Tag: Kensington Philadelphia PA

Hellraisers Journal: From the Burley WA Co-operator: Mother Jones Describes the March of the Mill Children of July 1903

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Mother Jones to TR, These Little Children, Phl No Am July 16, 1903, Foner p552—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday September 4, 1904
Mother Jones Describes the March of the Mill Children of July 1903

From The Co-operator of September 1904:

The March of the Children.

Lena Morrow Lewis, in The Socialist, Seattle, Washington, June 19th, 1904. From notes by Mother Jones.

Mother Jones w Army, March of Mill Children, AZ Rpbn p1, July 18, 1903

PHILADELPHIA is famed far and wide as the ” City of Brotherly Love.” Churches abound everywhere, and her people look with holy awe upon the sins and vices of their sister city on Long Island Sound. And an unsuspecting and unobserving public has been quite ready to accept without question all that the City of Brotherly Love has claimed for herself.

It has remained for the wicked labor agitator to ferret out and unearth the criminal conditions that exist in this quiet, peaceful church- going city of Philadelphia, and it is only in a Socialist paper that these facts are permitted to see the light of day.

The writer is indebted to “Mother” Jones for the items contained therein.

Last summer the textile workers of Philadelphia, 125,000 men, women and children, went on a strike. They demanded shorter hours, an increase of wages and better sanitary conditions. Filthy closets and a defective sewerage system produced a very unwholesome atmosphere in which to work. Meanwhile the rest of the world wagged merrily on, and no one seemed to know or care anything about the strike, except a few labor cranks and Socialists and the owners whose profits were being affected. Not a daily newspaper mentioned the cause of the strike, nor the fact that among the strikers were a large number of children. During this time “Mother” Jones “happened” to drop into town and, as is her custom, she began to stir up matters. The public should be forced to know what these people were striking for. But strikes were such common affairs and it would require drastic measures to arouse an indifferent public.

At last she hit upon a plan. She would marshal all the children between the ages of ten and fourteen and take them on a thirty-mile march and they were to stop at every town within that radius and tell the people the story of their wrongs. Many of these children had worked in the factory since they were seven years of age and had never been inside a school room. When they were gone about forty miles they decided to go over to Oyster Bay and present their case to President Roosevelt. There was some risk connected with a project of this kind. If any of the children had sickened or died on the way, that fact would have been heralded all over the country, and “Mother” Jones proclaimed a murderer. The mills could maim and disfigure and kill scores of children annually and no mention be made of the fact. However, “Mother” Jones felt that they could afford to take chances and proceeded with the children.

As they journeyed from town to town, members of the working class provided them with food and shelter.

The children marched thru the streets of the towns, held meetings and, thru their leaders, told the story of their wrongs. Every child was keyed up to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. Every step northward was taking them farther away from Philadelphia. Some of their fathers had voted for President Roosevelt; in their eyes he was the greatest man in the United States and so they went hopefully and merrily on. When they reached Bristol the leader sent a request on behalf of the children for a permit to hold a street meeting and, when it was learned that an army of children was coming into town, a squad of policemen armed with guns were ordered to stand guard on the bridge to protect the city against the children.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the Burley WA Co-operator: Mother Jones Describes the March of the Mill Children of July 1903” →

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Marches On With Her Army of Striking Children from the Textile Mills of Kensington

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Mother Jones, Child Labor Silk Mills, WB Dly Ns p1, May 11, 1901—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday July 14, 1903
Mother Jones and Her Army March from Trenton to Princeton, New Jersey

From The New York Times of July 10, 1903:

“MOTHER” JONES’ MARCHING ON
———-
Army of Mill Workers Camped Near Trenton
on Its Way to New York to Air Grievance.

Special to The New York Times.

Mother Jones, March of Mill Children, NY Eve Wld p3, July 8, 1903

TRENTON, N. J., July 9.- Mother Jones and her textile army, composed of workers from the mills of Kensington, Penn., is encamped to-night on the Delaware River in Morrisville, Penn., just across from Trenton.

“Mother” Jones to-night visited the meeting of the Plumbers’ Union and made a speech. She received a donation. Her assistants visited other union meetings, and as Trenton is one of the most solid union cities in the United States quite a sum of money was collected to aid “the army” on its march to New York, where a mass meeting in Madison Square Garden is projected. “Mother” Jones expects to reach the metropolis by the end of the week.

Mayor Katzenbach of Trenton has granted a license  for mass meeting be held here in the shadow of Battle Monument to-morrow night, when the grievances of the strikers will be aired and where Mother will tell her plans against the New York millionaires’ hearts and pocket books. This meeting will be preceded by a concert by the “army band.”

This morning at Bristol sixty men and girls deserted, going back to Philadelphia. There are about 280 left, however.

In the army are ten or twelve boys who are not more than thirteen years old. These little fellows stand up under the great heat and the hard march with commendable bravery. With the marchers there is a band comprised of six fifes, four snare drums, and a bass drum.

[Photograph and emphases added.]

From the New York Tribune of July 11, 1903:

Mother Jones MMC, Rest at Delaware Rv, MJ at Morrisvl PA, Drummers and Banners, NY Tb p1, July 11, 1903

ARMY CROSSES DELAWARE
———-

YOUNG GIRLS SENT HOME
———-
“Mother” Jones Says Her Crusade Is Against Child Labor.

[On the evening of July 10th the Army crossed the Delaware River and entered Trenton. Mother Jones spoke at a meeting of the Central Labor Union of Trenton, and later spoke at an open-air meeting near Battle Monument. On the afternoon of July 10th, a reporter visited the camp at Morrisville Point and described the meal served there. The boy-strikers, all under fifteen, were described by the reporter as “veritable little old men, with stooped shoulders and a serious expression of countenance far beyond their years.” The reporter was able to interview Mother Jones who described Kensington as “one of the worst places in the world for child labor.” She described the hard life of the girls working in “that hellhole.” Mother denied that there had been any “desertions,” stating that some would turn back at various points along the march.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Marches On With Her Army of Striking Children from the Textile Mills of Kensington” →

Hellraisers Journal: From Philadelphia North American: Mother Jones to Lead Child Workers on March to New York

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Mother Jones, Children Build Nations Commercial Greatness, Phl No Amn, Foner p487—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday July 9, 1903
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – Interview with Mother Jones

From the Philadelphia North American of July 7, 1903:

“Mother” Jones Will Lead Textile Child Workers
Through Country to Win Sympathy.
———-

Army of 400 Boys and Girls in Living Appeal for Aid.
———-

Mother Jones, March of Mill Children, NY Eve Wld p3, July 8, 1903

“Mother ” Jones will lead a second “children’s crusade” from this city today. It will be composed of 400 striking juvenile textile workers and an equal number of adult strikers. It starts from the Kensington Labor Lyceum, Second Street, above Cambria, at 11 o’clock this morning.

The object of the “crusade” is to appeal to the people of the country to support the 75,000 textile strikers in their “demand” for a 55-hour-work-week. Sufficient money to support the strikers indefinitely is expected to come in as a result of taking the children throughout the country. So far as possible, parents will accompany their children. Two members of the strikers’ executive board and their wives will help in caring for the “crusaders.”

“Mother” Jones, as commander-in-chief, has full charge of the campaign. After at first opposing it, the strike leaders have become convinced that it is an excellent plan to stir up the workers and the general public of the United States to lend a hand in the fight for shorter hours. “Mother” Jones spoke about the project to this reporter last night:

I desire the textile strikers of Philadelphia to win their fight for shorter hours, so that more leisure may be obtained, especially for children and women.

The herding of young children of both sexes in textile mills is the cause of great immorality.

As the result of the competitive and the factory systems, the nation is being stunted, physically, morally, and mentally.

I do not blame the manufacturers individually, but I do blame the community at large for making no effort to abolish these evils.

The employment of children is doing more to fill prisons, insane asylums, almshouses, reformatories, slums, and gin shops than all the efforts of reformers are doing to improve society.

I am going to rouse the Christian fathers and mothers of this country if there is human blood in their veins.

If the manufacturers cannot afford to give their employees a living wage and shorter hours of work, then the system of making goods for profit is wrong and must give way to making goods for use.

The sight of little children at work in mills when they ought to be at school or at play always rouses me. I found the conditions in this city deplorable, and I resolved to do what I could to shorten the hours of toil of the striking textile workers so as to gain more liberty for the children and women. I led a parade of children through the city-the cradle of Liberty-but the citizens were not moved to pity by the object lesson.

The curse of greed so pressed on their hearts that they could not pause to express their pity for future men and women who are being stunted mentally, morally, and physically, so that they cannot possibly become good citizens. I cannot believe that the public conscience is so callous that it will not respond. I am going out of Phiadelphia to see if there are people with human blood in their veins.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From Philadelphia North American: Mother Jones to Lead Child Workers on March to New York” →

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Leads Parade of Tender Babes in Philadelphia; Speech Heartens Textile Strikers

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Mother Jones Quote ed, Suffer Little Children, CIR p10641, May 14, 1915—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday June 29, 1903
Mother Jones Speaks to Philadelphia Textile Strikers

From the Duluth Labor World of June 27, 1903:

TENDER BABES IN LARGE PARADE.
———-

BURNING DISGRACE OF PENNSYLVANIA
MANUFACTURERS.
———-

TEXTILE WORKERS FIRM FOR 55 HOURS.
———-
Mother Jones Makes Many Impassioned Speeches
and Heartens Her Hearers.
———-

Mother Jones Leads Child Workers in March to City Hall, Phl Iq p2, June 18, 1903

Philadelphia, June 26.- The events of the week here, in the textile strike, were the speeches of “Mother” Jones to crowds and the parade of the men, women and children who are heroically striving for a shorter work-day. In one day Mother Jones addressed three large meetings of textile workers, and she did much to put heart into the movement and cheer the men and women engaged in the struggle. Her impassioned addresses are just what these workers need. They hang on to her sentences, and one cannot listen to a group of strikers without hearing her terse sentences repeated.

To Strike is Honorable.

[She told them in one of her speeches:]

Americans are strikers by inheritance. The Pilgrim Fathers and the Colonists were strikers. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were the great strikers of their day, and you workingmen and women of Philadelphia need not be ashamed to strive and struggle for what is yours by right, and what must be won by you if you expect to be worthy of the inheritance handed down by your fathers.

[She continued:]

This is a city of “Brotherly Love,” indeed. There’s a whole lot of that here. Rather, it’s a city of brotherly thieves! Yes; I came here to hammer you, and I am going to do it. It serves you right that you are on strike today to get a reduction in your working hours. You elect the same old crowd year after year.

I sat in the Senate Chamber in Washington not long ago, and in one hour seven bills were passed conferring still greater powers on railroad corporations. Compare that incident with the action of some of your own representatives when the poor miners went to them to see if they couldn’t do something for the cause of labor. You should have seen the looks of cold disdain with which they were treated. They were told plainly that it was no use for them to come there and were advised strongly to go back to work.

While 147,000 miners were strike in Pennsylvania and 40,000 in West Virginia the last Congress went into the pocket of the American workingman and took $45,000-think of it, $45,000-to defray the expenses of a six weeks’ tour of a prince around the country, just because he was of royal blood! How greatly Senators Quay and Penrose and all the rest of them venerate royal blood! Fifty thousand dollars offhand for the entertainment of a prince, but not a single piece of legislation that would be likely to better the condition of the American workingman.

But it’s your own fault. Whenever you get tired of these things you’ll remedy them.

Mother Jones closed by advising the strikers to remain idle until their demands had been granted.

[She said:]

You need not fear starvation. They thought to starve the miners out, but they didn’t succeed. You are going to have plenty to eat, even if you are on strike.

Thomas Fleming, chairman of the executive committee, who, with several other strike leaders, accompanied Mother Jones to Frankford, in introducing her referred to her as “the old lady.”

Mother Jones, in reply, said:

I am not so old that I do not expect to live long enough to see you and your wives and children live as free men should, not as slaves.

Parade of Striking Children.

The parade of the strikers, Wednesday, was an object lesson that will long be remembered by those who saw it. There may have been 25,000 in line, but this was not so remarkable as was the sight of regiment after regiment of little children, some of them so small that they had to be provided with conveyances, for they could not otherwise have been in the procession. All kinds of vehicles had been tendered from the stylish coupe to the common express wagon. Many of the poor little tots were not old enough to realize what all the excitement was about. They were the living representatives of a system so cruel and merciless that future generations will wonder what sort of beasts employers were in the beginning of the twentieth century that they could for a single moment allow their machinery to be manipulated by the wan and immature flesh of what were not much better than suckling babes.

Banners That Mean Something.

The transparencies carried were plentiful and appropriate. Many touched on the question of shorter hours and of child labor. One elderly man staggered along with a banner reading:

Let God’s curses dwell with employers or parents who consign
little children to the living death of factory life.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Leads Parade of Tender Babes in Philadelphia; Speech Heartens Textile Strikers” →