Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for May 1902: Found Organizing Coal Miners for the UMWA in West Virginia, Part II

Share

Quote John Mitchell to Mother Jones re WV Fairmont Field, May 10, 1902—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 8, 1902
Mother Jones News Round-Up for May 1902, Part II
Found Organizing Coal Miners of West Virginia, Describes Terrible Conditions

From The Minneapolis Tribune of May 9, 1902:

THE COAL MINER

-BY CHARLOTTE TELLER
(Copyright, 1902)

Mother Jones, Ipl Ns p11, Jan 21, 1902

Hundreds of thousands are indebted to the coal miners for their light and heat during the winter months. Much of the comfort of the world depends upon the labor of men who work ten hours a day in the midst of darkness.

It is a strange life. And few there are who ever give it a thought unless a strike be announced and the price of coal goes up in consequence.

Those upon whom many communities are dependent for the means of running factories, manufacturing gas and heating houses are scarcely considered in the course of a year’s thought. Men are bound together by the very strands of smoke sweeping up into the air from engines and chimneys, but they do not know it, and live thousands of miles apart in thought.

A woman who has for years worked among the grimy men and hopeless women of the coal districts-“Mother Jones”-writes that the life in the coal regions of West Virginia amounts to slavery. They are unorganized miners who live at [Kanawha?], because if they dare to make a protest or a move to help themselves, they are quickly discharged and their names put on the black list.

Nearly all the houses and stores at this place belong to the corporation, and this proprietorship adds to the troubles of the miners. “Mother Jones” writes: “Every rainstorm pours through the roofs of the corporation shacks and wets the miners and their families.” And she says she has seen the miners “drop down exhausted and unconscious from the effects of the poisonous gases amid which they were forced to work.”

The corporations do not seem to believe in “free competition,” for they make it impossible for any storekeeper or smithy to get a start near the mines. “Ten tons of coal go to the company each year for house rent; two tons to the company doctor. * * * Two tons must go to the blacksmith for sharpening tools, two tons more for the water which they use and which they must carry from a spring half way up the mountain side, and ten tons more for the powder and oil.

“And this,” she says, “must be paid before a penny comes with which to buy things to eat and wear. When one hears their sad tales, looks upon the faces of their disheartened wives and children and learns of their blasted hopes and lives with no ray sunshine, one is not surprised that they have a disheartened appearance as if there was nothing on earth to live for.”

[….]

——————-

[Photograph added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for May 1902: Found Organizing Coal Miners for the UMWA in West Virginia, Part II”

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for May 1902: Found Organizing Coal Miners for the UMWA in West Virginia, Part I

Share

Quote John Mitchell to Mother Jones re WV Fairmont Field, May 10, 1902—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 7, 1902
Mother Jones News Round-Up for May 1902, Part I
Found Organizing Coal Miners of West Virginia and Advocating General Strike

From the Morgantown (W. V.) Daily New Dominion of May 3, 1902:

 

STRIKING DEMONSTRATION.
———-
All Union Men of the Country to Cease Work.
———-
Nothing will be Done by a Member of a Union on That Day
-Object Lesson of the Strength of the Unions
-Plans are all Perfected for the Movement.

Mother Jones, Ipl Ns p11, Jan 21, 1902

CHARLESTON. May 3—On May 17th every union workingman in the country, no matter of what trade, will lay down his tools and refuse to work for one day. So exclaimed “Mother” Jones today on her return from an extended “missionary” trip up the Kanawha and New river valleys where she has been working in behalf of the labor organizations in order to perfect a union among the miners who so far have failed to join the ranks of the many who use the pick in the bituminous coal fields of West Virginia.

“Mother” Jones tells that it is no secret. She says that at a meeting of all the labor organizations all over the entire country this question has been presented and discussed and that so far all reports received have been favorable.

The purpose is merely to give an object lesson of the power of labor if it sees fit to assert itself.

The assertions of the great labor agitator coming at this time when it appears on the surface that times are good and labor is receiving wages that are considered the best, has caused a sensation among the capitalists cf the State, especially those who are in line of control among the mines and lumber industries of West Virginia. She makes no bones of telling why labor is dissatisfied with its present condition. Trusts and the consequent advancement of all supplies, materials and articles of food are the causes for the unrest that is manifest and she says the people who live by the use of their hands are becoming so tired of the imposition that they have decided to give capital an object lesson that will be remembered for years to come.

There has been little heralding of the purpose of the labor organizations says “Mother” Jones. In fact it has been kept extremely quiet for a purpose, but there is no question according to her, but that they mean business and the country will see a general strike such as never was recorded before. Every member of all the organizations of labor and their sympathizers will stop work and unless concessions come from the magnates who rule the various trusts of the country without delay, there will be a cessation of activity along all the lines of commerce, both state, national and foreign.

The recent action of the beef trust in placing the product that is most used among the working class beyond the reach of the working man has so infuriated the masses that nothing short of a general strike is thought of by them.

“Mother” Jones stated that she herself had visited hundreds of the various lodges of the country and with one acclaim all are in favor of the measures herein outlined. The railroads have pooled their issues in such a manner and have so discriminated in freights that none except the very wealthy are in a position to receive any benefits from them. So it is with the great iron and steel industries and in the sections formerly benefited by them, there is now nothing for the independent producer to do but to submit to the inevitable.

—————

[Photograph added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for May 1902: Found Organizing Coal Miners for the UMWA in West Virginia, Part I”

Hellraisers Journal: Butte Labor World: Report on Conventions of Western Labor Union and Western Federation of Miners

Share

Quote EVD, Socialist Ripe Trade Unionist, WLUC p45, May 31, 1902—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday June 6, 1902
Denver, Colorado – W. L. U. and W. F. of M. Hold Conventions at Odd Fellows Hall

From the Butte Labor World of June 2, 1902, Convention Number:

HdLn WLU Convention, Btt Lbr Wld p1, June 2, 1902

—–

HdLn WFM Convention, Btt Lbr Wld p1, June 2, 1902

The annual convention of the Western Labor Union, and Western Federation of miners and the United Association of Hotel and Restaurant Employes, opened at Denver last week. These gatherings of men who represent the real producers of wealth showed in a measure the strength of the great organizations of labor. Denver received them with outstretched arms. The reception committees were busy looking to the comfort of the visitors and everything possible was done to make their stay in the queen city of the West a pleasant one. The hospitality was warm and well appreciated by the delegates….

There were nearly one hundred in attendance at the Western Labor Union convention and fully one hundred and fifty at the federation of miners.….

—————

[Emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Butte Labor World: Report on Conventions of Western Labor Union and Western Federation of Miners”