Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday October 20, 1903 Mother Jones Stands with Working Men and Women
Saturday October 17, 1903 Cincinnati, Ohio – Mother Jones, “The laboring man is advancing every day.”
Mother Jones was in Cincinnati for a few hours yesterday on her way to Chicago. This famous old labor agitator travels alone. While in Cincinnati she made this statement:
The Cincinnati Enquirer October 17, 1903
To advance the cause of labor and laboring people is my only object. I have for years studied carefully the labor question, and in all my speeches to the miners and others I advocated peace and efficient work as the sure road to success. My idea is that every laborer, man or woman, should be worthy of their hire. They should, out of each week or month’s salary, save a few pennies, dimes or dollars. I am in hearty sympathy with the workingman, and in times of strikes or lockouts I make it my duty to go to the scene of trouble and lend my aid to the laborer and his family. They are my personal charges.
I think the day will come when capital will learn to respect laborers enough to pay them in proportion to the services they render. I am at all times an advocate of peace when disagreements arise between employer and employees, for that is the laborer’s stronghold. If he can only hold out and remain peaceable the victory is won. It is a rare occurrence that anything is accomplished by the working men who cause strife and bloodshed. They lose the respect sympathy of those who would otherwise be with them in time of need.
I think the laboring man is advancing every day, and it will be my life work to aid in this advancement.
From The Denver Post of October 18, 1903 -Mother Jones, Joan of Arc, Expected Soon in Denver:
Hellraisers Journal – Monday August 18, 1902 Mother Jones News Round-Up for July 1902, Part III Found Speaking at Central Labor Council Meeting in Cincinnati
From The North Adams Transcript of July 21, 1902:
PATHETIC FAREWELL FOR “MOTHER” JONES ———- On Leaving Indianapolis to Go to Jail for Contempt
Indianapolis, Ind., July 21-An affecting scene was witnessed in the United Mine Workers’ headquarters last evening when “Mother” Jones bade the miners goodby and boarding a train for West Virginia.
“Mother” Jones was on trial early last week with several striking miners for contempt of court in holding public meetings in the face of an injunction, and she was found guilty. She now returns to receive sentence, and it is believed she will be sent to jail.
Many of the delegates to the recent convention are still here, and in the crowd gathered in the headquarters not a single dry eye was to be seen when “Mother” said goodby. Men whose faces were as hard as parchment with the work in the mines and with the hardship of their lives wiped the tears away with their rough hands and some of them left the room.
“Mother” Jones cheered them up and made little of the coming ordeal, but the miners knew she was doing it for them, and if she were their own mother they could not have a warmer love in their hearts for her.
[Photograph added.]
From the Baltimore Sun of July 22, 1902:
Charleston, W. Va., July 21.-Upon the application of the Collins Colliery, Federal Judge Keller today issued attachments for the arrest of John Richards, president of District No. 17, United Mine Workers of America, and 35 other members who took part in meetings near that mine. Special complaint was made against a meeting of July 17 as an alleged violation of the injunction issued against National Secretary Wilson, “Mother” Jones and others. After their arrest today Richards and 10 others were taken before the United States Commissioner at Hinton, where they gave bonds, and the hearing was set for next Friday in Charleston.
Judge Guthrie, of the State Court, issued an attachment for the arrest of 10 miners on complaint of the Kanawha and Hocking Coal Company, which held that they had violated an injunction of his court.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday July 25, 1902
Cincinnati, Ohio – Mother Jones Interviewed on Her Way Back to West Virginia
From The Cincinnati Post of July 23, 1902:
[Part II of II]
QUOTES SCRIPTURE FREELY
Mother Jones is a very religious woman. Her conversation is interspersed with passages of Scripture, delivered with all the awe and reverence inherited from her Celtic ancestors.
“You are hopeful, Mother Jones, I ventured. “Many women would be dismayed at the magnitude of such an undertaking as you have shouldered.”
[She replied:
Yes, I suppose a great deal of my optimistic temperament comes from my Irish parents. I had the advantage of being born on the Emerald Isle, and try not to grow old.
She came to America in her teens, and one can easily imagine the courageous little woman was a very beautiful girl.
MARRIED AT EIGHTEEN
“Mother” Jones was married at 18, and her husband is dead. She rarely speaks of this chapter in her life, and is completely engrossed in her work.
She is “Mother” in name only, as no children blessed her married life. With no living relatives to care for, except a brother in Canada, she gives the love and sympathy necessary to every woman to the miners, their wives and children.
[She said:]
I think the most dramatic thing I ever saw in my whole life was the gathering of the miners’ wives and children to whom I spoke after the awful mine disaster at Coalcreek, Tenn.
There they stood staring me in the face-gaunt, wild-eyed and utterly paralyzed by the dreadful blows which took husbands, fathers and sons at one moment.
I felt like shrieking, “The operators murdered your dead.” Those women never saw their loved ones after they left in the morning for their daily work. The bodies were carried past their homes in coffins, and none saw the faces of the dead but the men who put them in the coffins. The 213 graves left gaps in the crowd where I was used to seeing men. There never was a mine disaster in the history of the world which could not have been prevented by the expenditure of money and effort on the part of the operators. Independence Day I helped the women of Coalcreek decorate the graves of their dead. There was wrath in my heart, but I could not add to their trouble by speaking my mind.
Hellraisers- Thursday July 24, 1902 Cincinnati, Ohio – Mother Jones Interviewed on Her Way Back to West Virginia
From The Cincinnati Post of July 23, 1902:
[Part I of II]
With a nervous little nod and a deprecating smile, “Mother Jones,” best known throughout the coal regions as “the miners’ good angel,” greeted me in her room at the Dennison House Tuesday evening. “Mother Jones” had stopped over in Cincinnati on her way from the Indianapolis convention of United Mineworkers, to speak before the Central Labor Council at Cosmopolitan Hall.
Mother Jones is at least 60 and a picture of health and comeliness. Her ample white hair is becomingly arranged in soft waves and puffs. A delicate pink tints her cheeks, smooth whiteness when she becomes excited, and her eyes are veritable Irish ones-full of humor, pathos and “the melancholy which transcends all wit.”
OUT ON BAIL
She is out on bail now. Two weeks ago she was placed on trial before Judge Jackson at Parkersburg, W. Va., with 10 miners, charged with violating an injunction order issued during the coal strike in that State. A decision in the case is to be rendered by the Judge Thursday, and “Mother Jones” has said that she wouldn’t be surprised if she were sent to jail.
Unmindful of the prison cell which may be awaiting her, however, the plucky little woman spent the day in Cincinnati shopping. From the middle of a very womanly disorder of tangled twine, torn wrapping paper and articles of feminine adornment, “Mother” Jones begged me to be seated. Considering that she had refused to see me until I had nearly exhausted a very plump and exceedingly warm-looking bell boy with plaintive messages, Mrs. Jones’ smile was a concession.
SUBJECT NEAREST HER HEART
She was unmistakably ill at ease when I opened the conversation with a remark about herself. Her slim, nervous fingers picked imaginary specks off her respectable black gown, and she eyed me with suspicion.
She picked up my note and quoted: “Dear Mrs. Jones, please see me, and you can talk about anything you wish.”
“Seeing that it is so nominated in the bond,” said she, “I choose to talk about my people, the miners.“
Softly stroking a pair of new, gray silk mitts-a purchase of the morning-the dainty old lady began to speak of the work nearest her heart, As she talked every vestige of nervousness vanished and the silk mitts were apparently forgotten.
KNOWS THE MINER’S LIFE
[Said she:]
My dear, I have lived, worked, suffered and rejoiced with the miners. They are my people. When the outside world says it knows all about the miners’ troubles and their wrongs, it has no conception of the home life or the privations and sorrow which dwell under every miner’s roof.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday March 27, 1912 Mother Jones News Round-Up for February 1912, Part I Found in Colorado, Wyoming, Illinois, Ohio and Indiana
From the Appeal to Reason of February 3, 1912:
The California Building Trades convention [of late January] unanimously adopted a resolution calling for a conference between the Socialist Party, the state A. F. of L. and the State Building Trades, with a view to united political action for the working class. Job Harriman, Mother Jones and Alexander Irvine were among the speakers at the convention.
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[Photograph added.]
From the Denver Rocky Mountain News of February 7, 1912:
ROOSEVELT ‘MONKEY CHASER,’ DECLARES ‘MOTHER’ JONES ———-
“WALL STREET WILL ELECT HIM NEXT PRESIDENT,” SAYS WOMAN LABOR LEADER. ———-
That Theodore Roosevelt is a “monkey chaser,” but will be elected the next president of the United States despite the fact, is the opinion of “Mother” Jones, who arrived in Denver yesterday to investigate labor conditions.
“I have no doubt that Roosevelt will be the next president,” she says. “Of course, I have no use for him, but he plays to the galleries, and a Wall street will elect him.
“He is the fellow who sent guns to murder the working men in the strike of 1904 [Telluride, November 1903].
“Taft is right in with him, but I think that Taft is more of a gentleman than Roosevelt is.”
“Mother” Jones will make an address at Eagle hall tomorrow night, under the auspices of the Western Federation of Miners.
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From Denver’s United Labor Bulletin of February 8, 1912:
“MOTHER” JONES SPEAKS TO FEDERATED SHOPMEN
Strike Is Already Won, Says “Mother” Many Entertainments for Benefit of Strikers
“Mother” Jones spoke to a large crowd at Eagles’ hall Wednesday night, and during her address but one man left the hall. She spoke to the striking Federated Shopmen, and her discourse covered a period of two and one-half hours. “Mother” Jones has passed through the entire life of the labor movement in the United States. The daughter of a miner and later a miner’s wife, she was reared and spent her life in the labor movement. She has a wonderful memory, and in her address she followed the evolution of the labor movement in the United States, and told of how labor has been exploited by capital to the detriment of the human race.
“Mother” Jones has been traveling over the Harriman system, and said that the strike of the shopmen was won now, and it was only a matter of time until the roads will sign up. She said that on one occasion where a train on which she was riding had a nine-hour schedule it took the train thirty-six hours to make the trip.
From Rawlins Republican (Wyoming) of February 8, 1912:
MOTHER JONES HERE
Last Thursday evening in the Danish hall Mother Jones spoke to the striking shopmen and several of their friends. The crowd was very enthusiastic and frequently applauded the speaker.
Mother Jones is a strong and vigorous speaker and does not hesitate to call a spade a spade. She assured the strikers that she was confident that a settlement of their troubles would be made in the near future, advised them to remain firm in their demands and not desert the cause for which they had been fighting for so long. She urged the men strongly to remain away from the saloons and gambling houses and prophesied that if this was not done much discredit would be thrown upon the cause they represent.
As is usual in labor leaders, she strongly denounced the capitalist class and even took a shot at several of she religious organizations.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday November 6, 1910 Ohio Labor Investigation – Report on Sweatshops from 1893
From The Progressive Woman of November 1910:
THE SWEATING SYSTEM
MARY L. GEFFS Special Investigator for the Bureau of Labor Statistics of Ohio, 1893
Origin of Title.
It is not definitely known what gave the system its title, but it is safe to hazard a guess that it was the sheer aptness of the word ”sweating” to describe the condition. For many of the shops and tenements where the work is carried on are veritable bake ovens. They are often found in attic rooms where the summer sun beats down unmercifully upon the roof but a few feet above the toilers’ head, where the heat of charcoal stoves and the steam and heat of irons needed in pressing, together with a total lack of proper ventilation render anything less than sweating impossible. It may, therefore, be to the over-doing of the command said to have been given to the First Pair, “in the sweat of they face shalt thou eat bread,” that this title is due, but it might with equal fitness express the orthodox idea of the abode of the lost, for, in all the range of woman employing industries, not only are there few so hot, but fewer still so hard, so unremunerative, so slavish, nor whose baneful effects are so wide-spread and far-reaching as that known by the title of “The Sweating System.”
What it is and How It Operates.
This system is that by which garments are cut in the big factories and given out to be made in the shops or homes of the workers. The work is paid for by the piece or by weekly wages based on the piece, and prices are reckoned according to the iron law of wages. That is, as near as possible to the life limit; the lowest point at which the workers can live and continue to produce. They are so low that long hours must be put in every day in order that the workers may eke out a bare existence.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday October 15, 1910 Mother Jones News Round-Up for September 1910, Part II: -Found in Ohio Speaking in Cincinnati and Columbus
From the Wilkes-Barre Evening News of September 23, 1900:
“Mother” Jones after recuperating her health in Hazleton, returned to Cincinnati, Ohio, today.
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From The Cincinnati Post of September 23, 1910:
‘MOTHER JONES’ TO BE SPEAKER AT OUTING ——-
“Mother Jones,” known as the “Angel of the Miners,” will address the Woman’s Union Label League at an outing at Chester Park Sunday. Mrs. May Wood Simons, one of the editors of the Chicago Daily Socialist; E. L. Hitchens, Wm. Tateman and Mrs. Etta Knatt Behrman also will speak.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday July 17, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for June 1910, Part I:
-Found Recovering from Illness at Grand Hotel in Cincinnati, Ohio
From The Cincinnati Post of June 2, 1910:
MOTHER JONES IS GROWING WORSE,
LONGS FOR “BOYS”
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Mother Jones, “Angel of the Mines,” who is ill at the Grand Hotel, is worse, according to Attorney Nicholas Klein, who has been in attendance at her bedside. From her bedside Thursday came word that what was considered a slight nervous breakdown had developed into a serious illness.
From the sick woman came a pathetic wish characteristic of her life devoted to the workers in the mines.
“I want to get well,” she said. “I want to be able to get back among the boys.”
When stricken a few days ago, after she had filled an engagement at an outing given by Cincinnati Socialists, she refused to believe she was seriously endangered. She continued with her plans for brightening the lives of the toilers and preaching a gospel of optimism.
“It is nothing.” she said, and Dr. S. J. D. Meade, who is attending her, sought to encourage that belief. Dr. Meade says she will recover as soon as she gets a good rest.
For years the little woman has been the light-hearted ally of the miners throughout the nation.
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[Newsclip added from Coshocton Daily Tribune of June 1st.]
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 12, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for May 1910, Part II:
-Found Continuing Fight for Milwaukee Brewery Girls and Mexican Comrades
From Missouri’s Scott County Kicker of May 14, 1910:
OF INTEREST TO WOMEN.
Perhaps the noblest woman in America today is “Mother Jones.” From a school teacher she consecrated her life to the cause of oppressed humanity, and where-ever the fight is thickest, there is Mother Jones-some 70 years old. Jails have no terror for her. She champions the freedom of all the race-men and women alike. In a recent speech at Milwaukee she said to the women:
Put away your parlor airs and get out into the street and fight, fight, fight! It may not be ladylike, but it is womanly. God made woman; rotten society made the lady.
[Photograph added.]
From the Appeal to Reason of May 14, 1910:
Mexican Refugees Left to Their Fate
Mother Jones and others made strenuous efforts to secure an investigation of the cases of Magon, Villareal and other Mexicans imprisoned in American bastiles at the instance of the tyrant of Mexico and the interest of American investment in that land. Resolutions were introduced into congress asking for such investigation. Now the resolutions have been recommended unfavorably by the judiciary committee before which they went, and that with a pointed insult to American labor and patriotism.
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The California Building Trades convention [of late January] unanimously adopted a resolution calling for a conference between the Socialist Party, the state A. F. of L. and the State Building Trades, with a view to united political action for the working class. Job Harriman, Mother Jones and Alexander Irvine were among the speakers at the convention.
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From the Wilkes-Barre Evening News 
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