Mississippi, by Lewis Hine Children as young as ages 3 and 5 years old.
A uniform child labor law was adopted by the United Stales commissioners on uniform laws at their twenty-first annual meeting in Boston, Aug. 25 and 26, 1911, upon the report of their special committee, a distinguished member of which was the Hon. A. T. Stovall of Mississippi. It embodies the best provisions of the child labor laws already in existence in several states.
The uniform child labor law may be summarized thus:
The law prescribes a general age limit of fourteen for practically all employment, except agriculture and domestic service, and for all occupations during the hours when the public schools in the district in which the child resides are in session; an age limit of twelve for newsboys; an age limit of sixteen for certain specified occupations dangerous to life or limb or injuries to the health or morals of the child, the specified occupations to be increased upon order of the state board of health; an age limit of eighteen for children in specified extra hazardous occupations; an age limit of twenty-one for employment of boys in saloons, the employment of girls in mines or quarries, in oiling or cleaning machinery in motion or in any occupation where this employment compels them to remain standing constantly; an eight hour day for boys under sixteen and girls under eighteen, with a fifty-four hour week for boys under eighteen and girls under twenty-one; an age limit of twenty-one for boys in the night messenger service.
Certificates of employment are to be issued by the superintendent schools or by a person authorized by him in writing.
The adoption of this uniform child labor law in its entirety by the state of Mississippi would not only cure the evils of child labor from which the state is now suffering, but would prevent greater evils in the future development and progress of the state, so that industry would be built upon a secure foundation and the children, the future citizens of the state, be fully protected.
Why should not a southern state, why should not Mississippi, with its traditions of high statesmanship, be the first to put this model child labor law into effect?
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday December 19, 1911 Report on Child Labor in Mississippi by E. N. Clopper -with Photograph of Little Oyster Shuckers by Lewis Hine
From The Hattiesburg News (Mississippi) of December 18, 1911:
CHILD LABOR IN MISSISSIPPI
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By E. N. CLOPPER, Mississippi Valley Secretary
National Child Labor Committee.
III.Why Mississippi Should Adopt the Uniform Child Labor Law.
[Part I of II.]
THE investigations covered in article 2 were made before the Mississippi child labor law went into effect. A more recent study of the conditions in April and May, 1911, was made by L. W. Hine, an agent of the national child labor committee. Fortunately, Mr. Hine was able to secure the aid of the camera in communicating his impressions to others. No anonymous or even signed denials can contradict the proof given with photographic fidelity by the camera that the law is being violated.
There has in recent years grown up another child employing industry in Mississippi which in some of its aspects is as bad as the cotton mill. It is the business of shucking and canning oysters and packing shrimps along the gulf coast. These children, in contrast to the children of the cotton mills, who are almost altogether of Mississippi stock, are mostly foreign children imported from Maryland and Delaware, where they are employed in the great truck gardens and berry fields and the vegetable canneries during the summer months, on account of the effective laws of those states, and then are brought to the gulf coast during the shrimp and oyster season. Thus they get no chance at all at an education. Mr. Hine’s report is as follows:
Feb. 24, 1911, I asked the manager of a certain packing house for permission to take some photos, and he said very emphatically that they permitted no one to take photos around the place while workers were there because of the fact they might be used by child labor people. On my own responsibility, then, I visited the plant at 5 a. m., Feb. 25, 1911, before the manager arrived and spent some time there. They all began work that morning at 4 a. m., but it is usually 3 a. m. on busy days. The little ones were there, too, and some babies—one, off in the corner, with a mass of quilts piled over it. From 4 a. m. the entire force worked until 4 p. m., with only enough time snatched from work during the day in which to take a few hurried bites. The breakfast, got in a hurry and in the dark, was not likely very nourishing. Sound asleep on the floor, rolled up against the steam chest, for it was a cold morning, was little Frank, eight years old, a boy who works some. His sister, Mamie, nine years old and an eager, nimble worker, said: “He’s lazy. I used to go to school, but mother won’t let me now because I shuck so fast.” I found considerable complaint about sore fingers caused by handling the shrimps. The fingers of many of the children are actually bleeding before the end of the day. They say it is the acid in the head of the shrimp that causes it. One manager told me that six hours was all that most pickers could stand the work. Then the fingers are so sore they have to stop. Some soak the fingers in an alum solution to harden them. Another drawback to the shrimp packing is the fact that the shrimps have to be kept ice cold all the time to preserve them. It would seem that six hours or less of handling icy shrimps would be bad for the children especially.
The mother of three-year-old Mary said she really does help considerably. So does a five-year-old sister, but they said the youngest was the best worker.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday December 18, 1921
Southeastern Kansas – Art Shields Reports on the Miner’s “Amazon Army”
From the Oklahoma Leader of December 13, 1921:
PITTSBURG, Kan., Dec 13- There is joy and laughter in the coal fields of Kansas for the strikebreakers are on the run before the militant ladles of that Sunflower state.
The fun begun before daylight when the 120 men who have helped themselves to the vacant jobs in the big Jackson-Walker mine No. 17 near South Franklin began to get off the two interurban cars and to get into hot water all at once.
They say there used to be some excitement in the old Amazon days, but it was nothing to the action out there on the Kansas prairie. Seven hundred and fifty lively ladies gave the travelers the liveliest reception they had ever experienced. Young women, old women, blondes, brunettes and every kind began swarming into those wishers for unhallowed work and began ruffing their feelings.
Deputies Looked On.
In the midst of the charming host were the forces of the law, Sheriff Gould and his deputies, to see that nothing happened that ought not to happen, and all they could do was to look on while the cause of the trouble was all removed by the visitors rushing pell mell back into the cars and begging the motormen to drive on.
What could the sheriff do against such a crowd of lovely femininity, all in their best bibs and tuckers, flying the stars and strips from a dozen poles and laughing and singing? One stalwart woman wrapped her country’s banner around the sheriff and gave him three cheers, and they all joined in and gave him three cheers, and gave the inter-urban cars a salvo of hurrahs as they went on with the men who tried to break the strike for the release of Howat and Dorchy.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday December 17, 1911 Mother Jones News Round-Up for November 1911, Part III
Found in Fresno Speaking on Behalf of McNamara Brothers
From The Fresno Tribune of November 16, 1911:
From The Fresno Tribune of November 20, 1911:
MOTHER JONES TALKS FOR M’NAMARAS
Mother Jones, famous for her work throughout the country for strikers, Saturday night addressed a large gathering at union hall in behalf of the McNamara defense fund. Mother Jones is 79, yet her white hair is all that would show her age, for she is youthful in talk and actions.
Mother Jones pleaded for funds for the McNamara defense. She declared that union men would never stoop to blow up the Times building.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday December 16, 1911 Mother Jones News Round-Up for November 1911, Part II
Found in California Speaking on Behalf of McNamara Brothers
From The Sacramento Bee of November 14, 1911:
“MOTHER” Jones, known throughout the country as a forceful speaker on Socialistic and Labor questions is coming to Sacramento. She will be he principal speaker at the “Capital and Labor” drama that is to be staged in the Clunie Theater to-morrow night. It is announced in local labor circles that Mother Jones is to speak in defense of the McNamara Brothers, now on trial in Los Angeles for the alleged dynamiting of the Los Angeles Times.
The drama “Capital and Labor” that is to be played at the Clunie Theater to-morrow night is in the nature of a benefit for the strikers in the local shops. It will be under the personal direction of Paul Gerson who will be supported by William A. Lowery member of the Blacksmith’s Local of San Francisco, who will appear in the role of the black smith in the play.
The receipts from the play, it is understood, will go into an emergency fund. From this fund relief will be given those unskilled laborers who were not organized at the time the strike was called and who hence are not entitled to strike benefits.
The company which is to stage the play is made up of professional talent and a good production is expected.
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