Tag: January 1901

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for January 1901, Part III: Found in Indianapolis Speaking on Evils of Child Labor in Pennsylvania

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones re School for Little Breaker Boys, Ipl Ns p3, Jan 29, 1901———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday February 13, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for January 1901, Part III
Found Speaking in Indianapolis on Evils of Child Labor in Pennsylvania

From the Indianapolis Sunday Journal of January 27, 1901:

Mother Jones, at Her Lecture Stand, Detail Crpd, Phl Iq p1, Sept 24, 1900

“Mother” Jones and Mr. Debs.

Eugene V. Debs and “Mother” Jones will deliver public addresses in the Criminal Court room to-morrow night. Mrs. Jones will speak especially to the women, and particularly to women who belong to labor or trades organizations. To-morrow afternoon Mr. Debs will speak to the miners at their convention.

———-

[Photograph added.]

From The Indianapolis Journal of January 29, 1901:

OFFICERS’ REPORT 
[-from Miners’ Convention]

In the afternoon many resolutions, principally of importance to the miners only, were passed then the committee on officers’ reports was heard. After some discussion the report was adopted by sections. Of important bearing was the adoption of President Mitchell’s recommendation to organize a woman’s auxiliary union. The convention adopted the recommendation and gave the power of appointing an organizer to President Mitchell. It is understood that “Mother” Jones will be appointed organizer…..

———-

DOWN IN THE COAL MINES.
———–
“Mother” Jones Graphically Describes
Child Labor In Pennsylvania.

“Mother” Jones addressed a meeting of mine workers and their friends in the Criminal Court room last evening on the subject of “Employment of Child Labor in the Mines.” Although her address was primarily intended to be in the interest of the miners, she made a general plea for all branches of labor. Quite a number of working girls were present and the eloquent appeals made in their behalf met with hearty applause from them. The speaker described the condition which prevails among the breaker boys of the mines of Pennsylvania, where boys of eleven years work thirteen hours a day for a wage scale of 1 cent an hour.

The miners and their families, she declared, are the helpless slaves of the great combinations of capital and the operators who own and control the mines. In those regions when a child is born, the day is eagerly looked forward to when he will be old enough to do a day’s work, and when that day arrives he is taken by his father to the operator of the mine, to whom his services are offered for a pittance. Some of the worst details of the present system were gone into and the need of organization among all the miners of the country was strongly urged.

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for January 1901, Part II: Found Speaking at Convention of United Mine Workers of America

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Love Each Other, UMWC Ipl IN, Jan 25, 1901———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday February 12, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for January 1901, Part II
Found Speaking in Indianapolis at Mine Workers’ Convention

From The Indianapolis Journal of January 26, 1901:

“Mother” Jones Heard

Mother Jones, at Her Lecture Stand, Detail, Phl Iq p1, Sept 24, 1900At the opening of the afternoon session [January 25th, United Mine Workers Convention], Henry J. Skifington [Skeffington], of the Boot and Shoe Makers’ Union, addressed the convention and urged the delegates to buy none but union made shoes. Following his address, “Mother” Jones spoke. The work of Mrs. Jones among the miners is known to every miner in the country and her appearance was the signal for loud and prolonged applause. She addressed the delegates as “fellow-toilers.” She said the miners had wisely chosen the month of January for holding their convention, as it is the intermediate month between the closing of the year and the opening of spring. It was appropriate, she said, to use this opportunity to look behind and to the front.

The review of experiences of the past should be applied to preparations for the future, and the work of the miners should not be entirely for the present, but foundation should be laid for coming generations. Her pointed and witty expressions caused many outbursts of laughter and her ability to appeal to the deeper feelings was equally as effective with the delegates. When “Mother” Jones wished to say something she said it and spared none, but even members of the organization to whom she said: “if the shoe fits you must wear it.” Mrs. Jones is a Socialist and an ardent admirer of Eugene V. Debs, and she could not refrain from paying a tribute to both.

PATRICK DOLAN’S REMARKS.

At the close of her speech Patrick Dolan, of Pennsylvania, sought the floor to take objections to what Mrs. Jones had said about Debs. He said while he had the highest respect for “Mother” Jones, he did not think Debs was the only man who ever did anything for labor. So slow was he in making his point that many delegates arose to a point of order and tried to have him seated, but President Mitchell was lenient and gave him further time to express himself. The convention became noisy in an attempt to force him to his seat, but it was some time before it could be accomplished……

By vote an invitation was extended to Eugene V. Debs to address the miners while in session here, and it was later announced he will speak Monday afternoon.

———-

[Photograph, emphasis and paragraph break added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for January 1901, Part I: Found Visiting Philadelphia and at Mine Workers’ Convention in Indianapolis

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote re Mother Jones, None too low or high, Ipl Jr p3, Jan 21, 1901———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday February 11, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for January 1901, Part I
Found in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Indianapolis, Indiana

From the Wilkes-Barre Weekly Union Leader of January 11, 1901:

What Mother Jones Has to Say
Regarding the Conditions.

Mother Jones, at Her Lecture Stand, Detail, Phl Iq p1, Sept 24, 1900

“Mother” Jones, of coal strike fame, dropped into Philadelphia Monday night and hunted up a few congenial spirits at the Trades Assembly Hall, 931 Callowhill street, says the Philadelphia Times. She is on her way to West Virginia, where she will report to President W. C. Stephenson, of the West Virginia United Mine Workers, for organization work.

The miners of the Mountain State are to be organized during January and February, and the national organization is lending the state organization all possible assistance. The miners along the Kanawha and New rivers are to be unionized first, Mrs. Jones said, after which the organizers will go into the Fairmount district. In regard to conditions in the anthracite field of Pennsylvania Mrs. Jones said:

The miners in the anthracite region are now well satisfied and everything is going along smoothly. The semi-monthly pay law is being gradually put into effect, and other conditions are being rectified. The miners are all joining the unions and new locals are being formed all through the region.

The girls employed in the silk mill at Freeland are still on strike and have formed a union. They are determined to win. At Carbondale and Wilkes-Barre the silk mill operatives are also on strike, and sent for me in both places. I did what I could do to help them, but was not successful. In Wilkes-Barre they struck because the boss demanded that they give up their union cards to him, which they refused to do.

———-

[Photograph added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks at Convention of United Mine Workers: We must learn to bear each other’s burdens.

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Love Each Other, UMWC Ipl IN, Jan 25, 1901 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday January 29, 1901
Indianapolis, Indiana – Mother Jones Speaks to Miners, Part II

January 25, 1901-Convention of United Mine Workers of America:

Mother Jones, at Her Lecture Stand, Detail, Phl Iq p1, Sept 24, 1900In New York they are going to give a charity ball. I suppose it is a kind of restitution to the people they have been robbing for years. They will spend thousands and thousands of dollars for decorating their old carcasses, and they go into a hall and admire one another; and if we were to sit up in the gallery and venture to look at them they would wonder what such a lot of Wops wanted in the world anyhow. Then some smart newspaper man will take his gilt pen and sit down and write of the beautiful Mr. So and So who was there, and of the beautiful Mrs. So and So who was there, and how they were dressed, and how splendid it all was.

Splendid! Yes, my friends, but they are dancing on the minds and hearts of the men and women they have robbed, dancing on the hearts of the little children who are working in their factories and of the boys and girls working everywhere.

In Freeland [Pennsylvania] I held a meeting for the boys and girls from the silk mills. They were on a strike and one morning they tried to keep the scab children from working. The children went into the factory to work, and the poor little outside ones entered a protest and called them “Blackleg,” and “scab,” and a burly policeman took one girl by the hair of the head and dragged her to the police station and she was put under three hundred dollars bond. The bond was furnished and they took her home, but the fright and ill treatment had made her ill, and she had three hemorrhages of the lungs. There was not a dollar in the house to get food or medicine or a doctor for her. Think of that.

When the children stood on the platform of a hall we had hired for them to expose the corporations one little boy of twelve came to the front and told us that he worked thirteen hours at night, that they paid him one cent an hour; but that these same people had gone to the church and put in a magnificent stained glass window in it. Did you ever hear a minister say one word about the condition of these children? We did not find one minister to defend these children.

In the Scriptures they can see where the Master said, “Suffer little children to come unto me.” My friends, I believe we should clasp our hands and come out together in defense of these little children. I can see an appeal in their eyes which seems to ask what they have done that they should be battered and knocked about as they are. There are children under age in those factories.

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks at Convention of United Mine Workers: “You have traveled over stormy paths.”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Stormy Paths, UMWC Ipl IN, Jan 25, 1901 ———–

Hellraisers Journal – Monday January 28, 1901
Indianapolis, Indiana – Mother Jones Speaks to Miners, Part I

January 25, 1901-Convention of United Mine Workers of America:

Mother Jones, at Her Lecture Stand, Detail, Phl Iq p1, Sept 24, 1900

President Mitchell: Ladies and gentlemen: There are few persons in the Industrial movement who have impressed themselves upon the toilers as has the one who will address you this afternoon. During the long years of struggle in which the miners engaged they have had no more staunch supporter, no more able defender than the one we all love to call Mother. I don’t believe there is a Mine Worker from one end of the country to the other who does not know her name. It gives me great pleasure to pre- sent to you this afternoon Mother Jones.

Mrs. Mary Jones: Fellow toilers, it seems strange that you should have selected the month of January for your conventions. It has a lesson by which you may well profit, and no craft needs more to profit by that lesson than the miners. The month of January represents two seasons, a part of the dead winter and a part of the beautiful coming spring. I realize as well as you do that you have traveled over stormy paths, that you have rubbed up against the conflict of the age, but I am here to say that you have come out victorious, and in the future you will stand as the grand banner organization. My brothers, we are entering on a new age. We are confronted by conditions such as the world perhaps has never met before in her history.

We have in the last century solved one great problem that has confronted the ages in the mighty past. It had ever been the riddle of the people of the world. The problem of production has been solved for the human race; the problem of this country will lie with the workers to solve, that great and mighty and important problem, the problem of possession. You have in your wisdom, in your quiet way, with a little uprising here and a little uprising there solved the problem of the age. You have done your work magnificently and well; but we have before us yet the grandest and greatest work of civilization.

We have before us the emancipation of the children of this nation. In the days gone by we found the parents filled with love and affection. As the mother looked upon her new-born boy, as she pressed him to her bosom, she thought, “Some day, he will be the man of this nation; some day I shall sacrifice myself for the education, the developing of his brain, the bringing out of his grander, nobler qualities. But, oh, my brothers, that is past, that has been killed! Today, my friends, we look into the eyes of the child of the Proletariat as it enters into the conflict of this life, and we see the eyes of the poor, helpless little creature appealing to those who have inhabited the world before it. Now when the father comes home the first question he asks is “Mary, is it a boy or a girl?” When she answers, “It is a boy, John,” he says, “Well, thank God! he will soon be able to go to the breakers and help earn a living with me.” If it is a girl there is no loving kiss, no caress for her for she cannot be put to the breakers to satisfy capitalistic greed.

But my friends, the capitalistic class has met you face to face today to take the girls as well as the boys out of the cradle. Wherever you are in mighty numbers they have brought their factories to take your daughters and slaughter them on the altar of capitalistic greed. They have built their mines and breakers to take your boys out of the cradle; they have built their factories to take your girls; they have built on the bleeding, quivering hearts of yourselves and your children their palaces. They have built their magnificent yachts and palaces; they have brought the sea from mid-ocean up to their homes where they can take their baths—and they don’t give you a chance to go to the muddy Missouri and take a bath in it.

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Hellraisers Journal: “The One We All Love to Call Mother” Speaks at Convention of United Mine Workers of America

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote John Mitchell, re Mother Jones, UMWC PM Session, Jan 25, 1901———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday January 27, 1901
Indianapolis, Indiana – Mother Jones Speaks at Mine Workers’ Convention

From The Indianapolis Journal of January 26, 1901:

“Mother” Jones Heard

[U. M. W. of A. Convention, January 25th]

Mother Jones, at Her Lecture Stand, Detail, Phl Iq p1, Sept 24, 1900At the opening of the afternoon session Henry J. Skifington [Skeffington], of the Boot and Shoe Makers’ Union, addressed the convention and urged the delegates to buy none but union made shoes. Following his address, “Mother” Jones spoke. The work of Mrs. Jones among the miners is known to every miner in the country and her appearance was the signal for loud and prolonged applause. She addressed the delegates as “fellow-toilers.” She said the miners had wisely chosen the month of January for holding their convention, as it is the intermediate month between the closing of the year and the opening of spring. It was appropriate, she said, to use this opportunity to look behind and to the front.

The review of experiences of the past should be applied to preparations for the future, and the work of the miners should not be entirely for the present, but foundation should be laid for coming generations. Her pointed and witty expressions caused many outbursts of laughter and her ability to appeal to the deeper feelings was equally as effective with the delegates. When “Mother” Jones wished to say something she said it and spared none, but even members of the organization to whom she said: “if the shoe fits you must wear it.” Mrs. Jones is a Socialist and an ardent admirer of Eugene V. Debs, and she could not refrain from paying a tribute to both.

PATRICK DOLAN’S REMARKS.

At the close of her speech Patrick Dolan, of Pennsylvania, sought the floor to take objections to what Mrs. Jones had said about Debs. He said while he had the highest respect for “Mother” Jones, he did not think Debs was the only man who ever did anything for labor. So slow was he in making his point that many delegates arose to a point of order and tried to have him seated, but President Mitchell was lenient and gave him further time to express himself. The convention became noisy in an attempt to force him to his seat, but it was some time before it could be accomplished……

By vote an invitation was extended to Eugene V. Debs to address the miners while in session here, and it was later announced he will speak Monday afternoon.

———-

[Photograph, emphasis and paragraph break added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “The One We All Love to Call Mother” Speaks at Convention of United Mine Workers of America” →

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for December 1900: Found Leaving Pennsylvania on Her Way to Organize Miners of West Virginia

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Fight n Keep On, Hzltn Pln Spkr p4, Nov 15, 1900———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday January 8, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for December 1900
Found in Leaving Pennsylvania, Headed for Coal Fields of West Virginia

From the Hazleton Plain Speaker of December 1, 1900:

WITH THE MINE WORKERS.
———-
“Mother” Jones Leaves For Virginia
–Dilcher, Here Next Week.

Mother Jones, at Her Lecture Stand, Detail, Phl Iq p1, Sept 24, 1900

Fred Dilcher, who is at present doing missionary work in the Lackawanna region will arrive in this city on Monday. Mr. Dilcher’s visit is for the purpose of organizing the brewery employees and clerks in Hazleton. The latter have been organized but very little interest has been taken in the local and not a meeting has been held since the union was formed. Benjamin James was present at the meeting and it was decided by a unanimous vote that a charter be applied for.

Through the Lackawanna, upper Luzerne and the greater part of Schuylkill all tradesmen have been organized and every craft is represented in the great Federation of Labor.

“Mother” Jones who has been among the miners hereabouts for some time is organizing them, leaves tomorrow morning for Montgomery, Virginia, where she will do missionary work.

[She said today:]

Conditions are worse in Virginia than anywhere, and the days of chattel slavery are nothing compared to the methods employed by the mine owners there in forcing their employees into subjugation.

Mrs. Jones informed a reporter today that she would not return to this region for several months, but she leaves Hazleton glad in the knowledge that the miners are happy and contented and that better conditions exist in the anthracite region than for many years…..

[Photograph added.]

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