Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday August 15, 1922 Christmas Eve 1920: Eugene Debs Is Guest of Honor at Prison Banquet
From the Appeal to Reason of August 12, 1922:
Christmas in Prison
By EUGENE V. DEBS
[Part II of II]
Eugene Debs Leaving Atlanta Penitentiary Christmas Day 1921
Some weeks before Christmas [of 1920] a case containing 500 copies of a book, entitled “Debs and the Poets” was shipped to the prison. It was an anthology of verse and comment collected by Ruth Le Prade and published by Upton Sinclair at Pasadena, Cal.
It was the desire of the author and publisher that I autograph the books to be sold by them in the interest of a fund being raised to continue the agitation for general amnesty for political prisoners.
When the books arrived, a copy was scrutinized by Warden Zerbst, who decided that the introduction supplied by Upton Sinclair was not particularly complimentary to the prison idea, nor was some of the poetry. So a copy was sent to Attorney General Palmer, who ruled there was nothing objectionable in it, and that I might be permitted to autograph the copies.
Some friends outside the prison asked the warden if I might be permitted to inscribe the books Christmas Eve night. The request was granted and the hour to begin was fixed at seven o’clock. I went to the clerk’s office, where I found my friends.
The books were piled on either side of me at the clerk’s desk and the work of autographing them commenced.
Ginger Ale Suspected.
In the corridor outside a dozen or more prisoners were assembling the last of the Christmas packages for the convicts and there was an atmosphere of fellowship that pervaded the entire scene.
From time to time prisoners slipped in and out of the room where I was at work to drop a kindly word, and my friends from the outside world remarked upon the amiable manner in which every convict conducted himself.
Later that evening it was suggested by one of my visitors that maybe the prisoners assorting Christmas boxes would like to have a soft drink, so the matter was put up to the chief clerk, who was superintending the work, and he agreed to it. Thereupon my friends went out of the prison and down to a little store outside the gates, where they purchased two dozen bottles of ginger ale.
It happened that when they asked to be readmitted to the penitentiary Deputy Warden Gregory was in the main corridor and he came to the gate to inquire what was in the box they carried.
He was told of its contents and that permit had been secured to bring it in the prison for the men who were at work over the Christmas gifts. The deputy warden felt that he should have first been consulted about the matter and he refused to allow the refreshment to be given to the convicts.
This is but one indication of how senseless and needlessly harsh are prison rules.
Later the deputy attempted to explain in a somewhat apologetic manner to one of my friends that: “Who knows but that those bottles might contain ‘dope’ and ‘files’!”
This, in spite of the fact that he could have reassured himself on that score in a moment by observing that every bottle was sealed.
She is the same dear little old Mother Jones
and if she has lost any vigor
in the past two years I can’t see it.
-An Iowa Miner, 1918
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Hellraisers Journal, Friday April 19, 1918
Mother Jones News for March 1918: Found in Kansas and Iowa
We begin our Mother Jones news round-up for March 1918 with a report of Mother listening to A. F. of L. President Samuel Gompers pleading for the Eight Hour Day before the Chicago Alschuler Hearings. We next find her speaking before district conventions of the United Mine Workers held in Kansas and in Iowa.
From Springfield’s Illinois State Register of March 1, 1918:
GOMPERS SAYS SHORTER DAYS WILL WIN WAR
—–
Long Hours and Low Wages Drive Men to Drink,
Is Plea of Labor Chief at Chicago
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MOTHER JONES LISTENS
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Chicago, Feb. 28.-Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor made a stirring appeal today in behalf of an eight-hour day for employes in the meat packing industry at the stockyards wage arbitration. He appeared as a witness for the employes and his testimony was eagerly listened to by “Mother” Mary Jones, an organizer for the United Mine Workers and several hundred other representatives of organized labor from all sections of the country…..
From the Kansas Pittsburg Daily Headlight of March 11, 1918:
DISTRICT MINERS’ CONVENTION STARTS
—–
MOTHER JONES IS ON HAND TO ADDRESS
KANSAS COAL DIGGERS
—–
President Howat’s Report Was Read
at Opening Session-
Excluded Two Papers From Hall.
—–
Why should the workingmen fight for the robbers of Wall street? Let them fight their own battles. -Mother Jones
That old blood sucker,
the kaiser, ought to
be kicked off his throne.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday April 4, 1917
Des Moines, Iowa – Mother Jones Speaks Out on European War
Overnight, perhaps reacting to the War Resolution now before Congress upon the request of President Wilson for same, Mother reversed her stand regarding American involvement in the terrible slaughter now taking place between the waring nations of Europe. In an interview reported by the April 2nd edition of The Des Moines Register, Mother declared:
I hate war. We must not throw our American workingmen into olive drab uniforms, stick guns in their hands, and ship them over to France to be fresh slaughter for the cannons of the devilish kings of Europe.
If John D Rockefeller, Morgan, the Guggenheims, or Wall street wants to see Germany defeated, let them go over and fight in the allies’ trenches. Why should the workingmen fight for the robbers of Wall street? Let them fight their own battles, says I!
The next day, the Register reported that Mother had “abandoned her neutrality:”
That old blood sucker, the kaiser, ought to be kicked off his throne, and if he ever starts anything with this country we will lick hell out of him if I have to raise a regiment of 10,000 women myself.
Thus “Mother” Jones, firebrand speaker, abandoned her neutrality in a speech that held spellbound the miners of the thirteenth district, U. M. W. A., who were celebrating the nineteenth anniversary of the securing of the eight-hour day for miners at the Coliseum yesterday afternoon.
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