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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday May 13, 1913
Mother Jones Writes to Mrs. Jamison from the Military Bastile at Pratt, W. Va.
From Solidarity of May 10, 1913:
Tag: Cleveland OH
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for February 1902, Part I: Found in Indianapolis, Cleveland and Pennsylvania Towns of Erie and Arnot
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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday March 18, 1902
Mother Jones News Round-Up for February 1902, Part I
Found in Indianapolis, Cleveland, Erie and Arnot, Pennsylvania
From Indiana’s Muncie Daily Herald of February 3, 1902:
Our Indianapolis Correspondent Has to
Do With Several Points.
Indianapolis, Feb. 3.-The members of the delegation of the Illinois miners to the joint conference here told an amusing story today in which a woman’s hat was a prominent part. One of the most picturesque characters at the great convention is Mother Jones, who has a national reputation among organized laborers. She has been prominent in their trials and triumphs and the miners would be lonesome at their convention without her. Today she appeared among them with a handsome new hat and thereby hangs the tale. She attended one of their meetings last week, and during the discussion a husky Illinois delegate sat down on her hat, mashing it flat. Mother Jones didn’t say much about it, as she is with the miners first and last, but the Illinois men were determined to make good, so they took up a collection and purchased a beautiful and costly bit of millinery that was the talk of all the miners.
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[Photograph added.]
From The Cleveland Leader of February 6, 1902:
“MOTHER JONES”
———-
Famous Woman Agitator Delivers Address
Before Central Labor Union.“Mother” Jones, the famous agitator made a stirring address at the meeting of the Central Labor Union last night on the subject of her organizing work for unions in the Virginias. She was bitter in her denunciation of capital and many of her remarks were warmly applauded. She stated that the toilers were in no better condition than the prisoners in Siberia. She urged the workingmen present to elect men from among their own numbers to the lawmaking bodies, as their only means of salvation…..
From Pennsylvania’s Erie Daily Times of February 7, 1902:
“MOTHER” JONES
———-
The Miner’s Valued Friend,
Is in Erie Today.
———-Mother Jones stopped over in Erie today on her way from the miners’ convention in Indianapolis. By request she will remain in the city for a few days. She will give an address tomorrow evening at the Labor Carnival, and on Sunday afternoon at 2 o’clock, will speak at the Central Labor Union hall, corner of Fifth and State streets. Mother Jones scarcely needs an introduction to the people of Erie, as by reputation she is well known here as the woman who for many years has been a conspicuous figure during he strikes of the coal miners.
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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for September 1901, Part I: Found in Cleveland, Ohio: Gives Interview, Celebrates Labor Day
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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday October 12, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for September 1901, Part I
Grants Interview in Cleveland, Speaks at Labor Day Celebration
From the Cleveland Plain Dealer of September 2, 1901:
“Mother” Mary Jones, who has been associated with the miners and silk workers in their strike, arrived in Cleveland on the Big Four yesterday afternoon [September 1st]. She is registered at the Forest City house. Mrs. Jones was met at the train by a committee of four and conducted to her apartments at the hotel. The committee consisted of two members of the Central Labor union and two of the Woman’s Labor union.
An address will be given by Mrs. Jones this afternoon at Scenic park to the members of the Central Labor union. The theme of her lecture will be “The Necessity for Organization in the Field of Labor.” A reception will be given her after the address.
Mrs. Jone came to Cleveland from the New river district in West Virginia, where she has been working among the miners for the past two months. In the evening she will leave for Carbondale, Pa., where she will give a lecture. From there she will return to West Virginia.
“Come right in!” called Mrs. Jones in a hearty, motherly voice, in response to a rap at the door, “I like to talk to newspaper men. They belong to the workers.”
What do I think of the present steel strike? I believe all strikes are good. They are bringing us nearer the goal we are striving for, that is, equalization of wealth.
I don’t believe that the Amalgamated association struck merely to show its power. The men had real grievances. If they weren’t dissatisfied they wouldn’t have quit work. Perhaps they won’t win, but whether they do or not a great deal will be accomplished.
[She continued:]
We are a nation of strikers. We inherited the disease from our revolutionary fathers, and have been striking ever since. We will continue to strike and strike until the laboring men are emancipated.
I don’t know when that time will be, but it won’t be as long as most people think. Something will have to change before long or we will have another French revolution. The poor people who are oppressed will not stand being trodden upon too long. “The worm will turn.”
In the West Virginia mines there are boys six years old who work ten hours a day, and this is in order that a few may live without work.
[She exclaimed, her eyes flashing:]
It’s a shame and an outrage. We call ourselves Christianized and civilized, and such things in our midst. It’s a mockery.
The whole system of labor is wrong and must be changed. I hope at the ballot box, but-well-it must be changed.
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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for February 1901, Part I: Found Speaking in Cleveland, Ohio, and Headed to Scranton, Pennsylvania
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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday March 9, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for February 1901, Part I
Found Speaking in Cleveland, Ohio, at Labor Lyceum Meeting
From The Cleveland Leader of February 11, 1901:
SOCIALISTS AND SINGLE-TAXERS CLASH
———-
They Talk Sharply at the Labor
Lyceum Meeting.
—–“MOTHER” JONES PRESENT.
—–
She Starts the Ball Rolling by a Talk Favoring Socialism…
—–
The Socialists and the Single Taxers crossed swords yesterday afternoon at the meeting of the Labor Lyceum. Mrs. Jones, of Chicago, who took a hand in the coal miners’ strike last summer and became known a “Mother” Jones, was at the meeting and told how she helped settle the great strike and incidentally espoused the cause of Socialism. This did not suit the Single Taxers. They did not propose to see their pet theory trampled in the dust, just on the eve of a campaign in which an apostle of the single tax idea is to play a leading part.
After “Mother” Jones had spoken for nearly an hour, James Vining took the floor and said that while he did not think that the Socialists were on the right track, he
SYMPATHIZED WITH THEM
for the reason that they were working for the cause of humanity……
“Mother” Jones spoke at length about the coal strike, and among other things declared that men were not brave and had acted the part of cowards during that struggle.
[She said;]
It takes courage to win a fight like that and I was disgusted at the cowardice of the men. I never knew what fear was. Why, I remember one time when I said I would conduct a meeting, some of the leaders of the strike warned me that violence would be used against me. I said I wasn’t afraid and proceeded. The afternoon preceding the meeting I was told that the mine bosses were intending to
SET DOGS ON ME.
That proved to be true, but I was prepared. I bought a pound of meat and cut it into small chunks. Every time I saw a dog approaching I threw a piece of meat at him, and he picked up the meat and ran away. By the time I commenced to speak the only dog present was one mining boss.
After the meeting, in an interview with a Leader reporter, Mrs. Jones said:
The miners are much better off than they were before the strike. They are earning more money, and don’t have to pay so much for powder.
They, moreover, have the privilege of buying their provisions where they choose. What is of more value than all this, however, is the fact that those unfortunates have been awakened to the fact that their souls are their own, and that they are not slaves.
They have learned that it lies in their power to better their conditions if they will only do so. Their condition is still pitiable, but I think that from now on their course will be upwards instead of sinking into deeper degradation.
Mrs. Jones left last evening for Scranton, Pa., where she has been taking a hand in the strike of the factory girls.
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[Photograph added.]
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for October 1910, Part I: Found in Cleveland, Ohio, Stopping at Home of Editor Max Hayes
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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday November 12, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for October 1910, Part I:
-Found in Cleveland, Stopping at Home of Editor Max Hayes
From the Cleveland Plain Dealer of October 6, 1910:
Mother Jones Chides Officials
at the National Capital.
—————Mother Mary Jones, the white haired woman so long identified with the labor cause the country over, is in Cleveland. She spoke to the members of the Trades and Labor council last evening, urging them to forget internal differences, to go into the fight united. She did not spare her words, but advised them to meet violence with violence.
Mother Jones is a little woman; she came gowned last evening in trim and sober black. With a grandmother’s sweetness and dignity she sat quietly on the platform until her turn came to speak.
She chided the officials in Washington, scored the trusts, roasted capital whole, called down the wrath of the gods on police and marshals who point revolvers at strikers.
———-
[Photograph added.]
Hellraisers Journal: “The Sweating System” by Mary L. Geffs, Investigator, Bureau of Labor Statistics of Ohio, 1893
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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, 1893Origin 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: From the Cleveland Toiler: Eugene V. Debs on the Power of the Capitalist Press, Fed Fat by Ruling Class
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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday February 21, 1920
Power of Press Underestimated by American Socialist Movement
From the Cleveland Toiler of February 20, 1920:
The Power of the Press
—–– by Eugene V. Debs –
The power of the press is sadly underestimated in the socialist movement. The ruling class make no such mistakes. They are keenly alive to the power of the press in molding public sentiment and in shaping affairs in accordance with their interests. The capitalist papers do not suffer for the want of support and never die of starvation. They are fed fat and ungrudgingly by the class in power and in return serve that class with all their power.
Not so with the press of the working class. With scarcely an exception the papers and periodicals published in the interest of labor eke out a precarious existence. Ninety-five percent of them line the highway of the past with their skeletons. They lingered for a brief while and then gave up the ghost, falling victims to the chronic labor-paper malady, starvation.
Of course not all papers claiming to be labor papers are fit to exist. Many of them are fakes and run by political grafters. These often thrive in their blackmail and graft while an honest paper is allowed to die for the want of support.
Working men and women ought to have intelligence enough by this time to discriminate between an honest labor paper and a grafting sheet and they ought to be loyal enough to the working class to give their support to the paper that uses its influence to mold sentiment in favor of their cause and fights their industrial and political battles.
It is when the strike comes that the working class suffer most keenly the lack of a powerful press that reaches the people. They are always at a fearful disadvantage on this account. The capitalists get in a thousand licks to their one, not only because they can get their case before the people in its most favorable light and keep it there, but because they can put the case of the workers in the most unfavorable light and keep it there.
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for 1899, Part I: Found in Girard, Kansas, Visiting with J. A. Wayland of the Appeal to Reason
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday January 22, 1900
Mother Jones News Round-Up for the Year 1899
-Part I: Found in Girard, Kansas, and Cleveland, Ohio
From the Western World (Girard, Kansas) of January 5, 1899:
Mother Jones is a guest of the Wayland household this week. And she is a distinguished guest, too. No woman in America or in any other country has more genuine admirers among the toiling classes than Mother Jones. She is known to every laborer in the world who cares to ascertain who is a loyal true, friend to him. In all the great strikes of the past, when suffering has run riot, Mother Jones has been one of the first to appear on the scene and render such service as was in her power. As a lecturer she has no superior, being thoroughly posted in everything bearing upon the economical conditions of the age, and she is welcomed by the thousands everywhere. That she is one of the most popular workers in the fight for a better condition on earth, need not be said.
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[Photograph added.]
From the Western World of February 23, 1899:
Mother Jones delivered an address from her wagon, which was drawn up on the north side of the square, last Saturday afternoon. A large crowd was in town, and many seemed greatly interested in her eloquent and forcible argument for socialism.
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From The Independent News (Girard, Kansas) of February 23, 1899:
Mother Jones, a Socialist teacher, made a two hours speech on the north side of the square Saturday afternoon. Mother Jones is well known over nearly all parts of the country where there are large number of laborers. She starts for Cleveland this week and from there goes into the mining country of Pittsburg, Pa.
From the Western World of March 9, 1899:
Mother Jones, the noted Socialist lecturess, who has been spending the winter with the family of J. A. Wayland, left Saturday for Chicago, to visit for a time before commencing her summer lecture tour.
Hellraisers Journal: Two Prison Poems by Fellow Worker Ralph Chaplin: “Prison Shadows” & “Our Living Dead”
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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday January 21, 1920
Poems from Prison by Fellow Worker Ralph Chaplin:
From the Cleveland Toiler of January 14, 1920:
Hellraisers Journal: “Closed Towns” by S. Adele Shaw for The Survey: Pittsburgh Steel District Contrasted with Ohio
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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday November 13, 1919
Intimidation in Pittsburg Steel District Contrasted with Ohio
From The Survey of November 8, 1919:
Closed Towns
Intimidation as It is Practised in the Pittsburgh
Steel District:—the Contrast in OhioBy S. Adele Shaw
[Parts III-V of V]
III
THIS interlocking of mill and town officials explains not only the ease with which normal civil rights have been shelved, but the ease with which, under the guise of law enforcement, deputies and troopers get away with reckless action in the streets and alleys, and with which the petty courts turn trumped-up grounds for the arrest of labor organizers and strikers into denials of justice.
In Allegheny county Sheriff Haddock had, according to his own statement on October first, deputized 300 men for service under control of his central office and 5,000 mill deputies. Newspapers placed the figure early in the strike at 10,000. The mill police who in ordinary times are sworn in under the state provision for coal and iron police for duty in the mills only, are, since the strike, sworn in by the sheriff at the request of the companies. They have power to act anywhere in the county. They are under the direction of the mill authorities. Companies are required to file a bond of $2,000 for each man so deputized and are responsible for his actions.
It is the state constabulary, however, who have set the pace for the work of intimidation in the mill towns of Allegheny county. Responsibility for calling them in is difficult to fix. Since last February squads had been stationed at Dravosburg within easy reach of the steel towns; and the Saturday before the strike patrols were brought down into them. The sheriff denies that he called on the state for the troopers. The burgess of Braddock and the chiefs of police in Homestead and Munhall professed ignorance of the responsibility for their coming.
