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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday March 26, 1904
Telluride, Colorado – Union Men Dragged from Homes and Deported
From the American Labor Union Journal of March 24, 1904:
Tag: Italian Immigrants
Hellraisers Journal: Book Review by John D. Barry: “Arrows in the Gale” by Arturo Giovannitti, Introduced by Helen Keller
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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday March 11, 1914
Book Review: “Arrows in the Gale” by Arturo Giovannitti
-with Introduction by Helen Keller
From the San Francisco Bulletin of March 4, 1914:
Ways of the World by John D. Barry
A NEW POET: The Revelation of Power Made by Arturo Giovannitti
in His Recently Published Volume, “Arrows in the Gale.”[…..]
“Arrows in the Gale” by Arturo Giovannitti, Introduced by Helen Keller
Hellraisers Journal: From The Comrade: “The Coal Miners’ Strike in Colorado” by Bertha Howell Mailly-Photos by Author
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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday March 6, 1904
“The Coal Miners’ Strike in Colorado” by Bertha Howell Mailly
From The Comrade of March 1904:
Hellraisers Journal: From the American Labor Union Journal: Report from the Colorado Strike Zone by Bertha Howell Mailly-Mother Jones Happily Recovering
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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday February 9, 1904
Trinidad, Colorado – Mrs. Bertha Howell Reports from Colorado Strike Zone
From the American Labor Journal of January 28, 1904:
From the Appeal to Reason of January 30, 1904
-Mrs. Mailly’s Article Was Also Published in the Appeal Along with the Following Drawing by Lockwood and with the Following Introduction:
THE COAL MINERS’ STRIKE IN SOUTHERN COLORADO
———-(Not much news of the strike of several thousand coal miners in Southern Colorado has reached the outside world. Mrs. Bertha Howell Mailly, wife of the National Secretary of the Socialist Party, went to that district from Omaha last week to be with Mother Jones, who was dangerously ill in Trinidad, but who is now happily recovering. While in the strike district, Mrs. Mailly will write a special series of articles for the Socialist press, the following being the first.)
[Emphasis added.]
Hellraisers Journal: Convention of the Colorado Federation of Labor Begins in Denver; Mother Jones Cheered Wildly
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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday December 17, 1913
Denver, Colorado – Convention of State Federation of Labor Begins
From The Denver Post of December 16, 1913:
Hellraisers Journal: Colorado’s Northern Miners Vote to Resume Work; Mitchell Scores Victory Over Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday November 30, 1903
Louisville, Colorado – Striking Coal Miners of Northern Colorado Vote to End Strike
From The Denver Post of November 29, 1903:
Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Defies John Mitchell at Louisville Meeting, Speaks Out Against Separate Settlement for the Striking Coal Miners of Northern Colorado
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday November 23, 1903
Louisville, Colorado – Mother Jones Speaks Against Separate Settlement
Sunday November 22, 1903 – Louisville, Colorado
-Mother Jones Urges Northern Miners to Stand with Their Southern Brothers
A meeting was held in Louisville yesterday, called by District 15 of the United Mine Workers, to consider an offer made by the operators of the northern coal fields to make a separate agreement with the miners of the northern Colorado, thereby calling on these miners to desert their brothers of the southern coalfields. President Mitchell is in favor of the separate settlement, while Mother Jones is adamantly opposed. Mother arrived at the meeting with William Howells, District 15 President, who also opposes the separate settlement. Howells spoke at the meeting and advised the northern miners not to make a separate agreement. The meeting then erupted with loud calls for Mother Jones. Mother Jones arose to speak, determined to stand up for the Italian miners of the southern Colorado whom Governor Peabody has lately been speaking of with great disdain and threats to deport. The speech made by Mother Jones, in defiance of her employer, John Mitchell, was a speech in favor of Solidarity:
Brothers, you English speaking miners of the northern fields promised your southern brothers, seventy percent of whom do not speak English, that you would support them to the end. Now you are asked to betray them, to make a separate settlement. You have a common enemy and it is your duty fight to a finish.
The enemy seeks to conquer by dividing your ranks, by making distinctions between North and South, between American and foreign. You are all miners, fighting a common cause, a common master. The iron heel feels the same to all flesh. Hunger and suffering and the cause of your children bind more closely than a common tongue.
I am accused of helping the Western Federation of Miners, as if that were a crime, by one of the National board members. I plead guilty. I know of no East or West, North nor South when it comes to my class fighting the battle for justice. If it is my fortune to live to see the industrial chain broken from every workingman’s child in America, and if then there is one black child in Africa in bondage, there I shall go.
[Emphasis added.]
Mother Jones received a standing ovation, and the miners voted 228 to 165 to stay out on strike with their Italian brothers of the southern coalfield.
Photograph added from Denver Post.
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From The Denver Post of November 22, 1903:
[…..]
“Mother” Jones the Factor.
…..There were loud calls for [Mother Jones], and she was not slow in coming to the front…
[Mother acknowledged the telegram that had been sent by President Mitchell to this meeting endorsing a settlement, but stated nevertheless:] John Mitchell is in Boston, we are here in the field…A general cannot give orders unless he is in the field; unless he is at the battleground. Could a general in Washington give order to an army in Colorado?…
Are you brave men? Can you fight as well as you can work? I had rather fall fighting than working. If you go back to work here and your brothers fall in the south, you will be responsible for their defeat….
I don’t know what you will do, but I know very well what I would do if I were in one of your places. I would stand or fall with this question of eight hours for every worker in every mine in Colorado. I would say we will all go to glory together or we will die and go down together. We must stand together; if we don’t there will be no victory for any of us…
I want the world to know, and all the papers to print, that I am going to Cripple Creek to speak there tomorrow for the Western Federation of Miners. I am not afraid to be classed as a friend of this organization and all criticism of me on that account falls flat upon my ears….
As “Mother” Jones walked off of the stage to many affectionate good-byes, she said:
I will see you again, boys after I have licked the C. F. & I.
Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks to Reporter in Denver, Describes Conditions in the Coal Camps of Southern Colorado
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday November 16, 1903
Denver, Colorado – Mother Jones Describes Conditions in Southern Coalfields
From The Denver Post of November 13, 1903:
Hellraisers Journal: “Miners Go Out…Mother Jones Lecturing Miners for More Complete Organization”-Speaks at Sopris
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday November 9, 1903
Mother Jones Speaks to Miners at Sopris and Starkville, Colorado
From The Rocky Mountain News of November 8, 1903:
[Mother Jones at Sopris and Starkville]…..The meeting held at Sopris last night [November 6th], where the speaker was Mother Jones, was crowded. To-night she speaks at Starkville. Both these towns are incorporated, and the coal companies do not own the town sites, so no interference with the meeting can be brought about, even if it was the desire of the operators…..It is stated that all the miners are out at Berwind, and that all at Sopris and Starkville will refuse to go to work Monday. In the two latter towns, Mother Jones has made hurricane appeals to the miners to strike. She is a speaker of the strongest type, and the fact that she is a white haired woman carried weight with her talks, all of which recited the condition in the Eastern fields, and none of which referred to the conditions prevailing in Colorado or how to improve them…..[Emphasis added.]
Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: The Michigan Copper Miners’ Strike by Edward J. McGurty, Part I
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday September 1, 1913
“Copper Country” of Michigan – Western Federation of Miners Issues Strike Call
From the International Socialist Review of September 1913:
The Copper Miners’ Strike
By Edward J. McGurty[Part I of II]
THE territory known as the “Copper Country” of Michigan is a peaked peninsula lying to the north of the Upper Peninsula. It is washed on three sides by the waters of Lake Superior, embracing the counties of Keweenaw, Houghton and Ontonagon.
The country is rich in copper and has one of the deepest incline shafts in the world, the Calumet & Hecla No. 7, at Calumet, which goes down about 8,000 feet. The Calumet & Hecla Company, with its subsidiaries, owns and controls practically all the property up here. For the past thirty years there has been no labor trouble here of any consequence. In that time the C. & H. has paid out $125,000,000 in dividends on an original capitalization of $1,200,000. The employes, many of them Cornish miners, have not revolted for years. They have submitted to every injustice and to tremendous exploitation.
For a number of years it was impossible for the Western Federation to make any headway in the Upper Peninsula. Attempts at organization have been met by the sacking and firing of men. Little could be accomplished. Gradually the Federation formed organizations at various points along the range. The Finns were very zealous in keeping activity alive. This last year especial efforts have been made to organize the men of the various nationalities. Those working in the mines are Cornish, Finnish, Croatian, Italian and Austrian. Up to May first, about 7,000 men were taken into the union.
The companies have worked a pseudo-contract system and cheated the men outright. They have paid low wages, many of the men getting as low as a $1.00 a day and some even less. The shifts have been long, running as high as twelve and thirteen hours. Last year the companies installed what is known as a “one-man” drill which is a man-killer.
It was the straw that broke the camel’s back in the copper zone. On the night of July 22, men went from one end of the range to the other, on foot and in rigs rousing the miners and making known the strike order. The next day there were 15,000 mine-workers who had laid down their tools. Smelter-men, surface-men, under-ground-men, all were out and the copper mines were tied up as tight as a drum. Then the men who had not already joined the union began to make their way to the offices and in a few days 90 per cent of the miners were organized.
Directly the men went out the sheriff of Houghton county deputized about 500 men and sent them about to create trouble. They provoked the strikers to the breaking point and there were 500 deputies without stars or guns in a short time. There were also a few of them went to the hospitals.
The papers here, under the control of the companies, have, as usual, lied about the strike, slandered the strikers, burned the “locations” up in their columns; killed law-officers, etc. The second day of the strike the sheriff acting under orders from McNaughton, $85,000-a-year-manager of the Calumet & Hecla, requested troops from Governor Ferris. Without any investigation of the situation Ferris ordered the entire state militia dispatched here. Protest after protest has been made by the people here, because the presence of the troops is for the purpose of creating trouble. But Ferris stalwartly keeps them here.
The commander of the troops is a real, dyed-in-the-wool conservative. He says that the refusal of the union men to work the pumps and keep water from flowing into the mines amounts to the DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY. Even in times of industrial war, the mine-owners are accustomed to meek wage slaves that pump the water out of the mines.
The troops have ridden up the streets of Calumet and Red Jacket at night on horse-back and have ruthlessly clubbed innocent men and women conversing on the side-walks. They knocked down an old man of 70, and threw a baby out of a buggy onto the pavement. They have shot at strikers all over the range when the strikers were doing picket duty.
