Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday December 12, 1922 Striking Miners in Southwestern Counties of Pennsylvania Face Sever Hardships
From the Hazleton Plain Speaker of December 8, 1922:
SOME MINERS ARE STILL IN WANT ———-
United Mine Workers Journal of December 1, 1922
Hard coal [anthracite] field miners have received word that in the Berwind fields of Somerset and Fayette Counties [miners] are still in want.
Those are union miners who are in non-union districts, their cause was not included in the Cleveland agreement and forty-five thousand miners are still on strike.
Fayette County, where many former Hazleton people are located, has a record of 1,500 evictions by the sheriff.
Logan Union 5,220 of the miners’ organized during the strike has sent out an appeal for bread to feed their hungry children. They say that their local has “suffered 384 evictions, of which 200 have been since the Cleveland agreement.” They also say that “the agreement was signed against their wish and special plea that their Coke fields should not be left out,” and that the Hillman company has been allowed to sign up for former union miners near Pittsburgh without being required to sign up in Fayette county.
This is also the case with the Consolidated Coal Company-the Rockefellers‘ property. As they have done their bit “suffering evictions, exposure in tent colonies, typhoid fever and other hard ships,” they demand of the international organization that it send them relief.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday September 16, 1912 Mother Jones News Round-Up for June and July 1912
Found in West Virginia Standing with Striking Miners of Kanawah County
From The Sacramento Star of June 3, 1912:
Mother Jones has forwarded $800 from Montana to the Harriman shop strikers.Seven hundred of this was donated, in response to her earnest appeal, by unions of coal miners, and the remainder came from mill and smeltermen, machinists and other crafts. How persistent has been her work tor the System Federation is seen in her statement that she refused to accept less than $250 from the union of miners at Roundup, and their $100 donation was sent through their international office. Butte metal miners gave $300 some time ago.
[She writes in a characteristic letter to President E. L. Reguin and Secretary John Scott of the System Federation:]
If the men had been working regularly in the coal mines, I could have gathered up very much more. However, the whole thing shows the disposition of the men to aid each other in the struggle, which counts to me very much more than the finances,
I shall leave in a few days for West Virginia, to take up the battle there. It is a dangerous field, and many of us who go in there are more than likely never to come out, but what difference does that make so long as we are carrying on the industrial battle, and flaunting in the face of the foe the red flag of industrial freedom? There must be sacrifices made, and there must be martyrs. That state and Alabama must be organized within the next few years.
Tell my boys of the Federation it matters not where I go, I shall keep up the fight against oppression and wrong. Men, women and children must be free, and sentiment will never free them. Those who are grounded in the philosophy of the class struggle must go forth and give battle to the well-entrenched foe.
Tell the boys to keep up the fight. It is far better to die fighting and suffering than to remain slaves.
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From the Denver United Labor Bulletin of June 6, 1912:
MINERS HOLD CONFERENCE
A conference of all the officers of the different districts of the United Mine Workers of America of the Rocky Mountain Jurisdiction, was held Monday in Butte, Mont. Plans were laid for more thorough organization, and for active assistance to employers of union labor in the matter of securing increased sale of union-mined coal. “Mother” Jones addressed the meeting and left Monday night for West Virginia.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday September 11, 1902 Mother Jones News Round-Up for August 1902, Part III Found in Anthracite Region of Pennsylvania, Returns to West Virginia
From the Wilkes-Barre Daily News of August 11, 1902:
MOTHER JONES CONDEMNS ———- She Does Look With Favor on Certain Statements.
BELIEVES THAT IT IS ONLY A QUESTION OF A SHORT TIME UNTIL THE MINERS WIN-TRAINMEN UP IN ARMS. ———-
President Mitchell spent yesterday at Scranton, the guest of friends. His visit was one of pleasure and had no bearing on the strike situation. He returned last evening but had nothing of an interesting nature to disclose. He is still confident of the ultimate results.
Mother Jones still remains in the city and unless the present plans are changed she will deliver an address this afternoon at Nanticoke.Mother Jones has no particular love for Father O’Reilly and believes the latter to be unwise in his assertion about the miners and their organization. She believes that he will profit by his indiscretion. When told that he had delivered another address derogatory to the miners’ cause, she waxed warm, saying that if the occasion permitted; she would go to Shenandoah and tell the miners some pertinent facts.
[Declared Mother Jones:]
I know the miners are going to win this struggle, and every just man who is a competent observer of the prevailing conditions must be actuated by the same feeling. It is fallacy for even biased persons to harbor the idea that the miners are not steadfast. They show the same determined spirit, are practically speaking, of one mind and will never swerver the least iota from that course, they planned to take. The time is not far distant when the operators must mine coal or else lose their markets. In September the consumers will make an effort to get anthracite, and if they cannot they will look elsewhere and once the grates are changed it will take years, perhaps, before they resume the use of hard coal. If the operators permit it their business ability is not as great as credited. There may be an attempt made to operate the mines with non-union men, but the number will be so decidedly small and the work incompetently done, the effort will be given up with disgust. The operators will, after the trials, comprehend the determination of the men and will make the necessary concessions. The people of this country can rest assured that the miners are going to win this strike.
How about the one in West Virginia? asked the reporter.
[Mother Jones continued:]
We will not give up until the same results are achieved. Some of the places are completely tied up and victory is only a question of a short time. The collieries at Fairmont have not been reached, that I will admit, but do you know that there is a fence built around the town and no one in allowed to enter unless a permit is secured from some company agent. The men of West Virginia are partly paid in script, receive their money every month, sometimes every six weeks, deal in ‘”pluck me” stores and undergo other indignities. No American can or will endure such conditions.
Hellraisers Journal, Sunday January 30, 1898
New York City Slum Life – Charity Worker Knows Not Whom to Blame
From the Appeal to Reason of January 29, 1898:
A year ago, I started out to see what the east side of New York was like, and the street which struck me as the most astonishing in its difference from the up-town streets was Goerck Street. It was a warm August afternoon, and the inhabitants of the houses along its street were sitting on the steps and standing about the side walks, to say nothing of those upon the street itself.
I looked eagerly at the faces that should suggest dangerous depravity, and I thought I saw upon almost every countenance expressions of the most satanic cruelty and selfishness. I find that the people who visit me for investigation in this quarter of the city come in the same excited state of alarm at the character of the East Side residents. But after a few month of living among them one entirely abandons any idea of their being so different from other human beings, and there scarcely remains any surprise in one’s mind concerning them, excepting this fact of their living together in crowds, which seems dangerous to moral and physical health. I have found that it is a very common thing for a family of eight to have only one bed; so that possibly an elderly woman afflicted with a disease like rheumatism or cancerous affections in obliged to sleep upon chairs or to lie upon the floor, while the younger members of the family are piled upon the bed, and the poor little children are disposed of anywhere.
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