You’ve been using your hands,
now I want you to use your heads.
We’ve got to do it,
because we must lick the Kaiser.
-Mother Jones
Hellraisers Journal, Sunday January 20, 1918
Indianapolis, Indiana – Miners Greet Mother Jones with “Lusty Yell”
From The Scranton Republican of January 18, 1918:
MINERS HEAR MOTHER JONES
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Tells Delegates to Use Their Heads,
“Because We Must Lick the Kaiser.”
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INDIANAPOLIS, Ind., Jan. 17.-To permit federal investigations to have complete powers to interpret contracts existing between mine workers and operators, to investigate causes for layoffs and other mine troubles, who in all probability would possess no knowledge of the coal industry, would be a serious blunder and only complicate mine labor troubles, according to the viewpoints expressed in the mine workers’ convention today.
The proposal was contained in a resolution which sought to provide means to refute accusations by operators that the mine workers were deliberate slackers, and as a result coal production was reduced.
The resolution brought the first real fight of the convention. A remedy was suggested in the creation of a federal commission composed of an equal number of employers and employes, whose duty it would be to investigate charges made by employer and employes as to each others failure to observe contract conditions.
Might Invite Conscription.
White, Hayes, Greene, Walker and the committeemen, before whom the resolution was considered declared that such a step would possibly invite the conscription of labor. White and Hayes, denied that the charges made by few operators occasionally was given credence at Washington and assured the authors that the government knew of the truth or falsity of the reports charging miners in various localities with slacking.
