This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
Hellraisers Journal, Thursday July 19, 1917
Mother Jones News for June: Organizing in West Virginia
Mother Jones was found in West Virginia during the month of June 1917 continuing on the mission to organize the coal miners of that state into the ranks of the United Mine Workers of America.
The United Miner Workers Journal of June 7th had this to say about the organizing campaign in the New River and Winding Gulf field:
Mother Jones, ably assisted by organizers in whom the West Virginia miners have learned to repose the fullest confidence, are active in the field and are making a record of successful organization.
New River and the Winding Gulf field, where but a short time ago a union man could not confess his faith except at the imminent risk of his life, is fairly on the road to solid organization.
A letter from West Virginia printed in the June 28th edition of the Journal describes the miners lining up with the union en masse:
Possibly a few words from this part of West Virginia would not be amiss. Of course, as you know, there has been a local here of several years’ standing, but not until now, of recent date, has there been any united action on the part of the miners themselves, and to cinch it all Mother Jones and Brother L. Dwyer clinch it. All Layland, believe me, turned out en masse, even the county officials, to attend, and general good feeling exists all around. The boys are joining their union and the quickest way seems too slow now since they begin to see the light.
