Hellraisers Journal – Sunday September 26, 1920 -Mother Jones News for August 1920, Part II Found in Washington, D. C., Opining on Women, the Ballot, and Labor Struggles
From The Washington Times of August 29, 1920:
SEES CURE IN RIGHT VOTING ——- Victory Futile, Says 90-Year-Old Leader, If “Ownership of Bread” is Lost. ——-
“No nation can ever grow greater or more human than its womanhood and I am not expecting the millennium as a result of woman’s privilege to vote,” said Mother Jones, noted woman leader, here today.
I am anxious to see women stand aide by side with men in developing the human family, but all of the ballots in the world will not change conditions for the people’s welfare unless attention is focused upon the disease causing the trouble.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 20, 1920
-Mother Jones News for May 1920, Part II
Found Described by John D. Barry and Speaking in Streator, Illinois
From The Pacific Commercial Advertiser of May 15, 1920:
AN EVENING WITH MOTHER JONES
BY JOHN D. BARRY
The News “New York’s Picture Newspaper” May 7, 1920
A few months ago I heard someone say: “I wonder where Mother Jones is now. I suppose that, like many an other she has pulled in her horns and gone into retirement.”
I thought of those words as I listened to the old lady in Los Angeles recently, on her way to San Francisco, and heard her declare in that deep, strong voice of hers, the highly developed voice of the practiced orator, that she had passed her ninetieth milestone.
“You’ve got a lot of fight in you yet,” said a man who had himself long been a fighter for good cause.
[Mother Jones announced:]
Whenever there’s a fight for labor, I want to be there. I’m still in the ring.
I wondered if those fights hadn’t been the means of keeping her so well and young. She fulfilled the law emphasized by the psychologists, that life, to be a success, must mean persistent devotion to the ideals of the mind and the spirit. Her ideals had been high. They had exacted hard service. She had lived up to them devotedly.
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She knew that a group of us had come to hear her talk and it was characteristic of her good humor to talk freely for our entertainment and enlightenment. She was evidently a born story teller. She had a dramatic quality that, under different circumstances, might have made her a great actress or a great playwright. Her memory was like a series of brilliant slides. Now she would give us one picture, now another.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday March 21, 1910
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – Eugene Debs Speaks at Mass Meeting
From The Philadelphia Inquirer of March 20, 1910:
PRATT AND DEBS AT LABOR MEETING
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Sympathetic strikers crowded Labor Lyceum Hall, at Sixth and Brown streets, when their big mass meeting was called to order at 3 o’clock yesterday afternoon [Saturday March 19th], and the streets about the building were blockaded with hundreds who were unable to enter the hall.
Many policemen, under command of Lieutenants Nippes and Ehrsman, were stationed about the entrance to the hall and along Sixth and Brown streets to prevent possible rioting, and riot wagons from City Hall were placed in near-by streets.
C. O. Pratt, the executive chairman of the carmen’s organization, arrived at the Labor Lyceum soon after 3 o’clock in an automobile, and was cheered by the crowd as he made his way to the entrance. The doors had been ordered closed by the police, but the lieutenant in charge made way for Pratt and the speakers with him. As soon as Pratt was inside the hall the crowd picked him up and passed him along to the platform.
Pratt in his speech exhorted the labor men to stand firm in their demands. In concluding he asked all who would remain out on strike to say “aye.” The answering chorus of “ayes” was heard in the streets.
Eugene [V]. Debs, a former Presidential candidate on the Socialist ticket, also addressed the meeting.
[He said:]
You are waging a class fight. I am not here to philosophize, but to tell you to fight and fight to the end, and you will win. There is nothing to concede, nothing to arbitrate. If you concede anything you will lose all. Fight the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company. J. Pierpont Morgan could end the strike in a minute if he wanted to.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday February 8, 1910
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – Shirtwaist Strikers Fight to Live, Part II
From the International Socialist Review of February 1910:
Fighting to Live
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By Tom A. Price.
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[Part II of II.]
[Mother Jones in Philadelphia.]
Mother Jones. This little woman whose heart is as big as the nation and beats wholly for humanity, came to Philadelphia while the trumpet was still reverberating after the call to arms had been sounded. Under her bold leadership the fighters were organized before the manufacturers had fairly realized that their workers had at last been stung to revolt by the same lash which had so often driven them to slavery.
In impassioned speech after impassioned speech Mother Jones urged the girls on to battle. Shaking her gray locks in defiance she pictured the scab in such a light that workers still shudder when they think of what she would have considered them had they remained in the slave pens of the manufacturers. Every man and woman and child who heard her poignantly regrets the fact that her almost ceaseless labors at last drove her to her bed where she now lies ill.
But she had instilled into the minds of her followers the spirit which prompted her to cross a continent to help them. That spirit remains and is holding in place the standard which she raised. It is leading the girls to every device possible to help the cause. Many of them are selling papers on the street that they may earn money to contribute to the union which they love.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday December 10, 1909
“A Boy Mine Worker,” Like Those Who Perished in the Cherry Mine-Fire
From the International Socialist Review of December 1909:
“A Boy Mine Worker”
Note: Photograph is by Lewis Hine of Trapper Boy in a West Virginia Coal Mine, see Survey of October 2, 1909.
From the Editor’s Chair
The Murder of Illinois Miners
On Saturday, Nov. 13, fire broke out in the mine of the St. Paul Coal Company at Cherry, Ill., where 708 miners were at work. Next morning 125 men responded to roll call. A few more may have escaped, but the actual number dead in the mine is probably close to 500. The newspaper reports of the fire were so conflicting, and so obviously toned down in the interests of the mine owners, that the Review sent its own representative to Cherry, in order that we might make an accurate statement of the facts before commenting on them. He found the reporters of the capitalist papers snugly housed in Pullman cars, wined and dined by St. Paul officials. He found the surviving miners unanimous in the opinion that the death of their comrades was directly due to the action of the mine officials in keeping the men at work long after the fire started. Direct evidence that this is the case is not wanting. Our representative asked President Earling of the St. Paul Railway at what hour the fire started. He replied, “One thirty.” To the question, “Why weren’t the men notified?” his only answer was an eloquent gesture indicating that he had nothing to say.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 5, 1909
“The Apostate” by Jack London, The Story of a Child Laborer
From The International Socialist Review of June 1909:
A Story of Child Labor
“THE APOSTATE”
BY JACK LONDON.
F you don’t git up, Johnny, I won’t give you a bite to eat!”
The threat had no effect on the boy. He clung stubbornly to sleep, fighting for its oblivion as the dreamer fights for his dream. The boy’s hands loosely clenched themselves, and he made feeble, spasmodic blows at the air. These blows were intended for his mother, but she betrayed practiced familiarity in avoiding them as she shook him roughly by the shoulder.
“Lemme ‘lone!”
It was a cry that began, muffled, in the deeps of sleep, that swiftly rushed upward, like a wail, into passionate belligerence, and that died away and sank down into an inarticulate whine. It was a bestial cry, as of a soul in torment, filled with infinite protest and pain.
But she did not mind. She was a sad-eyed, tired-faced woman, and she had grown used to this task, which she repeated every day of her life. She got a grip on the bedclothes and tried to strip them down; but the boy, ceasing his punching, clung to them desperately. In a huddle at the foot of the bed, he still remained covered. Then she tried dragging the bedding to the floor. The boy opposed her. She braced herself. Hers was the superior weight, and the boy and bedding, the former instinctively following the later in order to shelter against the chill of the room that bit into his body.
As he toppled on the edge of the bed it seemed that he must fall head-first to the floor. But consciousness fluttered up in him. He righted himself and for a moment perilously balanced. Then he struck the floor on his feet. On the instant his mother seized him by the shoulders and shook him. Again his fists struck out, this time with more force and directness. At the same time his eyes opened. She released him. He was awake.
“All right,” he mumbled.
She caught up the lamp and hurried out, leaving him in darkness.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday May 9, 1909
Mother Jones News Round-Up for April 1909, Part I:
-Found in Dayton, Ohio, Speaking to Socialists
From The Dayton Herald of April 19, 1909:
SPECULATION SCORED BY “MOTHER” JONES
It is doubtful if the Auditorium ever held a more interested audience than that which filled it to the doors Sunday afternoon to hear “Mother” Jones’ address. Miss Gertrude Rodgers presided and in her introductory remarks said the Socialists were the only party which today recognized the equality of the sexes politically and economically and was pledged to lift womankind in the world’s affairs.
“Mother” Jones’ appearance on the stage at the conclusion of Miss Rodgers’ introductory remarks, called for a long continued welcome that clearly indicated the pleasure of those who came to hear her.
[Mother Jones stated:]
The unrest of today threatens the peace, not only of this nation, but of the world and upon the working class fails the problem of establishing peace that shall be world-wide and permanent.
[She further said:]
Were Lincoln alive today, and in power, he would, as in 1863, order the doors of prisons now holding the Mexican political prisoners thrown open and set them free, as he did the chattel slave.
“Mother” Jones jabbed working class voters for being responsible for present conditions, saying that in last November they had gone to the polls and instead of voting for their own interests, had endorsed the “ruining class” candidate.
CHILD LABOR.
The child labor question received scathing arraignment. She declared the present industrial machine had entered the sacred precincts of the home reached down into the cradle and caught the babe, had torn its hands and arms from its body, caused it to have shrunken forms and sunken lifeless eyes, in order that profits might flow to those who controlled the machinery of production. Then she denounced society for its indifference to these daily occurrences, and pointed out that in the near future it would dearly pay for these atrocious wrongs.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 26, 1909
New Orleans, Louisiana – Southern Child Labor Conference Deemed a Success
From Louisiana’s Reserve Le Meschacébé of April 17, 1909:
A PERMANENT ORGANIZATION
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CHILD LABOR CONFERENCE WILL BE
MAINTAINED AS A FIXTURE.
—–
Successful Opening Meeting Renders Members
Enthusiastic For Future.
—–
Doffer boys, ages 12 and 10. Gastonia, North Carolina —–
New Orleans.-The child labor conference of the Southern states, called by Governor J. Y. Sanders of Louisiana, came to a close after a three-days’ session, in which great things were accomplished, resolutions being adopted fixing age limit, working hours, etc., and permanent organization effected.
The convention was the second of its kind in the history of the new commercial South, but it will not be the last for already Memphis has been tacitly agreed upon as the next place of meeting, and in the twelve months which must elapse before that meeting the delegates are pledged to work mightily to create sentiment and mold opinion, so that even greater reforms than those suggested during the past few days may be gained for the “Child of the Man With the Hoe,” as Senator Colville so strikingly describes the work children. Eleven states were represented.
The chief work of the conference was the adoption of a resolution containing important provisions, to be embodied in a uniform child labor law to be proposed in the legislatures of all the states in the South…..
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[Photograph added is by Lewis Hine.]
From The Survey (formerly Charities and Commons) of April 17, 1909:
SOUTHERN CHILD LABOR CONFERENCE
—–
Smallest girl about 10 years old, has been in mill 2 years, 6 months at night. —–
In the contest over a better child labor law in the Louisiana Legislature last summer, the issue most warmly debated was whether a working day of nine hours or ten should be adopted for children under eighteen years of age, and for women. The Legislature decided upon the ten-hour day and Governor Sanders promised Miss Jean Gordon, who had led the fight for child labor reform, to call a conference in New Orleans to recommend a uniform child labor law for the southern states.
Governor Sanders wrote to all the southern governors asking them to attend the conference personally if possible and to send interested delegates: manufacturers, representatives of labor unions, and of different associations pledged to child labor reform. Delegates to the conference were appointed by all the southern governors except Governor Comer of Alabama, and Governor Campbell of Texas. Governor Comer’s reason for not appointing delegates—that Alabama had already the best child labor law in the country with the possible exception of Massachusetts, was so ridiculous that his action focused attention upon the deficiencies of the Alabama law, it being generally believed that these rather than the excellence of the law furnished the reason why the governor, himself a cotton manufacturer, deplored any further discussion or agitation of the subject in Alabama.
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F you don’t git up, Johnny, I won’t give you a bite to eat!”
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