Tag: Alvaro Obregon

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for August 1921: Found Advocating for Workers of Mexico and Standing with West Virginia Miners

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Mother Jones PAFL Congress, p72, Jan 13, 1921————————-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday January 24, 1922
Mother Jones News Round-Up for August 1921
Found Advocating for Mexican Workers and Standing with West Virginia Miners

From the Salina Kansas Leader of August 4, 1921
-from The New Majority (Chicago Federation of Labor):

U. S. LABOR ASKED TO ASSIST MEXICO
———-
Mother Jones Brings Request for Alliance in
Fight for New Civilization

The Republican administration under President Harding is beating the tom-toms to arouse the country to stand for a war against Mexico to bind and gag that country while the oil profiteers continue to pick its pockets. Excuse has been made of a strike of oil workers to send United States gunboats to Mexican waters in an effort to cow the Mexican workers back to work for their “American” employers.

Only the labor movement of the United States can prevent war with Mexico. The Denver convention of the A. F. of L., adopted a policy of resisting such a war. The time seems to be at hand for the American unions to start their protest, if it is to become effective.

Mother Jones has just returned from her second trip to Mexico within the year. She was in Chicago last week and brought with her a message from the Mexican organized workers. Just before she left, she attended a meeting of the presidents and secretaries of the unions affiliated with the Mexican Federation of Labor. They asked her to bear this greeting to organized labor of the United States : 

We send greetings to our brother workers in America and we want you, Mother Jones, to carry the message to them that the world is in the birth throes of a new civilization and that we in Mexico are coming to her aid to relieve her pain. We also wish you would ask our brothers in the United States to join us and we will stand shoulder to shoulder with them to usher in the new day and the civilization.

Now is Time to Help

If the workers of the United States are to stand shoulder to shoulder with the workers of Mexico, the job has got to begin with making impossible a war by our oil kings against the Mexican people.

Mother Jones reports that labor is making great strides in Mexico. She says that the newspaper reports that President Obregon is giving in to American demands that article 27 of the Mexican constitution be repealed are false. Article 27 vests ownership of the underground wealth of Mexico in the Mexican people.

She says that recently the Mexican government provided 300 striking miners with agricultural implements and placed them on farm lands so they could support themselves during their struggle and that in another case when the workers of a factory were locked out, the employer was compelled to reinstate them and pay their back wages.

[Said Mother Jones:]

Mothers who are employed are now retired on full pay for three months before childbirth and three months thereafter. Then for another three they bring their babies to work and have them cared for during working hours in nurseries provided by the employers. Whereas Mexican workers heretofore never knew when starvation and death would overtake them, their condition has improved so that now their children are going to school and are assured of their breakfast every morning before they go.

-New Majority.

[Photograph added.]

From North Carolina’s Wilson Times of August 5, 1921:

UNION MINERS GO TO COAL
FIELDS N MINGO COUNTY
———-

MOTHER JONES IS GOING
———-
Union Official Sates if the Organizers Were Arrested
He Would Send More Until the Jails Were Full.
Coal Fields in Mingo County Are Under Martial Law
———-

Charleston, W. V., July 29.-100 members of the United Mine workers of America from Cabin Creek and Paint Creek fields will start for Mingo county according to C. F. Keeney, president of district No. 17.

Mother Jones, organizer, is expected to arrive here tonight and also will go to the coal fields.

The decision to send the union men into the district which is under martial law was made the miners president said after C. F. Workman an organizer was reported arrested. Keeney claimed Workman had permission from the state authorities to return to the fields to wind up his personal business.

Keeney stated if organizers were arrested he would send more until every jail was filled, and if they were not arrested it would prove “organizers can go into a strike zone unmolested.”

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for February 1921: Journalist Claims Mother Jones Helping to Make Mexico Safe for American Business

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote Mother Jones PAFL Congress, p72, Jan 13, 1921———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 25, 1921
Mother Jones News Round-Up for February 1921
-C. H. Newell Claims Mother Jones is Helping to Make Mexico Safe

From the Salt Lake Telegram of February 1, 1921:

MAKING MEXICO SAFE PLACE FOR ALL
———-
Obregon, Villareal, Gompers and
“Mother Jones” Fight Bolshevism
———

By C. H. NEWELL

Mother Jones, ed WDC Tx p2, Aug 29, 1920

MEXICO CITY, Feb. 1.-Mexico’s “big four” are Obregon, Gompers, Villareal and Mother Jones.

They’re making Mexico safe for Americans and American business.

The great American drive to capture the immensely rich Mexican trade is on full blast…..

“MOTHER” IS HELPING.

Mother Jones, America’s 90-year-young labor leader, is helping to put the skids under bolshevism in Mexico.

Her visit to Mexico, at first hailed with glee by Communist party organizers, has resolved itself into a characteristic crusade for trade union organization.

This means, employers and government officials say, a better chance for the Obregon administration to get the country back on a productive basis.

[Mother Jones says:]

Education is the fundamental need of Mexico. I’m down here to preach the gospel of education for workers.

When they get education they will know how to act to achieve full industrial as well as political rights. And the agency through which they will make the most rapid, peaceful progress is the Pan-America Labor federation, backed as it is by the American Federation of Labor.

This is what Mother Jones told the communists at the labor convention:

SAYS IT IS BEST.

Uncle Sam’s government may not be perfect, but it is the best one on earth today. So you rats may just as well understand that if you open your mouths against my country, I will grab you by the collar, drag you out of your hole, and shake hell out of you.

Mother Jones is the personal guest of General Antonio Villareal, who, as secretary of agriculture, is trying to restore farming and ranching pursuits, with real success.

Several years ago an effort was being made by mining and timber interests of northern Mexico have Villareal deported from the United States. His deportation would have meant his death.

Mother Jones made a trip to Washington in his behalf and he was not deported.

Villareal has been one of the foremost in restoring mail, wire, railway and ship service, so all important lines of communication are now open in the country.

———-

[Photograph added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for January 1921, Part I: Found Traveling from West Virginia to Mexico City with Fred Mooney

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Un-Christ-Like Greed, IN DlyT Ipls p1, July 15, 1920———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 27, 1921
Mother Jones News Round-Up for January 1921, Part I:
–Found Traveling from West Virginia to Mexico City with Fred Mooney 

From The Sacramento Bee of January 4, 1921:

LEAVES FOR MEXICO.

CHARLESTON (W. Va.), January 4.-Fred Mooney, Secretary of District No. 17, United Mine workers of America, left to-day for Mexico City to attend the Pan-American Labor Conference next week. Mooney was accompanied by “Mother Jones.”

———-

Mother Jones, ed WDC Tx p2, Aug 29, 1920

[Photograph added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Travels to Mexico with Fred Mooney, Will Attend Pan-American Labor Conference

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Un-Christ-Like Greed, IN DlyT Ipls p1, July 15, 1920———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday January 11, 1921
Mexico City – Mother Jones Attends Pan-American Labor Conference

From The Pittsburg Press of January 9, 1921:

Mother Jones IN Dly Tx p1 crpd, July 15, 1920

“MOTHER” JONES WILL BE
OBREGON’S GUEST.
—–

Charleston, W. Va., Jan. 8.-Treasuring an invitation to be the guest of President Alvaro Obregon, of Mexico, during her stay in Mexico City, “Mother” Jones left here accompanied by Fred Mooney, secretary-treasurer of the United Mine Workers of this district, to attend the Pan-American labor conference. She has been in West Virginia working among the miners for some time.

———-

UMW D17, Mooney Keeney, Lbtr p9, Aug 1920

[Photographs and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Liberator: “The Mexican Revolution” by Carleton Beals and Robert Haberman, Part II

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Zapata Die Fighting, Wikiquote———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday July 30, 1920
“The Mexican Revolution” by Carleton Beals and Robert Haberman, Part II

From The Liberator of July 1920:

The Mexican Revolution

By Carleton Beals and Robert Haberman

[Part II of III.]

Mex Rev, Obregon Mexico City, Liberator p4, July 1920

There have been a great many myths regarding the benefits of the Carranza régime, such as the opening of schools, giving lands to the Indians, nationalizing the sub-soil, etc., etc. One by one the pitifully few schools of the Diaz administration have been closed until Tacubaya and Mixcoac, two of the largest residence suburbs of Mexico City cannot boast a single public school. Land, given to the Indians, has in many cases, as in Yucatan, Tabasco and Morelos, been wrested away by military might, while a single grant to a General has often amounted to more in area than all the lands given away to the people during the whole of the Carranza rule. Under the cloak of the slogan of Mexico for the Mexicans, which has so attracted the imaginations of American radicals, he has stabbed every liberty in the back, and has built up a grasping, grafting, unprincipled military clique, the members of which have ridden across the land looting, murdering and stirring up revolt, until the federal soldier is more feared and hated than the bandit.

Directly the revolution resulted from two things: the attempt on the part of the government to railroad Bonillas, former ambassador at Washington, into the presidency; and the attempt to repeat the story of Yucatan and its murders in Sonora, the home state of Obregon.

To guarantee the election of Bonillas, government candidates were imposed by force in half a dozen states, Obregon meetings were broken up by the sabers of the man on horseback, Obregon himself was arrested on fake charges of inciting a rebellion. The knowing shook their heads, and predicted his murder within a week or two.

In the meantime Carranza was pouring soldiers into Sonora, against the repeated remonstrances of Governor de la Huerta, to crush the railroad strike and several mining strikes that were on, and probably in addition to break up the state government and impose his own officials as he had done in Yucatan, in Tabasco, in half a dozen other states.

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Liberator: “The Mexican Revolution” by Carleton Beals and Robert Haberman, Part I

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Zapata Die Fighting, Wikiquote———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday July 29, 1920
“The Mexican Revolution” by Carleton Beals and Robert Haberman, Part I

From The Liberator of July 1920:

The Mexican Revolution

By Carleton Beals and Robert Haberman

[Part I of III.]

Mex Rev, Zapatistas Mexico City, Liberator p5, July 1920

AFTER ten years of practice any people should understand quite thoroughly the technique of conducting a respectable, eat-out-of-your-hand revolution. The Mexican revolution which brought a new régime into power some few days ago was orderly, efficient, easily successful. Less than a month from the day the sovereign state of Sonora raised the banner of revolt, the revolutionary army-el ejercito liberal revolucionario-galloped into the capital without the firing of a single shot.

They looked strange-those men from the hills, on their lean, tired ponies, as they pounded down Avenida Francisco Madero, Mexico’s fashionable Fifth Avenue, dusty and ragged-colorful with great red and blue bandana handkerchiefs and vivid shirts, with flowers hung on their carbines, but eyes grim with purpose. Yet Mexico paid little attention to them. The stores were open; the honking automobiles crowded the flanks of their ponies; fashionable women went unconcernedly about their shopping. Only occasionally did they stop with a rustle of their silk gowns to gaze at the queer outlaw crew of sandalled Indians and Mestizos sweeping by beneath their great, bobbing sombreros.

During those first days I roamed the streets disconsolately-box seats at a Mexican revolutionary melodrama and no thrills. I tried to imagine the turnover as being a cross-your-heart-to-die proletarian revolution, but merely spoiled the afternoon wishing I were in Russia.

Nevertheless, I made the most of it; hired an automobile and dashed around town taking snapshots of generals-who were easier to find than soldiers-scoured the countryside looking for the victoriously approaching Obregon who was expected in the capital within forty-eight hours with an immense force, of which the bands of cavalry we had seen were the paltry forerunners. Early in the afternoon we burnt up the road to Guadelupe Hidalgo-that venerated religious mecca of Mexico five miles outside of the capital, whishing past red-cross machines speeding back from the wreck of one of the Carranza military trains that had evacuated the capital some twenty minutes before the rebels arrived.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The Liberator: “The Mexican Revolution” by Carleton Beals and Robert Haberman, Part I” →