Tag: John Kenneth Turner

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks in Pittsburgh, Raps Pennsylvanians, Calls West Virginia Officials “Pack of Anarchists”

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote Mother Jones, WV Court Martial, No Plea to Make, Ptt Pst p3, Mar 8, 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday May 20, 1913
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – Mother Jones Speaks at Lyceum Theater

From The Pittsburg Press of May 19, 1913:

“MOTHER” JONES MAKES ROUSING
ADDRESS HERE
———-
Says West Virginia Officials Form
“Pack of Anarchists.”
Takes Vigorous Rap at Pennsylvanians
———-

AGED LABOR LEADER CRITICISES CONGRESS
———-

Mother Jones in Rocker, Survey p41, Apr 5, 1913

Arraigning Pennsylvanians as moral cowards for permitting the present state of affairs to exist in the West Virginia mining country; scoring the West Virginia authorities bitterly, and never dropping her high note of enthusiasm for a single instant, “Mother” Jones,  the noted woman leader yesterday,  in the Lyceum theater talked to a crowded house which applauded almost every sentence. She was presented with a huge bunch of flowers by the Slavonic Associated Press.

The world-renowned labor organizer, who confessed yesterday to being aged 81, made an imposing figure as, white-haired, erect, nervous and virile, she completely possessed the stage during her speech, and, incidentally her audience as well. Among other things, she said:

[The speaker declared:]

If one were to go to the West Virginia strike region and see the indescribable conditions I have seen there, he would say that America is darker than even Russia was; darker than even barbarous Mexico was. The harrowing stories I could tell as I have seen them there would paralyze the heart of the Nation-if it had a heart. But we’re so hypnotized by our ruling class.

THREATS BROUGHT DEFIANCE.

When I went to Cabin Creek last May they told me that if I went up there at an organizer I would come back on a stretcher, but I defied them.

[She almost screamed:]

You people in Pennsylvania are moral cowards. The nation never gave you so great an opportunity to show yourselves as when it gave you the story of the drum-head court by military despots such as we were brought before. And you sat idly by and did nothing! If you can get a bigger pack of anarchists than the public officials of West Virginia I want to find them!

“Mother” Jones spent her eighty-first birthday in jail. She had the locals of the miners’ union elect delegates to lay their grievances before the governor, W. E. Glasscock, of West Virginia and went with these delegates to Charleston. It was then, she says, that the governor became alarmed, fearing from her reputation as an agitator that she meant trouble. A warrant was issued for her arrest and she spent some time under guard, some of the delegates being imprisoned also.

Harold W. Houston, secretary of the Socialist party of West Virginia, closed the meeting by referring to conditions in the strike zone of his state. He urged co-operation on the part of the party here to aid in righting the wrongs which he claims have been done organized labor in the “Mountain State.”

Mother Jones made a great appeal for the protection of the home and didn’t neglect to inject a smart rap at congress occupying “a whole session talking about the navy and how much money to spend on it, but not a dollar to protect the childhood of the nation.”

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

Excerpt from The New York Times of  May 19, 1913:

We’re going to organize the state of West Virginia if every one of us dies in the battle…I’m going back to West Virginia. If I can’t go on a train, I’ll walk in…[Before going into the trouble zone] one of the boys told me: “If you go up there, Mother, you’ll come back on a stretcher, no organizer can speak there!” I spoke there. I didn’t come out on a stretcher. I raised hell.

…I organized the women because the women can lick a non-union man better than you fellows here can…

Labor must stand together. You trades unions must stop wrangling with the I.W.W., and the I.W.W. must stop wrangling with the trades unions I know industrial unionism is coming, and you can’t stop it.

[Emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Appeal to Reason: “A Stirring Letter from Mother Jones”-Pratt W. Va., Military Bastile

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote Mother Jones fr Military Bastile, Cant Shut Me Up, AtR p1, May 10, 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday May 11, 1913
From Pratt, West Virginia, Military Bastile: “Stirring Letter from Mother Jones”

From the Appeal to Reason of May 10, 1913:

Letter fr Mother Jones fr WV Military Bastile, AtR p1, May 10, 1913

———-

A Stirring Letter from Mother Jones

(The following letter to Appeal readers from Mother Jones was sent to Mrs. Ryan Walker who is now in New York City, and by her forwarded to us. Had the letter been addressed to the Appeal to Reason it would never have reached its destination. This letter proves that prison bars, even death itself, has no terrors for this brave heroine of more than a hundred fiercely fought battles on the industrial field. Mother Jones is your mother, and I appeal to you to help us raise such a mighty protest that the outrages against the working class in barbarous West Virginia will cease. You have helped the Appeal win many a contest with plutocracy. We are now engaged in the biggest fight of all its career-a fight the outcome of which is of vital concern, not only to our imprisoned comrades in West Virginia, but to every man, woman and child in America. Read Mother Jones, letter-read it from the housetops, in the mines, in the shops, read it aloud wherever men congregate to work.)

Pratt, W. Va., Military Bastile, April 25, 1913.-This is a very serious situation we have here and is not grasped by the outside world and God knows when it will be. I have been in here about eleven weeks. There are twelve of we poor devils, eleven men and myself, one of them the editor of the Socialist paper in Charleston, and another one of our speakers, John Brown. His wife and three children are left to perish outside. We hear the cry of these little ones for their father; we hear the groans and sobs of his beautiful wife, but the dear, well-fed people don’t care for that. I don’t care much for myself, because my career is nearly ended, but I think of my brave boys who are incarcerated in Harrison county jail in Clarksburg and not a voice of protest raised in their behalf. They have been brave and true. They are now paying the penalty for having dared to fight for right and justice; but it matters not, this fight will go on, and the workers themselves will have to take hold of the machinery and pick out the skypilots and lawyers and quit feeding them and giving them jobs. I have been fighting this machine for years with scarcely any help. I am still in the fight and the pirates can’t shut me up even if I am in jail watched by the bloodhounds.

Mother Jones.

[Emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Appeal to Reason: “To The Rescue of Mother Jones! A Clarion Call From Debs”-Declares War

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote Mother Jones re WV Military Prison, AtR p1, May 3, 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday May 5, 1913
Eugene Debs: “To the Rescue of Mother Jones!”-Declares War on Coal Barons

From the Appeal to Reason of May 3, 1913:

EVD Rescue Mother Jones, AtR p1, May 3, 1913

Appeal Declares War on Coal Barons:

EVD Appeal Declares War on WV Coal Barons Fight for Mother Jones, AtR p1, May 3, 1913

“To Rescue Mother Jones”

Ad to Rescue Mother Jones, AtR p1, May 3, 1913

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Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: Mexico’s Díaz Regime Replies to Reporting from the Appeal to Reason

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote John Murray re Rio Blanco Martyrs, ISR p653, Mar 1909———–

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday October 2, 1910
“Mexico Replies to the Appeal to Reason” by C. M. Brooks

From the International Socialist Review of October 1910:

Mexico Dictator Diaz, ISR p211, Oct 1, 1910

Letter T, ISR p894, Apr 1910

HE exposures of the horrible conditions in Mexico by John Kenneth Turner, in the Appeal to Reason, are arousing a spirit of inquiry all over the United States that is going to prove increasingly embarrassing to the government on this side of the border line. Famous captains of industry who have invested heavily in Mexican industries are becoming alarmed. It is interesting to note the sudden bursts of enthusiasm experienced by some of the radical magazines and newspapers on matters Mexican these days. Evidently somebody’s palm has been crossed, or somebody’s pocket-book has been touched or somebody’s skin has been threatened. One grows curious to see just how far the epidemic will spread.

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Hellraisers Journal: Mexican Political Refugees Released from Prison; Villarreal, Magón & Rivera Arrive in Los Angeles

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Ricardo Flores Magon, Nothing But Death, AtR p2, May 29, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday August 15, 1910
Los Angeles, California – Mexican Political Refugees Arrive after Release

From the Appeal to Reason of August 13, 1910:

Refugees Released–Their Persecution.

[-by John Kenneth Turner.]

Story of the Release.

By Telegraph to Appeal to Reason.

Mex Rev, Villareal Magon Rivera, Barbarous MX p307, 3rd ed 1910

Los Angles, August 5.-Magon, Villarreal and Rivera, the refugee leaders of the Mexican Liberal party, are free at last, free and resting with friends in this city preparatory to reassembling their forces and launching again upon their campaign against the “Perpetual President” Diaz.

In order to meet them as they came out of prison, to be present if they were rearrested, so that through the Appeal to Reason the story of the latest crime against these men might be given to the world, I undertook the journey into that human bake oven, Arizona. I found the sweltering town of Florence, and that walled institution wherein some five hundred unfortunates pant and fight flies throughout the burning summer days and nights, bunked like sardines four or more in a cell. The trip nearly finished me. What long drawn agony it must have been to these persecuted men!

When Wednesday morning the three refugees stepped out through the iron gates into the open air, they looked about them for a man with a star and handcuffs, and could hardly believe their eyes when they saw none.

Arriving down town, they looked again for such a man, and at the station they looked for him again. As the train pulled into Phoenix Magon leaned back, resigning himself as it were, to the inevitable. Villarreal bent toward me and said: “He can’t believe that we are to be free, he cannot believe it. I could not believe it myself.”

But the man with the star and the handcuffs did not appear, nor has he yet appeared. As we disembarked at Los Angeles we heard a cheer, then the three Liberals were surrounded by scores of men and women. Americans and Mexicans, who shook their hands, patted them on-the back, and hugged them…..

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for June 1910, Part III: “Friend of Labor” Interviewed in Washington, D. C., by Selene Armstrong

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Husband Children, WDC Tx p5, June 18, 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday July 19, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for June 1910, Part III:
-Interviewed by Selene Armstrong in Washington, D. C.

From The Washington Times of June 18, 1910:

Mother Jones, Home ed, WDC Tx p5, June 18, 1910

Mother Jones, WDC Tx p5, June 18, 1910Thus spoke Mother Jones, the plucky little white-haired woman, whose home, to use her own words, is “wherever there’s a labor war, and the President of the United States, when she had journeyed across half a continent to lay before him for the first time the cases of a number of political refugees in prison in Arizona, Kansas, and other Western States.

Today and on other days this week, Mother Jones has been busy at the Capitol, where it said that members of certain committees before which she has appeared have gasped for breath and begged for mercy before she had finished outlining to them their duties in regard to the Mexicans whose freedom she seeks from the Government.

Meets Old Friends.

She has hobnobbed with her old friends Representatives Wilson and Nicholls of Pennsylvania, and has made new friends of many other statesmen, who, however little they sympathize with her decided views on this or that public question, cannot harden their hearts against the cheery good humor and keen wit which radiate from her.

When asked by Chairman Dalzell of the Rules Committee of the House, before which she has appeared this week, to state her place of residence, Mother Jones replied:

My home is wherever there a labor war, sir.

The life story of this little woman with the snow white hair, the childlike blue eyes, and the look of perennial youthfulness on her face, would, if it were written, be the history of the of cause of organized labor. For thirty years she has traveled throughout the length and breath of the land in order to stand by the workers in time of stress. In the roughest mining camps of the West, and in the crowded tenement districts of eastern cities, she has brought to the women of the working class a woman’s gentle counsel, and to the men sagacity and keen judgement the equal of a man’s.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for June 1910, Part III: “Friend of Labor” Interviewed in Washington, D. C., by Selene Armstrong” →

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for June 1910, Part II: Found Testifying Before House Rules Committe on Behalf of Mexican Refugees

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, No Abiding Place, WDC Hse Com Testimony, June 14, 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday July 18, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for June 1910, Part II:
-Found in Washington, D. C., Testifying Before House Committee

From the San Francisco Call of June 15, 1910:

“MOTHER” JONES DENOUNCES DIAZ
—–
Mexican Refugees Persecuted by American Officers,
She Tells House Committee
—–
Writer Declares Los Angeles Detectives Open
Private Letters in Postoffice
—

Mother Jones, WDC Tx p5, June 18, 1910

WASHINGTON, June 14.—”Mother” Jones addressed the rules committee of the house today in behalf of the Mexican refugees, who, it is alleged, are being persecuted in the United States through the agencies of American officers and Mexican government “spies.”

Mrs. Jones related that while she was in Douglas, Ariz., addressing a meeting, of “the unorganized slaves who work in the smelters,” she witnessed the kidnaping of a Mexican refugee, who, she said, was seized, strangled, thrown into an automobile and carried across the line into Mexico.

“Mother” Jones” denounced President Diaz of Mexico for sending “his hirelings across the border to crush the constitution of our country.”

John Kenneth Turner, a magazine writer, and John Murray, a newspaper writer, continued their testimony. The offering of evidence was finished today and the committee will decide within a few days whether an investigation by congress shall be recommended.

Murray testified to the opening of his own mail and that of a large number of other persons by the American authorities.

Turner said he had discovered city detectives in the Los Angeles postoffice examining the mail of Mexican residents there. He also told of the suppression by the authorities of many small newspapers published by Mexican refugees in various cities in Texas, California and Arizona.

———-

[Photograph added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for June 1910, Part II: Found Testifying Before House Rules Committe on Behalf of Mexican Refugees” →

Hellraisers Journal: Testimony of Mother Jones before House Committee on Behalf of Persecuted Mexican Refugees, Part II

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, No Abiding Place, WDC Hse Com Testimony, June 14, 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 18, 1910
Washington D. C. – Mother Jones Before House Rules Committee, Part II

Washington D. C., June 14, 1910-During the morning session of the Hearings before the House Rules Committee on H.J. Res. 201, “Providing for a Joint Committee To Investigate Alleged Persecutions of Mexican Citizens by the Government of Mexico,” Mother Jones continued her testimony as follow:

STATEMENT OF MRS. MARY JONES

[Part II of II.]

Mother Jones re Mex Rev, Lebanon PA Dly Ns p7, June 15, 1910
Lebanon Daily News
June 15, 1910

I left there [Arizona] then, but in 1908, immediately after the campaign. I learned from those men in jail at Los Angeles their condition [Ricardo Flores Magon, Librado Rivera, and Antonio I. Villareal]. They were without money, without aid, and I felt that they were just like Kosciuszko, Carl Schurz, Kossuth, and Garibaldi, and men of that kind, who received protection in our country from the tyrannical governments which they fled from, and I felt they were entitled to some protection, and that if they were without money, but were in the fight for liberty, a fight against the most bloody tyrant that has been produced, I would protect them; and so, although I was not in very good health, I went out and raised $4,000. I sent it West to get stenographers, hire attorneys, and bring witnesses to Tombstone, Arizona, where they were to be tried. I did not expect any great amount of mercy from the court at Tombstone, because Judge Doan is not very humane man. People who are feasting and eating and drinking with those who own the fleshpots of Egypt are not generally very humane characters. But I still felt that probably through the efforts we were making, and the publicity we were giving it, they would not be turned over to be murdered, and if they could be saved from being murdered that would satisfy me, knowing that some day we would get them out of the clutches of the tyrant. And so they were tried and sentenced to eighteen days in Yuma. From there they were moved to the new prison.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Testimony of Mother Jones before House Committee on Behalf of Persecuted Mexican Refugees, Part II” →

Hellraisers Journal: Testimony of Mother Jones before House Committee on Behalf of Persecuted Mexican Refugees, Part I

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, No Abiding Place, WDC Hse Com Testimony, June 14, 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday June 17, 1910
Washington D. C. – Mother Jones Before House Rules Committee, Part I

Washington D. C., June 14, 1910-During the morning session of the Hearings before the House Rules Committee on H.J. Res. 201, “Providing for a Joint Committee To Investigate Alleged Persecutions of Mexican Citizens by the Government of Mexico,” Mother Jones was called to the stand by Congressman William B. Wilson of Pennsylvania. Mother testified as follow:

Mr. Wilson: Mr. Chairman, I would like to have Mother Jones speak.
The Chairman [Representative John Dalzell of Pennsylvania]:
Mother Jones, please give the stenographer your name and residence.

STATEMENT OF MRS. MARY JONES

[Part I of II.]

Mother Jones re Mex Rev, Lebanon PA Dly Ns p7, June 15, 1910
Lebanon Daily News
June 15, 1910

[Questioned by Chairman Dalzell:]

My name is Mary Jones. I live in the United States, but I do not know exactly in what place, because I am always in the fight against oppression, and wherever a fight is going on I have to jump there, and sometimes I am in Washington, sometimes in Pennsylvania, sometimes in Arizona, sometimes in Texas, and sometimes up in Minnesota, so that really I have no particular residence…No abiding place, but wherever a fight is on against wrong, I am always there. It is my pleasure to be in the fray.

[Mr. Wilson questions Mother about the kidnapping of Manual Sarabia from Douglas, Arizona, during summer of 1907:]

I was in Arizona at that time. We had a strike on there with the Philip Dodge copper interest. The smelters, the men, or the slaves, rather, working in the smelters, had not been organized, and I went down there in Douglas to help organize those workers.

[Wilson asks Mother if she would rather sit down] I am so accustomed to standing when I am talking that I am uncomfortable when sitting down. That is too easy. [Laughter.]

Well, I was holding a meeting on the streets of Douglas on Sunday night for the workers that were in the smelters. An automobile was run out from the jail, from what I learned afterwards and this young Sarabia was thrown into it.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Testimony of Mother Jones before House Committee on Behalf of Persecuted Mexican Refugees, Part I” →