I have been on the firing line
of the industrial battle for years,
and when democratic bullets shot workingmen,
their blood watered the highways just the same
as when republican bullets shot them.
-Mother Jones
Hellraisers Journal, Sunday October 21, 1906
Oklahoma Territory – Mother Jones Travels and Speaks
From the Appeal to Reason of October 20, 1906:
MESSAGE FROM MOTHER JONES
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Dear Appeal:-I want to report conditions as I find them in the new states. I entered the territory at Wilburton. There the democratic nominee for United States Senator was holding a meeting. The committee called on me and asked that the meetings be held jointly, as mine was also billed. I wanted to hear how he presented the struggle of the toiling millions from a democratic standpoint. He showed the wrongs of the republican party, and the beauties of his own. I followed, and showed up that they were both wings of the vulture class and if that class did not have both those wings they could not exist twenty-four hours. I explained to the audience that I had been on the firing line of the industrial battle for years, and that democratic bullets shot workingmen, and their blood had watered the highways just the same as when republican bullets shot them. The result was that a Socialist local of seventy of eighty members was organized soon after.
