Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday February 26, 1918
Mother Jones News for January 1918: Gives Speech at Miners’ Convention
On January 17th of this year, Mother Jones was found speaking in Indianapolis, Indiana, at the Convention of the United Mine Workers of America. She voice her support for President Wilson and for the war effort, declaring:
We must lick the Kaiser.
She also spoke regarding the ongoing attempt to organize West Virginia:
There is a system of industrial feudalism in the State of West Virginia but before another year ends the backbone of that damnable system will be broken and men will rise beneath those stars and stripes as they should rise, free, for the first time. We propose to put the infamous gunmen there out of business. We will make them find other occupations. You are robbed and plundered to pay these gunmen that are hired to keep you in industrial slavery. If it takes every man of the 500,000 miners in this country to march into West Virginia we propose to drive out that feudal system that survives there. It is an outrage and an insult to that flag. They may as well prepare for business, for we are going to do it. The president of the Winding Gulf gang said in Washington, “Don’t you know that Mother Jones swears?” I was asked, “Do you swear, Mother Jones?” I said, “You don’t think I’m hypocrite enough to pray when I’m talking to those thieves!”
[Emphasis added.]