Tag: February 1910

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for February 1910, Part II: Found Supporting Black Hills Miners of South Dakota

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, No master no slave, Speech Dec 9, NY Cl p2, Dec 10, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday March 13, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for February 1910, Part II:
-Found Supporting the Miners of the Black Hills in South Dakota

From the Black Hills Daily Register of February 22, 1910:

Mother Jones Sends Money

Organ D2 WFM, Black Hills Dly Rg p2, Feb 22, 1910

James Kirwan yesterday received a letter from Mother Jones, who is now in Milwaukee, informing him that she was coming to Lead to take a hand in the fight for the right to organize. She asked no money, but, on the contrary, enclosed a check for one hundred dollars, with these words:

My boys in Lead gave me one hundred and fifty dollars for the 1909 Labor Day speech. Fifty dollars of this sum I gave to the Mexicans and I am sending you the balance for the locked-out Black Hills boys.

Further along in her letter, Mother says:

Tell the boys to keep up that fight. Have no surrender written on the banners of the Western Federation of Miners. I am coming up there to take a hand. The Hearst crowd of blood-suckers are organizing to get more profits. We also have a right to organize to give that crew of blood-suckers less profits. Tell my boys to stand pat. Mother.

———-

From the Socialist Montana News of February 24, 1910:

[Mother Jones in Milwaukee]

A non-partisan anti-high-price mass meeting was called for Feb. 15 by the Milwaukee Federated Trades Council Among the speakers who addressed the meeting were A. M. Simons, editor of the Chicago Daily Socialist, and Mother Jones. This so hurt the feelings of Senator Stephenson’s organ, the Free Press, that it indulged in several columns of abuse against the meeting. It had a great deal to say about the “poor attendance” of the meeting, although the hall was packed to the doors, and many were obliged to stand.

The real grievance of this capitalist sheet was that the capitalist politician who addressed the meeting cut a poor figure, having no remedy to offer except the enforcement of the law and investigation of facts which our pocket-books already understand all too well, while the Socialist speakers made ringing addresses which were roundly applauded. Resolutions that the people must own the trusts were adopted by the audience without one dissenting vote.

[Paragraph break added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for February 1910, Part I: Found Fighting for Working Women

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Ladies Women, NYT p3, May 23, 1914———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday March 12, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for February 1910, Part I:
-Found Fighting for Working Women of Philadelphia and Milwaukee

From the International Socialist Review of February 1910:

Fighting to Live
—–

By Tom A. Price.
—–

* * *

[Mother Jones in Philadelphia.]

Mother Jones. This little woman whose heart is as big as the nation and beats wholly for humanity, came to Philadelphia while the trumpet was still reverberating after the call to arms had been sounded. Under her bold leadership the fighters were organized before the manufacturers had fairly realized that their workers had at last been stung to revolt by the same lash which had so often driven them to slavery.

Mother Jones, ISR Cover crpd p673 ed, Feb 1910

In impassioned speech after impassioned speech Mother Jones urged the girls on to battle. Shaking her gray locks in defiance she pictured the scab in such a light that workers still shudder when they think of what she would have considered them had they remained in the slave pens of the manufacturers. Every man and woman and child who heard her poignantly regrets the fact that her almost ceaseless labors at last drove her to her bed where she now lies ill.

But she had instilled into the minds of her followers the spirit which prompted her to cross a continent to help them. That spirit remains and is holding in place the standard which she raised. It is leading the girls to every device possible to help the cause. Many of them are selling papers on the street that they may earn money to contribute to the union which they love.

* * *

[Photograph from cover of February Review.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Testimony of Fellow Workers Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and C. L. Filigno at Spokane Free Speech Trial

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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Quote EGF, Compliment IWW, IW p1, Nov 17, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday February 28, 1910
Spokane, Washington – Trial of Gurley Flynn and Filigno, Part II

From The Workingman’s Paper of February 26, 1910:

IWW Spk FSF, EGF Filigno Trial, HdLn Workingmns p4, Feb 26, 1910

[Part II of II.]

IWW Spk FSF, EGF Filigno Trial Verdict, Workingmns p4, Feb 26, 1910

The Jury

The first two days of the trial were taken up with impaneling the jury. It fell to Mr. Don Kiser’s lot to have charge of the prosecution’s side of this part of the performance.

About forty men were called before it was possible to get twelve men who were satisfactory. The vast majority were prejudiced against the I. W. W.; in fact, it was a surprise when a man would make the statement that he had formed no opinion concerning the case, or even when one would say he considered labor had a right to organize in order to better its conditions, etc.

Finally, however, by Friday afternoon the jury began to look like a jury and things were ready for taking up the testimony.

[The Prosecution’s Case.]

[Main witness for the prosecution were:

-Detective Martin J. Burns who testified that 20% of those arrested said no more than “Fellow Worker.”

-Chief Sullivan, witness for the prosecution, was unable to explain why foreigners who said no more than “Fellow-Workers” could draw such big crowds.

-“Floor-Spitter” Detective McDonald testified that the men he arrested were all foreigners whose names he could not remember nor pronounce.]

Defense Opens

At 3:30 [Tuesday February 15th] Mr. Symmes addressed the jury, and on request of defense court adjourned at about 4, to take up defense testimony in the morning.

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Hellraisers Journal: The Spokane Trial of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and C. L. Filigno by Bessy Fiset for Workingman’s Paper

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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Quote EGF, re Spk FSF, ISR p618, Jan 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 27, 1910
Spokane, Washington – Trial of Gurley Flynn and Filigno, Part I

From The Workingman’s Paper of February 26, 1910:

The Flynn-Filigno Trial
—–

(Reported for “The Workingman’s Paper” by its
Editorial Correspondent, Bessy Fiset.)

[Part I of II.

Wednesday, the 9th of February, 1910, saw the opening of the case of the State against C. L. Filigno and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn-Jones for criminal conspiracy.

IWW Spk FSF, EGF Filigno Trial, Workingmns p4, Feb 26, 1910

The fact is that this trial is bringing to light the greatest conspiracy on the part of the MASTER CLASS AGAINST FREEDOM OF SPEECH, PRESS AND ASSEMBLAGE that has yet been revealed in this country, making it rank with the foremost cases that have had direct bearing, or been the direct outcome of the Revolutionary movement in America.

* * *

To any one looking on at this trial the spectacle was certainly a representative in miniature of conditions as they exist in society today. On entering the large courtroom-seating approximately three hundred-one faced the court with the jury box on the left, counsel’s table immediately in front of judge, clerk’s desk just to right, and at extreme right along the wall a row of seats reserved for women spectators.

Between the right wall and the court was a door opening into an anteroom, which in turn let into a corridor leading to the county jail. Between the court and the jury box on the left was the door leading into court chambers.

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Hellraisers Journal: “Facts Suppressed in Spokane,” Affidavit by J. C. Knust for the Socialist Workingman’s Paper

Janet RayeFree Speech Fights
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Quote EGF, re Spk FSF, ISR p618, Jan 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday February 26, 1910
Spokane, Washington – The Affidavit of Fellow Worker J. C. Knust

From the Seattle Socialist Workingman’s Paper of February 19, 1910:

KNUST’S AFFIDAVIT
—–

State of Washington, County of Spokane, ss.:

J. C. Knust, being first duly sworn on oath, deposes and says:

That I was arrested Nov. 3rd at the corner of Howard and First avenue by Officer Logan and a plain clothes man, while talking to a crowd of about 200 people.

Spk FSF, Leaders n Editors, IW p1, Nov 17, 1909

They knocked my hat off, jerked me along, holding me by the shirt collar and choking me. When I protested they hit me over the head.

Officer Logan said: “I suppose you have been in this country about two weeks.” I told him I had fought for my country and thought I had the right to speak on the streets of Spokane.

When we reached the jail they shoved me into the booking window. I was taken into a dark cell 7 feet high by 6½ feet wide and six feet long, with 17 other men.

We were unable to lie down with so many in the cell. Those that did lie down had to do so with their heads to the wall and their feet to the center of the cell and with their feet on top of each other and higher than their heads. The man underneath was naturally restless with the heavy load from the others upon him and was always anxious to get to the top of the pile.

The air in the cell was foul, with no sanitary facilities, no soap, towels, etc.

At 6 in the evening and seven in the morning we were given food, but few of us could eat it. They kept cutting down what little grab we had, until there was hardly anything to speak of.

One day I was taken into Judge Mann’s kangaroo court and after a farce trial was sentenced to thirty days.

I tried to give a full statement of how I was arrested by the Cossacks of Spokane, when Judge Mann stepped in and refused to let me continue.

I then tried to swear out a warrant against Officer Logan for assault and battery, but Mann refused to issue the warrant.

I was placed back in the cell, where we spent an awful night, the groaning and crying of the men being terrible.

Many men fainted and many were taken out unconscious, but the jail or hospital above began to be filled up so fast from those below that the jailer refused to heed our cries.

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Hellraisers Journal: “Facts Suppressed in Spokane” by Fellow Worker J. C. Knust for the Socialist Workingman’s Paper

Janet RayeFree Speech Fights
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Quote re IWW Spk FSF n Solidarity, IW p1, Nov 3, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday February 25, 1910
Spokane, Washington – Facts of Free Speech Fight from J. C. Knust

From the Seattle Socialist Workingman’s Paper of February 19, 1910:

FACTS SUPPRESSED in SPOKANE
—-
By J. C. Knust, of Spokane

IWW Spk FSF, Dont Buy Jobs, IW p4, Feb 19, 1910

EDITOR’S NOTE.-Here we give yet another dose of FACTS to the sick Spokane authorities. It is killing testimony, and until the record is disowned officially it will damn Spokane in the eyes of the whole world.

The second round in the fight against the Working class is now being fought by the city authorities of Spokane, backed by the employment agencies and other expressions of corporate rule.

Spokane is the natural and the principal distributing point of labor and its supplies to the great Northwestern lumber regions, agricultural districts and mining camps.

Spokane, being a comparatively young city, is necessarily under heavy expense, and, like many young cities in the past, through their spasmodic growth, has given undue power to certain official individuals, who sometimes make, either wilfully or maliciously, grievous mistakes in the use of such power in order to serve private interests.

In order that the reader may get a fairer and more clear conception of the immediate cause of this fight of the workers to maintain their rights, it will be necessary to begin at the beginning.

Every year thousands of men are sent out by the employment agencies to all parts of the country, through faked advertisements, to work which does not exist. For many years these licensed thieves have reaped in this way a rich harvest. Men would come here, buy a job and ship out. Some would find work for only a week where they expected to find steady employment. Others found no work at all.

Investigation proved often that employers, foremen and agents were dividing spoils, their fee being anywhere from $1 to $15 for jobs. After a few days work these men would be discharged and another crew would be sent to fill their places, thus keeping three crews-one going, one coming and one working. [Perpetual motion!]

Can you suggest anything for these men to do but to organize to do away with such thievery? No redress was to be had from the courts, the city attorney saying, “Nothing can be done,” showing plainly that there is plenty of “law,” but it is not for the benefit of the masses.

These conditions grew to be intolerable. One office alone in this benighted town boasts proudly of having sent out in one year 85,000 men. Think of it! Out of that number there were less than 1 per cent. who actually found remunerative employment. And again consider that there are many of these slave markets here, and all doing a thriving business.

Then these men grew desperate; something had to be done. So about two years ago they began to organize themselves into one union known as “The Industrial Workers of the World,” one object being to educate its members to buy no more jobs, but compel employers to come to a union headquarters for their men, where no fee would be charged.

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Hellraisers Journal: “47 Days in Spokane City Jail” by William Z. Foster, Part II -from the Seattle Workingman’s Paper

Janet RayeFree Speech Fights
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Quote EGF, Compliment IWW, IW p1, Nov 17, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday February 15, 1910
Spokane, Washington – Foster Describes I. W. W. Organizing within City Jail

From the Seattle Socialist Workingman’s Paper of February 12, 1910:

Spk FSF, 47 Days WZF, Workingmans p1, Feb 12, 1910Spk FSF, 47 Days by WZF, Workingmans p1, Feb 12, 1910

[Part II of II.]

[Fellow Workers Organize Behind the Bars of City Jail]

Our propaganda meetings were a howling success, and we made at least forty I. W. W. converts in the city jail. These were all workingmen who were arrested for the crime of being broke, and when they listened to our talks and saw how we handled ourselves they promised to read up on industrial unionism and to join the I. W. W. as soon as possible.

In the jail the cells are in a double row, opening from a corridor about six feet wide and it was in this corridor that we held our meetings.

Another good feature of our meetings was the spirit of democracy prevailing. We practically forced men to get up and speak who had never but once before attempted to speak before a crowd (said “Fellow-Workers” on Spokane streets), and a couple of these give promise of becoming excellent “soap-boxers.”

We were getting along swimmingly when someone decided that our meetings were too successful and that we must have some “leaders” amongst us. As a result of this, on Jan. 3rd, Fellow-Worker Jones of Los Angeles (commonly called “Voiende Sulpher Smoke”) who was speaker of the evening, and myself, who had acted as chairman of the meeting the night previous, were “grabbed” and put into the “strong box” (a steel cage reserved for the more serious criminals). Our seizure simply stimulated the remainder to greater efforts, and from that time on the jail organization became a pronounced success. Once more the grabbing of men suspected of being “leaders” acted as a boomerang.

* * *

The effects of the organization upon the work done on the rock pile was remarkable, and the possibilities of the passive resistance strike, even as evidenced by us chained prisoners, of working. We accomplished almost nothing. For instance, two men chained together pounded for four days upon one rock, when it was accidentally broken. To break that small rock (about as large as a wash bucket) cost the city of Spokane $4.00 for food alone, at the rate of 50 cents per day per man, besides the other expenses for guards, etc. This is only a sample of how we worked, and by no means an exceptional one.

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Hellraisers Journal: “47 Days in Spokane City Jail” by William Z. Foster, Part I -from the Seattle Workingman’s Paper

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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Quote EGF, Compliment IWW, IW p1, Nov 17, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday February 14, 1910
Spokane, Washington – Foster Describes 47 Days in City Jail

From the Seattle Socialist Workingman’s Paper of February 12, 1910:

Spk FSF, 47 Days WZF, Workingmans p1, Feb 12, 1910Spk FSF, 47 Days by WZF, Workingmans p1, Feb 12, 1910

[Part I of II.]

On the afternoon of December 11th, when a contingent of men left the I. W. W. headquarters for the purpose of speaking on the street, I accompanied them, as usual, so as to witness their arrest and be enabled to report any unusual features attending it. On this particular afternoon Korthagen and Holland, two I. W. W. members from Seattle among others, were billed to speak, and having been closely associated with them in Seattle, I was anxious to be in at the death.

I walked with them to the appointed street corner, and while they spoke I stood some twenty feet away in the thick of the crowd. They were duly arrested and a few moments later the redoubtable Captain Burns came on the scene in answer to a call sent in to the station, and although he knew nothing whatsoever as to what had taken place, and had no warrant for my arrest, he immediately placed me under arrest when he happened to see me standing in the crowd.

At the police station I had the honor of a half-hour talk with Pugh, Sullivan and Burns, during the course of which conversation these worthies attempted to pump me. They adopted a dozen different ruses by which they hoped to secure a promise from me to desist from taking part in the street fight in return for my liberty. One of these was ridiculous in the extreme. Chief Sullivan (brainy man) said that he had just received a letter from the I. W. W., stating that I was a Pinkerton, his plan being to rouse my ire against the organization and to get me to desert it, or at least promise to take no active part in the fight. Failing in this he adjudged me guilty in his office of some unknown offense, because I wouldn’t answer for my conduct for the future, and I was taken to the notorious sweat-box, where I joined the balance of the street-speaking “criminals.”

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for January 1910, Part II: Found Speaking at Indianapolis United Mine Workers’ Convention

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Last Great Battle, UMWC p420, Jan 26, 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 13, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for January 1910, Part II:
-Found in Indianapolis Speaking at Mine Workers’ Convention

From The Indianapolis Star of January 25, 1910:

Mother Jones Lg, Ipl Str p3, Jan 25, 1910

From Hellraisers Journal of January 29, 1910
-Indianpolis, Indiana – Mother Jones Speaks to Her Boys:

From The Indianapolis News of January 26, 1910:

Mother Jones Speaks.

After music by the Lianelly Royal Welsh choir, which was applauded with a warmth that showed thorough appreciation. President [Thomas L.] Lewis introduced Mother Jones, who misses no convention of the miners. Mother Jones arraigned capital and set forth the claims of labor to better treatment. She referred to the anthracite strike and the Colorado strike.

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for January 1910, Part I: Found with the Miners of the Hazleton Area of Pennsylvania

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Last Great Battle, UMWC p420, Jan 26, 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday February 12, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for January 1910, Part I:
-Found with the Miners of Northeastern Pennsylvania

Mother Jones, Ipl Str p3, Jan 25, 1910 copy
Indianapolis Star of January 25, 1910
—–

From the Wilkes-Barre Evening News
of January 5, 1910:

“Mother” Jones, who was such a prominent figure in the 1900 and 1902 strikes of the miners in this region, last night addressed the miners of Beaver Brook and was there given a hearty ovation. She will make a number of addresses in the lower end of the county to mine workers. “Mother” Jones who is now past the 70 year mark is always a welcome visitor among the miners.

[Emphasis added.]

From the Shenandoah Evening Herald
of January 5, 1910:

Mother Jones In Hazleton.

Among the visitors to Hazleton yesterday was “Mother” Jones, the well known organizer of the United Mine Workers, who took such a prominent part in the miners’ strike of this section. She was on her way from Philadelphia to the West. She just assisted the shirt waist strikers in their struggle in the Quaker City.

From The Philadelphia Inquirer
of January 6, 1910:

“Mother Jones” in Hazleton

Special to The Inquirer.

HAZLETON. Jan. 5.-Fresh from Philadelphia, where she helped in the strike of the shirtwaist workers. “Mother” Jones, who was a leading figure in the mines’ strikes of 1900 and 1902 in this section, arrived here today to conduct a series of meetings throughout the district among the miners “Mother” Jones has not been in the anthracite field since 1902.

[Emphasis added.]

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