Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for June 1900, Part III: Mother Jones Returns to Georges Creek District to Assist Striking Miners

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Quote JA Wayland, Mother Jones, AtR p1, Mar 17, 1900———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday July 12, 1900
Mother Jones News Round-Up for June 1900, Part III
Found Returning to Georges Creek Coal District to Assist Striking Miners

From the Washington Times of June 28, 1900:

WARRANTS FOR STRIKERS.
—–
The Lonaconing Editor’s Assailants
to be Arrested.

Mother Jones, Atlanta Constitution p9, June 8, 1900CUMBERLAND, June 27.-Warrants have been issued for the arrest of Lonaconing rioters. Joseph J. Robinson, editor of the Lonaconing Star, Robert A. L. Dick, who addressed tho anti-strike meeting; Mayor Thompson and others have made information. It is expected that another batch will be sworn out in the case of the brutal assault on James Stapleton, the roadsman yesterday. The region is being patrolled by union miners and a fresh outbreak is expected at any time. “Mother” Jones, the famous woman agitator, has returned to the region and is lending to the excitement.

Hugh Muir, a prominent resident of Lonaconing and a member of the United Mine Workers, was here yesterday to obtain advice regarding entering a libel suit against one of the strike leaders. The charge grows out of a publication by a strike organization. The organization seems to be divided and is believed by many to be disintegrating.

[Photograph added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for June 1900, Part II: “Labor’s Joan of Arc” -Leads Strikers, Comforts Wife and Child

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Quote JA Wayland, Mother Jones, AtR p1, Mar 17, 1900———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday July 11, 1900
Mother Jones News Round-Up for June 1900, Part II
Fondly Remembered in Birmingham as “Labor’s Joan of Arc”

From the Birmingham Labor Advocate of June 16, 1900:

MOTHER JONES
—–
“I Have Devoted Myself to Humanity.”
—–

LABOR’S JOAN OF ARC
—–
Comforts the Wife and Child,
Touches as With a Mother’s Hand
the Brow of the Sick,
and Leads the Strikers.
—–

Mother Jones, Atlanta Constitution p9, June 8, 1900Mother Jones, who is distinguishing herself and honoring her dear old gray head by her efforts in labor’s cause in Pennsylvania and Maryland, is well and affectionately known in Birmingham, where she labored a few years ago, largely in the interest of cotton mill serfs. God bless her. No truer, braver or more devoted champion of the right ever graced the earth.

We are making history, and she will live in its pages. Her life will be held up as an example to emulate in that better day when right shall rule.

The following article is clipped from the editorial page of the Philadelphia North American, illustrated by a double column likeness of our well-beloved sister:

“Mother” Mary Jones comes to the front again, as is evidenced from the reports from the George’s Creek coal mining region of Maryland. By talking to the miners and their families there she has persuaded them to remain on strike. The scenes attending the speech-making of Mother Jones are intensely dramatic, as, indeed, they well might have been, judging by the Meyersdale situation and the character of the woman labor leader.

Mrs. Mary Jones is better known among the workmen of the United States and especially among the miners, as “Mother.” She has earned the title by the truly motherly manner in which she cares for the families of those men who happen to be on strike in her neighborhood. As she says, “the women are great factors in a strike.” By controlling the women and children, Mother Jones is able to win many strikes for the men.

“A man can face the devil.” says Mother Jones, “but he can’t stand out against capitalism and its servants when the wife points to the little children and says there is no bread.”

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for June 1900, Part I: Found Marching with Striking Miners of Georges Creek Coal District

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Quote JA Wayland, Mother Jones, AtR p1, Mar 17, 1900———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday July 10, 1900
Mother Jones News Round-Up for June 1900, Part I
Found Marching with Striking Miners of Georges Creek Coal District

From the Baltimore Sun of June 1, 1900:

THE MINERS’ STRIKE
—–
Mother Jones Rallies The Union Men
At Knapp’s Meadow.

(Special Dispatch to the Baltimore Sun.)

Mother Jones, Kenosha Ns WI p7, June 26, 1900CUMBERLAND, Md., May 31.-“Mother” Jones, the noted woman organizer of Punxsutawney, Pa., arrived in the George’s creek mining region today accompanied by District President Allan Barber. They had been attending the miners’ celebration at Dubois, Pa. Mother Jones was accorded great honors. She at once took hold of affairs, Organizer William Warner and Thomas Haggerty becoming secondary in importance.

This afternoon over three hundred miners from Frostburg, Eckhart and Vale Summit, headed by Mother Jones, who is regarded as a Joan of Arc in the present struggle, started on a march to Knapp’s Meadow, one mile from Lonaconing, where a meeting had been called today. The circular call was supposed to have been issued from non-union sources and the union men proceeded to capture the meeting. Mother Jones rode in a carriage and Organizers Warner and Haggerty followed on foot. The procession marched to music from a bass drum, a fife and a horn. A number of banners were carried bearing inscriptions demanding 60 cents a ton. The procession marched and countermarched through the main streets of Lonaconing. But few miners of Lonaconing participated in the parade and but few attended the meeting at Knapp’s Meadow.

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones is “one of the most conspicuous figures in the strike of the Maryland coal miners.”

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Quote JA Wayland, Mother Jones, AtR p1, Mar 17, 1900———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 30, 1900
Georges Creek Coal Region, Maryland – Mother Jones Organizing Coal Miners

From Wisconsin’s Kenosha Evening News of June 26, 1900:

MOTHER TO STRIKERS
—–

Mother Jones, Matronly Woman Organizer, Kenosha Ns WI p7, June 26, 1900

Mother Jones, Kenosha Ns WI p7, June 26, 1900

One of the most conspicuous figures in the strike of the Maryland coal miners is Mrs. Mary Jones, who is popularly known in labor circles as “Mother” Jones. She is an organizer and is apt to be found anywhere in the country during a strike.

“Mother” Jones is a matronly looking old lady of 60, with plump, red cheeks, pleasant blue eyes and abundant white hair.

As a writer,speaker and propagandist for socialistic doctrines, “Mother” Jones has been successful. She has been in reform movements for 20 years, mostly in the west, and for some time has been a newspaper correspondent, but her penchant is a strike, the harder the better. No matter where the trouble comes, there she goes-some way, somehow. She always refuses to take pay for her work and says she does not “help the boys” for what little money she can get.

Four years ago she stumped the state of Georgia for the child labor bill, and she tells some interesting stories about the children between 6 and 10 years working 14 hours a day for about 10 or 15 cents.

She took part in the coal miners strike of 1894, the American Railway union strike, the textile workers’ strike and countless other smaller strikes. When the miners were practically beaten in Arnatt [Arnot] last year, she went and organized the women and children. How she did it no one knows, but for nine months she held those miners together and finally won a settlement. When she left there a few weeks ago, the whole little coal region turned out in a body to see her go. Mrs. Jones says she will not leave the George’s creek coal region until the operators consent to meet the miners.

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Hellraisers Journal: Appeal to Reason: Mother Jones Doing Good Work for Striking Coal Miners of Lonaconing

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Quote JA Wayland, Mother Jones, AtR p1, Mar 17, 1900———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday June 29, 1900
Lonaconing, Maryland – Mother Jones Stands with Striking Coal Miners

From the Appeal to Reason of June 23, 1900:

Mother Jones, Kenosha Ns WI p7, June 26, 1900

Mother Jones has been doing her usual amount of good work with the coal miners of Lonaconing, Pa [Maryland]. A local paper says in an account of a strike meeting: “Mother Jones was then introduced and proved herself beyond question a remarkable woman. She received liberal applause, and a number of ladies were present to hear her.”

[Drawing and emphasis added.]

From the Washington Times of June 23, 1900:

VIEWS OE MOTHER JONES
—–
Woman Labor Leader Explains Her
Interest in the Cause.

BALTIMORE, June 22.-“Mother” Jones, the widely known labor leader, was in Baltimore today in the interest of the striking coal miners of the Georges Creek region. The Federation of Labor is arranging a series of mass meetings for the near future to be addressed by her.

Mrs. Jones does not look like the fiery agitator that she has been described. A motherly, good natured face is lighted by kindly blue eyes and crowned by silver hair. She is evidently over the half-century mark, but is as active as a young girl. “I love my work and it loves me,” she said when her physical vigor was commented upon. She speaks deliberately, with a pleasant voice suggestive of an ancestry to be credited to Ireland, and uses excellent language.

“Why shouldn’t a woman take part in all efforts for the benefit of labor?” she asked in response to a question. ”

Labor is the basis of all society. A woman should surely be interested in her surroundings and her home and do her part to uplift both. When did I begin this work? So many years ago that I have forgotten. I go wherever I think I can be of use. I have taken part in strikes all over the country, and have always urged peaceful methods. All these complex problems will be solved peacefully in time through the molding of public sentiment and the ballot box.

Am I a woman’s suffragist? Well, I have never been identified with the movement or belonged to any organization that was. I think beneficial results have always followed the placing of the ballot in woman’s hands. The excellent labor laws of Australia and New Zealand came only after women began to vote. Colorado, where women vote, is the only State that has taken steps to investigate the labor laws of Australia and New Zealand with a view of adopting them.

A woman becomes no less a woman when she studies social and political conditions and takes part in public affairs. A broadened intellect teaches her to love her home better. Such a woman, as a rule, loves her home and family better than the society woman who hands her children over to hired people to rear.

“Mother” Jones returned to western Maryland today, but will come to Baltimore again next week to make several speeches.

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Hellraisers Journal: St. Louis Streetcar Strikers Shot Down by Sheriff’s Posse; Eugene V. Debs on Law and Order

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Quote EVD, re St Louis Streetcar Strike Massacre, LW p1, June 23, 1900———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 24, 1900
St. Louis, Missouri – Streetcar Strikers Shot Down Returning from Picnic

From the Duluth Labor World of June 23, 1900:

ST. LOUIS OUTRAGE HOMESTEAD
—–

HOMESTEAD AND HAZELTON PALE
INTO INSIGNIFICANCE.
—–
Street Car Men Returning Home From a Picnic
Cruelly Shot and Murdered by Posse of Deputy Sheriffs-
Debs’ Strong Letter-Says No Strike is Ever Lost-
The Lesson is Worth the Cost.
—–

Labor Martyrs, St Louis Streetcar Strike, StL Rpb p1, June 11, 1900Labor Martyrs 2, St Louis Streetcar Strike, StL Rpb p1, June 11, 1900—–

The St. Louis street car strike is still on and will be, perhaps, for some time, as the St. Louis Transit Co. have positively refused to accept any proposition for arbitration whatever. Since then the St. Louis Central Labor Union has determined to fight the street car company to the bitter end, and adopted the following proposition for the election of a committee of 50 to form immediate organization and proceed to raise a fund of at least $100,000 to carry on the strike until it is won, the fund to be raised by an appeal to organized labor throughout the world, by personal appeals to every kind of organized bodies in St. Louis, and by such other means as may be deemed proper, closing with an appeal to the people of St. Louis to refrain from riding on the Transit cars, and to organizations, societies and associations of every kind in St. Louis, in sympathy with the movement, to make the street railway strike a special order of business at all their meetings, and to appoint committees to raise funds and continue to maintain an iron-clad boycott until the victory is won.

Mr. E. V. Debs was requested to come to St. Louis, but on account of illness was unable to do so. He however sent a very strong letter, which sums up the situation in a true light. The following from his letter will not be without interest:

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Hellraisers Journal: International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union Established at Labor Lyceum in New York City

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Rose Schneiderman Quote, Stand Together to Resist———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday June 6, 1900
New York, New York – Garment Workers Meet to Establish International Union

From the New York Tribune of June 4, 1900:

ILGWU Fdg Conv, NY Tb p12, June 4, 1900

An international union of cloakmakers and garment workers was formed in this city yesterday [June 3rd]. Delegates from Philadelphia, Baltimore, Newark and other cities met in convention in the Labor Lyceum, No. 64 East Fourth-st. The new organization will be known as the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union. Officers were elected as follows: Herman Grossman, president; Marcus O. Braff [Bernard Braff], secretary. General Executive Board—Isadore Silverman, Baltimore; Samuel Salat, New York; Joseph Schwarz, Philadelphia; Adolph Schwerger [Schweiger], Philadelphia, and Jacob Leibowitz, Newark.

President Grossman said that the principal objects of the organization included agitation for the adoption of union labels on all manufactured garments and the regulation of prices when feasible. It is expected that local unions will not only be formed in cities in the United States, but also in Canada. Between forty thousand and fifty thousand garment workers, the president said, would be represented in the new National body. The convention will be continued to-day.

[Emphasis added.]

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