Hellraisers Journal – Sunday May 3, 1914 After Speech by Mother Jones, Kansas Miners Donate Treasury
April 30, 1914, Pittsburg, Kansas -Mother Jones Addresses Convention of District 14, U. M. W. A.
Mother Jones gave a long speech Thursday, April 30th, in Pittsburg, Kansas, at the Convention of District 14, United Mine workers of America. She came seeking donations for the striking miners of Colorado, and, in the end, the miners of Kansas gave her all that she asked for.
MOTHER JONES INTRODUCED TO THE MINERS OF KANSAS
Chairman [John P.] White: Now, this morning I know that I voice the sentiments of this convention when I say that we appreciate the presence here of our great old organizer, Mother Jones. (Applause.)
Yesterday I gave you a pretty strong bump about Colorado, and what you were going to do about the money that you had loaned the national organization, that I plead guilty to being responsible for, so God help you for I put you in the hands of Mother Jones now. (Loud applause.)
A Delegate: I think the brothers ought to put up their pipes, put them in their pockets.
Mother Jones: You should join John D. Rockefeller, you are getting so nice…
The Colorado Coal War
[Mother Jones continued]: You see, my brothers, the trouble with us all is we don’t feel the pains of our fellow beings in the great struggle. I wonder if the nation felt horror of that affair at Ludlow? Why, if that happened in Mexico we would go down to clean up Mexico, and it happened here at home and there is very little said about it, when every man should shoulder his gun and start to Colorado to stop the war there. (Applause.)
Louie Tikas with the Flag of Ludlow
…No time in modern history has there been anything so horrible as this trouble in Colorado. I know those men in Colorado pretty well. No state in the Union has truer, better fellows; they have made a great fight against the men in power. There is no question about it. The poor fellow that got killed, this Greek [Louie Tikas], when I went to Ludlow, when the battle first started, the tears came streaming down his face, and he said, “Mother, they jumped at me to go war, and I got away and let the capitalists fight their own battle. I am here now, and this is my battle, the battle of right for the class that I belong to.” That summed up the whole philosophy of the labor movement. In other words, it was a battle for freedom for the class that he belonged to. And he said, “Mother, I need a gun.” I said, “You will have one, Louie, if Mother has to take her hat off and sell it, you will get the gun.” (Applause.)
Now, those brave men were the ones brought over, most of them, after the last strike that we had in Colorado; Rockefeller sent his agents to Europe and brought those fellows over. He has been able to crush them, rob them, persecute them until he has made his millions out of their precious blood, and then he goes into church on Sunday and is hallowed by the people of this great nation.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday May 2, 1914 Pittsburg, Kansas – Mother Jones Speaks at Convention of U. M. W. A., District 14
From the Pittsburg Workers’s Chronicle of May 1, 1914:
Yes, she swears. Says “dam” and “hell” and other such words. That’s Mother Jones. But did you ever hear people swear when it sounded like a benediction or a prayer? Mother don’t swear like other folks. Some way or other her swear words are more like poetry than vulgarity. Ask ANYONE who ever heard her.
She spoke to the delegates at the convention yesterday morning and not a miner in that hall will ever forget her message. Among other things she said:
I was asked by the congressional committee if I was opposed to sending the federal troops into Colorado, “I certainly am” I said. I am deadly opposed to bayonets being sent into any strike district where an industrial conflict is being waged. The miners in Colorado have had bayonets for months. They are not needed. Justice is what they want, not bayonets.
Out of the past eleven months I have served more than six of them in the bastiles of West Virginia and Colorado. I have seen the suffering of these wretched strikers, their ragged and defenseless wives and their starving babies in these strike districts and human pen or tongue will never be able to adequately portray the awful scenes enacted there.
She told of the Greek, Louis Tikas, whose truce with the gunmen of Mr. Rockefeller, ended in his murder; of the 51 bullet holes in his body and its laying exposed for days after his infamous murder. Told of his coming to her early in the strike and in his broken language and with tears streaming down his bronzed cheeks explaining how his Greek government had tried to draft him into the Balkan war and how he resented it to the extent that he was almost branded as a coward by the minions of that government’s plutocracy. This, however, was a fight of his class and he was willing to die a thousand deaths rather than see his fellow workers submit to the shackles of the mine owner corporations.
In dealing with the Colorado and West Virginia strikes she said that the ones who had died had not given up their lives in vain, but that they had died for a great cause.
When the congressional committee asked her if it would be acceptable if Rockefeller would consent to grant every demand of the miners except the one compelling recognition of the U. M. W. of A. she replied: “NO! We’ll give up every demand before that. It is the meat in the nut and without it we would be just as helpless as before.”
It might be well to state that Mother Jones’ confinement in Colorado was due to a fight for a principle. In 1904 what is known as “The Moyer” decision was passed by the supreme court. That decision gave to the military the right to arrest and confine any person without preferring charges of any kind against them. This was one of the most infamous decisions against labor ever rendered and has been the instrument with which more than one strike has been broken. Her fight was to get out of jail on a writ of habeas corpus and secure the reversal of that infamous Moyer decision. Up to the present time they have managed to evade the testing of the law but Mother Jones is still after them and if it is within human power to secure a reversal she will assuredly secure it.
Mother Jones came direct from Denver to Girard [home of the Appeal to Reason] where she arrived on Wednesday night. She will return to the strike zone immediately after a monster protest meeting in Kansas City next Sunday. She speaks in Frontenac at the May Day celebration today. Don’t fail to hear her.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday April 19, 1914 Washington, D. C. – John D. Rockefeller Jr. Pledges Millions to Crush Colorado Miners
From the Duluth Labor World of April 18, 1914:
YOUNG ROCKEFELLER CHIP OFF OLD BLOCK ———- Declares Before Industrial Commission He Has Millions to Crush Miners’ Union. ———-
SOME MORE “DIVINE RIGHT” PHILOSOPHY ———- Refused to Arbitrate Colorado Coal Strike -Trusts Everything to Managers. ———-
John D. Rockefeller, Jr., son of the world’s richest man, testified Monday [April 6th] before the House Mines Committee in Washington about the question of his moral responsibility for the industrial strife which has kept the coal fields of southern Colorado in turmoil for six months.
After more than for hours of cross-examination Rockefeller had told the committee:
That he and three other directors represented his father’s interest of about 40 per cent in the Colorado Fuel and Iron company, the central figure in the big coal strike.
That as a director he had fulfilled all his interest and responsibility in the company when he placed the officers, “competent and trusted men,” in charge of the company’s affairs.
That he knew nothing of conditions in the strike district except from reports of the officers of the company.
He “Protects” “Free” Labor.
That the strike had become a fight for the “principles” of freedom of labor, and that he and his associates would rather the present violence continue and that “they lose all their millions invested in the coal fields than that American working men should be deprived of their right under the constitution to work for whom they pleased.”
This was accepted as an indication that the Rockefeller millions are opposed to the unions in Colorado.
That he favored arbitration in Industrial disputes-generally, but that in the present instance he supported the officers of the company in their refusal to submit the question of unionizing the mines to arbitration.
In support of these conclusions Rockefeller was kept busy for hours explaining defending and arguing. He asserted that employer and employe were “fellow men and should treat each other as such,” but could see no analogy between the unionization of workmen and the combination of capital….
[Photograph and emphasis added.]
WILL DEFEND OPEN SHOP AT ANY COST, PROPERTY OR LIVES
During his testimony this exchange took place between Rockefeller and the Chairman of the Subcommittee, M. D. Foster:
The CHAIRMAN. And you are willing to go on and let these killings take place—men losing their lives on either side, the expenditure of large sums of money, and all this disturbance of labor—rather than to go out there and see if you might do something to settle those conditions?
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. There is just one thing, Mr. Chairman, so far as I understand it, which can be done, as things are at present, to settle this strike, and that is to unionize the camps; and our interest in labor is so profound and we believe so sincerely that that interest demands that the camps shall be open camps, that we expect to stand by the officers at any cost. It is not an accident that this is our position.
The CHAIRMAN. And you will do that if it costs all your property and kills all your employees?
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. It is a great principle.
[Emphasis added.]
From the Rocky Mountain News of April 19, 1914 -Mother Jones Makes Statement Before Leaving Denver for Washington:
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday April 18 1914 Denver, Colorado – Mother Jones Resting After Release from Cold Cellar Cell
From the Rocky Mountain News of April 17, 1914:
From The Indianapolis Star of April 18, 1914:
MINERS WOULD REOPEN CASE TO PRESENT ‘MOTHER’ JONES ———-
DENVER, Col, April 17-A movement was started here tonight by the policy committee of District No. 15 of the United Mine Workers of America, to reopen in Washington the congressional investigation of the Colorado coal miners’ strike by seeking to place before the committee the testimony of “Mother” Mary Jones, the aged strike leader who was released from military imprisonment at Walsenburg on Thursday.
“Mother” Jones who came to Denver immediately on her discharge, probably will leave tomorrow for Washington.
Telegrams were sent tonight to Representative M. D. Foster, chairman of the recent investigating House mines committee, and to Representative Keating of Colorado, urging a hearing for “Mother” Jones.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday April 16, 1914 Walsenburg, Colorado – Mother Jones Held in Cold Cellar Cell
From the Appeal to Reason of April 11, 1914:
Detail:
Note: Kostas (Gus) Marcos was the name of the striking miner who died as a result of being held in the cold cellar cell beneath the Huerfano County Courthouse at Walsenburg, Colorado.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday April 14, 1914 Ludlow Tent Colony, Colorado – Mrs. Mary Thomas Reports
Mary Thomas, camp greeter of the Ludlow Tent Colony, reports that the social life of the camp has greatly improved with the coming spring. Once again she can enjoy her morning coffee outside with her dear friends and nearest neighbors, Cedi Costa and Margo Gorci. The children are once again at play on the swings and see-saws. Many of the colonist plant flowers and vegetables around the tents bringing a festive quality to the camp.
Meals can once again be eaten outside at the long tables placed between the tents. Mary, Cedi and Margo continue to pool their resources in order to see that everyone gets something. An elderly disabled miner eats with the three families.
Cedi’s husband, Charlie, camp peacemaker and overseer, always keeps everyone smiling. One day he came by to play a practical joke:
Charley brought a bunch of paper “telescopes” and set them up on our long table. Then he gathered us around and began to shout like a barker at a circus, “come one, come all, the show is just about to begin!”
“What are they?” we asked.
“Fighting Ants,” he replied.
“Where did you get them?” Cedi said suspiciously.
“I bought them.” Hearing Charley say this, Cedi became furious.
“What do you mean ‘you bought them?’ You have a lot of nerve spending money for fighting ants when we are nearly starving to death!” Then all three of us excitedly said, “Let’s see them!”
“You’ll have to pay me a penny each,” announced Charley.
“You’ll have to trust us until payday.”
All right,” he teased, “just until payday. Now,” he said,”put these telescopes up to your eyes, or you can’t see them.” He helped us with them. We looked and looked. By now a crowd had gathered around our table, drawn there by Charley’s spiel about fighting ants.
“We can’t see anything,” we muttered, and put the telescopes back on the table. When we looked at each other, we almost went to pieces with hysterical laughter. Charley had put charcoal on the end we looked through, and each of us had a big, round black monicle!
Mary Thomas describes Charlie Costa as always jovial, always doing something funny to lessen the tragic times. The children of the camp love him and follow him around like the Pied Piper.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 13, 1914
Trinidad, Colorado – State Senator Robinson Opines on Rockefeller’s Conscience
From the New York American of April 12, 1914:
By Helen Ring Robinson.
State Senator in Colorado, an Authority on Economic Conditions in That State.
TRINIDAD, COLO., April 11—What is a conscience? The question comes like a shout to an observer down here in the Colorado strike zone, where the Rockefeller interests are paramount, after reading that John D. Rockefeller, Jr., declared before the Congressional committee investigating that strike that his “conscience acquits him” of responsibility for the conditions existing to-day in these coal fields.
Under such circumstances the Rev. R. Cook, of Trinidad, declares that the devil must have a large option on the conscience of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., but he insists on letting it go at that. He will not answer the question, “What is a conscience?”
Nobody in Trinidad will even try to answer it. The John D. Rockefeller, Jr., remark seems to have obfuscated any ideas the people here once had on the subject of “What is conscience?”
Here are some of the conditions in the Southern Colorado coal fields for which the Rockefeller interests must be held largely responsible.
Here are just a few facts which the facile conscience of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., acquits him of all responsibility for—facts which are matters of common knowledge in the two counties of Colorado dominated by the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company—-dominated in other words, by the Rockefeller interests…..
[Emphasis added.]
The article by Senator Robinson goes on to address the following conditions existing in the Coalfields of Southern Colorado under the rule of John D. Rockefeller’s Colorado Fuel and Iron Company:
“Political Control and Unspeakable Corruption.”
“White Slave Market Conducted in the Open”
“Gunmen, Enlisted Serve in the Militia.”
“Mathematical Analysis of Rockefeller Conscience”
“Militia Outspoken Against Labor Unions.
“[Imported Strikebreakers] Knew But One Word and That Was ‘War'”
“Depths of Ignorance Versus Millions”
“Control Without Vision Real Cause of Trouble”
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Senator Helen Ring Robinson Visits the Strike Zone in Southern Colorado
Senator Helen Ring Robinson, traveled to the strike zone of Southern Colorado, arriving on April 8th, to begin an investigation into the ongoing strike situation in order to report on conditions there for the New York American.
At Pueblo, she met with Manager Weitzel of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. Like his boss, J. D. Rockefeller Jr., she found him to be a man of fine manners, high ideals, and impeccable courtesy. An unnamed appointee of Governor Ammons was not, however, so easily impressed by such high-class affectations, and confided to the Senator that the brutality directed against the strikers has so sickened him that he wished he had a few bombs to throw at certain people.
She made a tour of the mining camps and saw no sign of the bathhouses nor the recreation centers, nor the dance halls of which Mr. Rockefeller spoke so proudly during his testimony earlier this week before the House Committee in Washington. She did find plenty of saloons, however, along with dreary company shacks covered in soot near smoking piles of slack.
She also made a tour of the strikers’ tent colonies, where she found the people enjoying the warmth of spring after enduring the long Colorado winter in the tents. The colonist, made up of twenty-two different nationalities, have grown close during the long cold months, especially the women and children. The Senator noted that the angelic children turn into “little fiends” when the militiamen enter the camps, shouting “scab-herders” and “Tin Willies” at them. Many of the older strikers have not forgotten the brutalities visited upon them by militiamen and company guards during the bitter strike of ten years ago.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday April 12, 1914 Washington D. C. – John D. Rockefeller Jr. Testifies Before House Committee
John D. Rockefeller Jr. made his appearance on Monday, April 6th, in Washington D. C., before the Subcommittee of the House Committee on Mines and Mining which is investigating conditions in the coal mines of Colorado. During his four hours of sworn testimony, Mr. Rockefeller stated that the “Open Shop” is a “Great Principle” worth the loss of all of his property in the state of Colorado and the lives of all of his employes.
During his four hours of sworn testimony, Mr. Rockefeller had this exchange with Chairman Foster:
THE DEATH SPECIAL, MACHINE GUNS, AND MINE GUARDS
The CHAIRMAN. Do you know about an automobile being armored-built of armor plate being built in your company? Mr. ROCKEFELLER. It sounds interesting, but I have not heard of it. The CHAIRMAN. It was built in the shops of the Colorado Fuel & Iron Co. Mr. ROCKEFELLER. I did not know they produced automobiles as well. The CHAIRMAN. They put on it machine guns, going around through that country. Mr. ROCKEFELLER. I thought the idea referred to by Mr. Bowers, of having a number of searchlights was an excellent one, helping to prevent disorder. They could see the country all around. The CHAIRMAN. Do you know this, that it was testified during the disturbances before the militia was called into the field, the mine guards were then in existence, and trouble took place between the striking miners and the mine guards or deputy sheriffs? Were you informed of that? Mr. ROCKEFELLER. I did not know that was so, but it is usual where a strike occurs for the company to undertake to protect its men with the local officials, and add to that number before the the militia is called out. I think that is customary. The CHAIRMAN. Now, then, when the militia was called out, a great many of these mine guards or deputy sheriffs, it was said, were sworn into the service of the State, and they were kept on the pay rolls of the company; for instance, the Colorado Fuel & Iron Co. What is your idea of that? Do you think that makes the militia a nonpartisan preserver of the peace? Mr. ROCKEFELLER. I should simply say that if the local authorities in any community were unable to or did not render adequate protection to the workers of that district it was the duty of the employers of the labor to supplement that protection in any way they could. The CHAIRMAN. Well, but if the militia had been called into the field and then the mine guards and deputy sheriffs who had been sworn into the militia were still on the pay roll of the company, drawing their pay from the State and from the company, too, is it your opinion that they would be a nonpartisan protector of the peace of the community? Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Of course, that is a very extensive country. There are mines in many different places. I do not know that in any case the militia has been sent there in sufficient numbers to cover the entire country.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday April 11, 1914
Washington, D. C. – John D. Rockefeller Jr. Testifies Before Federal Investigators
From The New York Times of April 7, 1914:
Lives to be Sacrificed for Rockefeller’s
“Great Principle”
The Times featured Rockefeller’s testimony in a long article which began with a full column on the front page and continued with two and a half columns on the second page. The headlines reveal that The Times considered Rockefeller’s stand for the open-shop to be a just stand against “union rule”:
ROCKEFELLER, JR., DEFIES UNION RULE
———–
Will Sacrifice All in Colorado Rather Than
Subject Miners to Union Dictation.
———-
FIRM FOR “OPEN SHOP” ———- Americans, He Tells Congressmen, Must Have Right to Work Where They Please. ———- SAYS HE DOES HIS DUTY ———- Is a Director, but Must Trust Details to Trained Officers -Testifies for Four Hours. ———-
Special to the New York Times.
WASHINGTON, April 6.-John D. Rockefeller, Jr., testifying to-day as a Director of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company in the inquiry which the House Committee on Mines is conducting into the Colorado coal strike, declared unequivocally for the principle of the “open shop,” and assented that he and his associates would prefer that they should “lose all of their millions invested in the coal fields than that the American workingmen should be deprived of the right under the Constitution to work for whom they pleased.”
Mr. Rockefeller said that he thought his chief duty as a Director was to place honest and capable officers in control of the business. He said he would rather relinquish his interests in Colorado and close down the mines than to recognize the unions under the circumstances. He was not opposed to unions as such, he said, but he did object to unions which tried to force men to join them and which deprived men of the liberty of working for whom they pleased. He said that a recognition of the mine workers’ union would mean the repudiation of the employes who had been faithful enough to remain with company during the strike…..
[Emphasis added]
Thus, Rockefeller was portrayed as a great hero willing to sacrifice the family fortune in order to “protect” the working men and women of America from the evils of collective bargaining!
How Rockefeller Maintains Absolute Control in Colorado: -The Death Special, Constructed at CF&I plant in Pueblo, Colorado.
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Mary Thomas, camp greeter of the Ludlow Tent Colony, reports that the social life of the camp has greatly improved with the coming spring. Once again she can enjoy her morning coffee outside with her dear friends and nearest neighbors, Cedi Costa and Margo Gorci. The children are once again at play on the swings and see-saws. Many of the colonist plant flowers and vegetables around the tents bringing a festive quality to the camp.
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