The miners need no angel.
They are living in hell
and they want to raise hell.
-Mother Jones

Hellraisers Journal, Thursday October 12, 1916
Mother Jones Found in Indiana During Month of September

Mother Jones spent the much of the month of September 1916 in Indiana campaigning for the re-election of both President Wilson and Senator Kern. But before beginning our coverage of Mother’s activities in Indiana, we found an article from an Arizona newspaper which complained of her campaign on behalf of the re-election of Governor Hunt in that state.

Hellraisers Journal of September 2nd republished an article from the September 1st edition of the Graham Guardian of Safford, Arizona, which expressed much outrage over “The Stormy Petrel” and the bad language use by the supposedly foul-mouthed union agitator at a rally held in Phoenix on August 21st. The Guardian claimed that Mother campaigned as much for whiskey as she did for Governor Hunt.

Hellraisers Journal of September 5th republished two interviews with Mother Jones conducted while she was in Evansville, Indiana, to speak at the city’s Labor Day Celebration. Mother Jones declared herself in favor of the re-election of President Wilson and the Indiana Senator, John Kern. She demanded the six-hour day, and, on the subject women and the economic struggle she stated:

The problem of this age is not suffrage, not feminism, not liquor: it’s the industrial question. That’s the nation’s disease, that has bred nearly every war of mankind, for most wars are wars fought for capital.

You never can change the situation in which those who toil are illfed and ignorant, until woman is awakened to the economic situation in this country. She is by nature more human than man. When she becomes more enlightened to real labor conditions in this country, she will not rest until every child is well fed, well clothed and well educated.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for September 1916: Stumps for Wilson & Kern in Indiana” →