Mother Jones on Deck
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The papers of Greensburg, Pa., are filled with accounts of the great speech delivered there by Mother Jones in behalf of the striking miners on January 14th. Mother Jones appears to have been in perfect form and to have electrified the audience of three thousand people assembled to hear her. Below will be found brief extracts:
Thrusting aside hands proffering assistance, Mother Jones mounted the speakers table. Holding up her hands for silence, when the wave of applause swept over the audience, she burst out into a fierce invective against the business men of Greensburg. With her expressive hands gesticulating, she said;
“They are so full of greed that they won’t take a day off to find out what is the matter. The business men furnish the scabs with Armour’s rotten beer and swill whiskey. Then they blame disorder on the miners. It’s the changing order of economics. The small business man is put to the wall and he scratches his head and wonders what the hell is the matter.”
Turning around in partial apology to Rev. Mr. Schultz. she said:
“You ministers think you are the only ones who can talk about hell. I live in hell and I have a right to talk about it.”
Assuring them that she did not get into the labor movement yesterday, she said:
“The class who owns the industries, owns the governments, the newspapers and all.”
Turning to Mr. McGinley, Mother Jones spit out:
“You may like the constabulary, but I don’t-no true American would belong to the constabulary.”
Then in a bitter tirade against the state police she said:
“Their little gray cap covers the outside of their skull, buy they have nothing inside.”
Constantly throughout her invective, the state police were referred to as “dogs of war” and “bloodhounds.”
Notwithstanding the radical speech of Mother Jones and her unmerciful flaying of the coal company and its hirelings and lackeys the papers treated her with great regard. The following description of her as a she took her place upon the platform is interesting:
With firm tread, keen old eyes peering out at the crowds from behind spectacles set determinedly on her nose, Mother Jones advanced through the crowds and took her place at the speakers table. A modest bonnet covered her wealth of soft gray hair, soft laces appeared at her throat and wrists, and her strangely youthful face broke into smiles and her eyes twinkled in a roguish Irish way as she acknowledge greetings.
The seventy-seven years of Mother Jones sit lightly upon her venerable features. She is just as active and quite as revolutionary as at any time in her life. If only the great mass who are in their prime were imbued with her spirit and nervous energy what a great change there would be in this world. There would be no question about the social revolution in our time. We are glad this great effort of Mother Jones was made in behalf of the miners and earnestly hope they will stand solidly together to the end. If they do this they are sure to win and they certainly ought to win, for never was there a strike more justified than this, nor more deserving of the support of the working class and those who sympathize with it.
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[Photograph and emphasis added.]
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