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Hellraisers Journal – Friday August 8, 1913
Copper Country, Keweenaw Peninsula, Michigan – Mother Jones Arrives
From The Calumet News of August 5, 1913:
[……]
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Tag: Irish Immigrants
Hellraisers Journal: From McClure’s Magazine: “Children of the Coal Shadow” by Francis H. Nichols, Part I
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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday February 10, 1903
Children of Pennsylvania’s Anthracite “Coal Shadow”
-Part I of article by Francis H. Nichols, with illustrations by Frank E. Schoonover
From McClure’s Magazine of February 1903:
Every child of the coal fields who to-day is ten years old has lived through at least two great strikes [Great Anthracite Strikes of 1900 and 1902]. During these periods the indefinite and sullen discontent takes a concrete and militant form. There is talk by idle men of “the rights of labor” and the “wickedness of riches.” Deputies armed with rifles are guarding the company’s property. A detachment of militia is encamped at the end of the street…..
Hellraisers Journal: From The Socialist Spirit: “Mother Jones” by William Mailly, Part I: Working Class Joan of Arc
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday August 4, 1902
“Mother Jones” by William Mailly, Part I: Working Class Joan of Arc
From The Socialist Spirit of August 1902:
“MOTHER” JONES
BY WILLIAM MAILLY
[Part I of III]
“Mother” Jones has been compared to Joan of Arc, but she is more than that.
The French maid derived her inspiration from the mystical creations of a brain inflamed by religious ecstasy. She was the slave of her own imagination. She fought for the “divine right of kings,” dying a victorious sacrifice to a cause which, dominant in her day, will soon cease to disfigure the world. Her rightful place as the fanatical representative of medieval mummery has already been assigned her.
But “Mother” Jones absorbs inspiration from living men and women; their hopes and fears, their scant joys and abundant sorrows, are hers also to laugh with and to weep over. She deals with things that are, to fashion the better things that will be. And her cause is the one that will release mankind from material subserviency and mental obliquity, to finally rejuvenate and glorify the world.
In this only are they alike: John of Arc was peculiarly the product of the material conditions of her time, just as “Mother” Jones is of the conditions existing to-day. Each would have been impossible at any other period. As Joan of Arc typified the superstition and mental darkness of the people who hailed and followed her as one gifted with supernatural power, so “Mother” Jones is the embodiment of the new spiritual concept and clearer mentality characteristic of the awakening working class of our day. She is the incarnation of the spirit of revolt against modern industrial conditions—the spirit which finds fullest expression in the world-wide Socialist movement.
For “Mother” Jones is, above and beyond all, one of the working class. She is flesh of their flesh, blood of their blood. She comes of them, has lived their lives, and, if necessary, would die to make their lives happier and better. She loves the workers with a passionate love stronger than the love of life itself. Her advent marks the stage of their progress towards emancipation.
It is the recognition, unconscious perhaps, of this affinity with them that constitutes the real source of her strength with the working people. Instinctively they feel she is one of them. When she speaks they listen to one of their own kind. Thus she becomes a veritable magnet that draws them together, ofttimes in spite of themselves.
For “Mother” Jones is no orator, in the technical sense of the term. Her rhetoric might be more rounded, her phrases more polished, and even her voice gentler than years of indiscriminate speaking, in and out of doors, have left it. But if they were, she would probably be less successful in her work. Her apparent weaknesses are really aids, rather than hindrances. Her language is plain, her illustrations crude but vivid, and she has a facile wit. And her voice is the more effectual because it is not sweet nor silvery, but rather harsh at times. Nevertheless, I have known that voice to arouse working men to frenzy and again soften them into tears. It is the soul that speaks.
So the working people understand and trust her. Only the demagogue or shyster among them fear her keen eye and ready tongue. She has the faculty of ferreting out such as these, and sooner or later they feel it. She is seldom deceived in her judgment of men or women. Absolutely sincere herself, she quickly detects insincerity in others. She is as impatient of hypocrisy as she is free from it. Her face tells its own story.
Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Grants Interview to Reporter after Her Release from Jail at Parkersburg, West Virginia
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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday June 24, 1902
Parkersburg, West Virginia – Mother Jones Interviewed at Van Winkle Hotel
From the Parkersburg Daily Morning News of June 23, 1902:
IF MINERS, THEY Will GAIN
IS VIEW OF “MOTHER” JONES
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The Noted Labor Organizer
Talks to Reporter and
Advances Her Theories on
Strike Matters
While in conversation Sunday [June 22nd] with a News reporter, “Mother” Jones, quoted as follows from “Ignatius Donnelly’s Caesar’s Column.”
The world, today, clamors for deeds not creeds; for bread, not dogma; for charity, not ceremony; for love, not intellect.
Society divides itself into two hostile camps; no white flags pass from one to the other. They wait only for the drumbeat to summon them to armed conflict.
The masses grow more intelligent as they grow more wretched; and more capable of cooperation as they become more desperate. The labor organizations of today would have been impossible fifty years ago. And what is to arrest the flow of effect from cause? What is to prevent the coming of the night if the earth continues to revolve on its axis? The fool may cry out: “There is no night!” But the feet of the hours march unrelentingly toward the darkness.
Believing, as I do, that I read the future aright, it would be criminal in me to remain silent. I plead for the higher and nobler thoughts in the souls of men; for wider love and ampler charity in their hearts; for a renewal of the bond of brotherhood between the classes; for a reign of justice on earth that shall obliterate the cruel hates and passions which now divide the world.
Mrs. Jones, after having furnished bond for her appearance at United States court Tuesday moved her quarters from a room in the county jail building to the Van Winkle hotel, where, she will remain until the trial of the agitators take place. She does not seem to be troubled in the least about the outcome of the proceedings as she says she does not believe that either she or the men who were arrested showed any contempt by their actions after the injunction issued a short time ago by Judge Jackson was served.
Mother Jones is an attentive student of human nature. While a woman, she has those observant qualities that give her an opinion on any subject. She has made a life-study of the lives and ways of working men, especially of the miners.
She stated that the agitators, among whom she is considered a member of high standing, have never countenanced the brutality connected with some labor troubles in the past. It is her opinion that fighting does not gain for them the desired end, and that it won’t be long until all troubles of the kind will be settled without compelling the men to overstep the boundaries of prudence.
[Mother Jones stated:]
It should not be necessary at this civilized age for men to battle and cause the loss of life. The time is near when wars will not be the means of settling differences of either nations or men.
It is a fact generally conceded that there are now two classes, each of which could work to the advantage of itself and to the other, but instead they cause agitations that grow and cause disturbances that are widely felt. To make those conditions different it is necessary for the working class to be educated to the realization of its standing, and not until that time comes will there be a a proper feeling between the employers and the employees.
In former years miners were considered a bad class. They came from different countries, and were of the kind that believed in settling all differences by force. Fighting was fun to them. They were not to be blamed for that, for they were educated to that point by those socially and officially their betters. Take for instance the troubles in Ireland years ago. The inhabitants of one county would fight those of the other until there was continual trouble. The same spirit was brought to this country, and, while the hardy miners could stand such hardship and rough treatment at the hands of their employers, they could not stand by and see themselves getting beaten for their wages.
Hellraisers Journal: From International Socialist Review: James Connolly to Publish “The Harp” in Dublin, Ireland
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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday March 2, 1910
Dublin, Ireland – New Home of James Connolly’s Harp
From the International Socialist Review of March 1910:
THE HARP IN IRELAND—We are informed that the Harp, the journal edited by Comrade James Connolly, has been transferred to Dublin, Ireland, and will be published from there commencing January, 1910. It is hoped and believed that this change of location will be beneficial to the movement in both countries. American comrades will learn at first hand of the revolutionary movement in Europe, and Irish comrades will be kept in touch with Socialist development in America. The subscription price will remain at 50 cents per year.
The January issue among other things will contain a statement of the position of the great Irish agitator, Daniel O’Connell, towards the Labor movement in Ireland—a statement of facts suppressed for 70 years by the middle class historians of Ireland. Every one should read it.
Comrade Connolly has undertaken the entire responsibility for the production of the paper and asks us to appeal to all friends and comrades for help in bearing the financial end of the burden. Letters should be addressed and money orders made payable to Nora Connolly, 436 East 155th street, New York. All Socialist papers please copy.
[Photographs and emphasis added.]
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Hellraisers Journal: The Harp, “A Literary Journal of the Irish Working Class in America”
The cause of labour
is the cause of Ireland,
the cause of Ireland
is the cause of labour.
-James Connolly
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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday March 18, 1908
The Harp, Organ of the Irish Socialist Federation
From The Industrial Union Bulletin of March 14, 1908:
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Hellraisers Journal: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Found in New York City Supporting Strike of Young Millinery Workers
You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal, Thursday February 13, 1908
New York, New York – Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Stands with Strikers
Since her marriage in Minnesota, in early January, to I. W. W. organizer Jack Jones, his arrest and her subsequent return to her parent’s home in New York, we have not heard much from Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. But we did find this item in the New York Sun of February 7th:
GIRL SOCIALIST TO STRIKERS
—–ELIZABETH FLYNN ENLIVENS A MEETING OF MILLINERS
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Commends the Workers to the Socialist Trades Unions
and Describes Hearst as a Middle Class Reformer
-As for Roosevelt, What’s He to Labor?
The mantle which Thomas W. Lawson discarded when he announced that so far as he was concerned the “System” might work out its own destruction has fallen upon the shoulders of Miss Elizabeth Flynn. She wore it last night most becomingly and effectively at a mass meeting of milliners in Teutonia Hall, 66 Essex street.
Miss Flynn is 17 and slim, with big Irish blue eyes, nut brown hair and the milk white skin that betokens a Killarney ancestry. Her voice is clear, soft and coaxing, with a carrying power and a staying quality that the average Madison Square Garden orator would be glad to attain at almost any cost.
The crusader against capital spoke for one hour and a quarter and at the end of that period seemed fresher and more enthusiastic than when she began. As for what she didn’t say about the robbers who stole from the poor working man his country, the tools and materials and the finished product of his labor, and even annexed his inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, it would be difficult for the most ingenious opponent of the “System” to conceive.
Hellraisers Journal: “An Irish Manifesto,” Irish Socialist Federation Replies to Insult of Rev. Dr. Brann
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Hellraisers Journal, Friday May 31, 1907
From the Montana News: Manifesto of Irish Socialist Federation
An Irish Manifesto
—–Irish Socialist Federation Reply to
Insult of Dr. Brann
—Old Fenian Spirit to the Front
At a recent meeting of the Irish Socialist Federation of New York (a body composed exclusively of Socialists of Irish birth and parentage) the late uncalled for attack by Dr. Brann upon the demonstration in favor of a fair trial for the imprisoned leaders of the Western Federation of Miners was taken up for discussion. As this statement of this reverend gentleman that there were but few Irishmen in the parade was regarded by the members present as a reflection upon the public spirit of our countrymen, placing them before the American public as being indifferent or hostile to a demand for injustice, the following statement was prepared for publication, in criticism of his position and in vindication of the character of those Irish who marched in the “horde”, as Dr. Brann elegantly terms the flower of the organized workers of New York.
We, members of the Irish Socialist Federation, speaking on behalf of those working class Irish who in every movement for freedom have ever taken a foremost place, who have ever been as pioneers ready to point the way in every movement for progress, or as fighters to lay down their lives for its realization, desire to remind the Rev. Dr. Brann that we as Irish have a history behind us— a history that speaks eloquently against the interposition of clergymen in temporal affairs, a history that warns us of the folly of expecting from clergymen, either wisdom, political prudence, or controversial decency, once they step into the political arena. How often in Ireland have we seen these same individuals when criticised by some opponent, denounce such criticism as an attack upon the church?
