Hellraisers Journal – Sunday September 8, 1912 Charleston, West Virginia – Mother Jones and Harold Houston Speak
September 6, 1912, Charleston, West Virginia -Speech of Mother Jones at Mass Meeting Held in Courthouse Square:
[Operators Get a Hearing, Miners Don’t]
Wheeling Intelligencer September 7, 1912
This great gathering that is here tonight signals there is a disease in the State that must be wiped out. The people have suffered from that disease patiently; they have borne insults, oppression, outrages; they appealed to their chief executive, they appealed to the courts, they appealed to the attorney general, and in every case they were turned down. They were ignored. The people must not be listened to, the corporations must get a hearing.
When we were on the Capitol grounds the last time you came here, you had a petition to the Governor for a peaceful remedy and solution of this condition. The mine owners, the bankers, the plunderers of the State went in on the side door and got a hearing, and you didn’t. (Loud applause.)
Now, then, they offer to get a commission, suggested by the mine owners. The miners submitted a list of names to be selected from, and the mine owners said, “We will have no commission.” Then when they found out that Congress, the Federal Government was going to come down and examine your damnable peonage system, then they were ready for the commission. (Applause.)
Then they got together—the cunning brains of the operators got together. What kind of a commission have they got? A bishop, a sky pilot working for Jesus; a lawyer, and a member of the State Militia, from Fayette City. In the name of God, what do any of those men know about your troubles up on Cabin Creek, and Paint Creek? Do you see the direct insult offered by your officials to your intelligence? They look upon you as a lot of enemies instead of those who do the work. If they wanted to be fair they would have selected three miners, three operators and two citizens. (Cries of: “Right, right.”) And would have said, “Now, go to work and bring in an impartial decision.” But they went up on Cabin Creek-I wouldn’t have made those fellows walk in the water, but they made me. Because they knew I have something to tell you, and all Hell and all the governors on the earth couldn’t keep me from telling it. (Loud applause.)
I want to put it up to the citizens, up to every honest man in this audience-let me ask you here, have your public officials any thought for the citizens of this State, or their condition?
(Cries of: “No, no, no.”)
Now, then, go with me up those creeks, and see the blood-hounds of the mine owners, approved of by your public officials. See them insulting women, see them coming up the track. I went up there and they followed me like hounds. But some day I will follow them. When I see them go to Hell, I will get the coal and pile it up on them. (Loud applause.)
I look at the little children born under such a horrible condition. I look at the little children that were thrown out here.
(At this moment an automobile came down Kanawha Street and turned around and went back, but in turning made considerable noise which attracted some attention and interrupted the speaker, who said, “Don’t bother about that automobile.”)
[“Howling Anarchy”]
Now then, let me ask you. When the miners-a miner that they have robbed him of one leg in the mines and never paid him a penny for it–when he entered a protest, they went into his house not quite a week ago, and threw out his whole earthly belongings, and he and his wife and six children slept on the roadside all night. Now, you can’t contradict that. Suppose we had taken a mine owner and his wife and children and threw them out on the road and made them sleep all night, the papers would be howling “anarchy.”
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday August 7, 1912 Charleston, West Virginia – Mother Jones Speaks to Striking Miners
Thursday, August 1, 1912, Charleston Levee -Mother Jones speaks to striking miners from the back of a dray wagon.
The Wheeling Intelligencer August 2, 1912
Now, you have gathered here today for a purpose. Every movement made in civilization has had an underlying purpose. You have reached the century in human civilization when the charge of human slavery must forever disappear. (Applause.)
You, my friends, in my estimation, have stood this insult too long. You have borne the master’s venom, his oppression, you have allowed him to oppress you. When we said, “a little more bread” he set out to get the human blood-hounds to murder you. Your Governor [Glasscock] has stood for it. He went off to Chicago [Republican convention] and left two Gatling guns with the blood-hounds to blow your brains out.
Then you elected a sheriff, that began to shake like a poodle dog the night of the trouble on Paint Creek. He began to tremble and ran into a store to be sheltered. I have never in all my life—in all the battles I have had—taken back water, and why should a public officer do it—elected by the people. The best thing you can do is to apply to some scientist to give you some chemicals and put into a nursing bottle, give it to them fellows and tell them to go away back and sit down. (Applause.)
This industrial warfare is on. It can’t be stopped, it can’t be put back, it is breaking out over all the nation from the city of Mexico clean through to the border of Canada, from the Atlantic Ocean clean across the oceans of the world; it is the throbbing of the human heart in the industrial field for relief. They are preaching appeal to the Legislature, they appeal to Congress—and I must give this Congress credit—I always want to give credit where credit is due—you have had more labor bills passed in the last session than in all the days of your Congress.
I was in Washington not many weeks ago. I sat up in the gallery watching the voters. I was watching the fellows who would vote against your bill. One fellow, when they asked for roll call, he got up among those who didn’t want it, but when the vote came he had to be registered on the Congressional Record, he took mighty good care that his vote was in your favor Why? Because the whole machine of capitalism realize for the first time in history that there is an intellectual awakening of the dog below, and he is barking. Have you been barking on Paint Creek?
I want to say, without apology, without fear of the courts, without fear of jails, you have done what ought to have been done a long time ago. When-when a corporation which is bleeding you to death, would go and hire,-send over the nation and hire human blood-hounds to abuse your wife, your child, it is time every man in the State should rise.
I saw an inscription on your statehouse, and looked at it,-because I know Virginia. I know the whole machine of capitalism; they locked me up and put me out of the State and shook their fists at me and told me not to come back again. I told them to go to hell, I will be back tomorrow.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday March 13, 1912 Lawrence, Massachusetts – Mrs. Pinchot and Miss Marvin Investigate Conditions
From The Boston Daily Globe of March 11, 1912:
Left to Right-Mrs Amos Pinchot, Gertrude Marvin, William Gates, Francis Miller, Edward Reilly, Rebecca Smith.
From the Bridgeport Evening Farmer of March 9, 1912:
Lawrence, March 9-Wearing a chic, white felt crush hat, long gray coat and high boots, Mrs. Amos Pinchot [Gertrude Minturn Pinchot], sister-in-law of Gifford Pinchot who came down here to investigate conditions for herself, was “out and about” at 6, this morning, despite the dismal drizzle that kept even many of the strikers off the picket route.
With Miss Margaret Marvin [Gertrude Marvin], a magazine writer, Mrs. Pinchot breakfasted in true cosmopolitan fashion in a typical “sling ’em out quick” counter lunchroom and then made the rounds of soup kitchens, tenement homes, police stations and courtroom. She argued with strike pickets, policemen and militiamen and got the point of view of everyone whom she saw and who “looked interesting.”
She spoke laughingly, today, of threats by policemen to arrest her for “obstructing the sidewalk” when she questioned them too closely and said she might be tempted when she gets back to New York to write about some of the “inhuman things” she has seen in her two days visit here.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday March 12, 1912 “The Industrial Revolt at Lawrence” by R. W. Child, Illustrated by Jay Hambidge
From Collier’s of March 9, 1912:
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DURING these eight weeks in Lawrence, Massachusetts, a strange and wonderful picture has been painted.
Upon the little canvas, woven on the looms of social and industrial development, are now spread the half-somber, half-glaring colors of human instincts and emotions. In the foreground one of our American melting pots, having failed to produce an alloy of many metals, has frothed, sputtered, and boiled over; in the background is the indistinct gray swirl of economic forces rushing by-out of history-into eternity. If there is an awe-inspiring quality in this picture, it is because some day it may be reproduced in great bold strokes across the whole expanse of American life.
Lawrence is drab. In the winter dusk the huge rectangular prisms of the textile mills, black and sullen against the sky line, lie along the shores of the Merrimac River, and, behind them, like a progeny of badly begotten offspring, crowding in a hungry herd, are the countless other rectangular prisms of human habitations.
Systematic and Organized Misrepresentation
STANDING on a street corner, one sees suddenly that this crowd that moves along the street of shops is a congress of nations. He sees the faces of oppressed peoples, nine-tenths timid and patient, one-tenth of the stuff that makes mobs. The marching feet of a company of soldiers fill the cold, damp air with the grim, scuffling sound of military without music. At every street corner a pacing sentry, who is clad in wool cap, greatcoat, and leggings, lurches back and forth like a huge bird deprived of liberty. His bayonet flashes in the light from the store windows.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday September 30, 1921 Mother Jones Speaks at United Mine Workers Convention, Part IV
Indianapolis Convention of the United Mine Workers of America Sixth Day, September 26, 1921, Mother Jones Speaks, Part IV of IV:
The day is gone in American history when judges can assume the role of lords above us. The pulse of the world is beating, my friends, as it never beat in human history. Not alone in America is it throbbing but the world over. Editors don’t know. They sit in the oflice using a pencil and stabbing us in the back sometimes. Ministers don’t know; statesmen don’t know; professors in the universities don’t know what is going on; but the pulse of the world is throbbing for the civilization that was started back in Jerusalem two thousand years ago. You can not crush a man today; you may put him in jail; you may fill your jails, but the fight will go on. You are living in an electric age. The current is touching the human heart of man, and never again will the system of slavery that has prevailed in the past and that we are driving out now come into the world.
I want to warn that judge today that it is best to bring conciliation to bear than to drive us apart. America will live on, and we are going to march and we are going to bring back the old times of Patrick Henry and Jefferson and Lincoln. It is up to you to stop wasting time on technicalities and get down to business and save this money you are spending. You are going to need it. Put away your prejudice and let us fight. I spoke Labor Day in District 2. Then I went down into Mexico and New Mexico. I got a paper there in which I saw that President Brophy of District 2 was doing business. I wrote him a letter congratulating him. I am glad to know that District 2 has a good president, and, Brophy, I am with you. Whenever you want to raise hell with the other fellows, send for me!
I am going after this fellow (indicating Vice-President Murray) because he isn’t doing business in Pittsburgh as he ought to. That used to be the old fighting ground. Vice-President Murray, you do business there.
And now I am going to say something to the women. The destiny of nations depends upon the women. No nation had ever grown beyond its women. Whatever corruption, whatever brutal, ugly instincts the man has he hasn’t got from his mother. I have studied this for fifty years; I have studied every great man I have ever met and he has always had a great mother. Many times I walked fifteen miles to see a woman after I had met her son.
I want to say to John P. White before I close that I expressed appreciation of him for what he did for me when he was President. At no time did I go to him and explain to him what I wanted done but what he handed me money or endorsed what I had done, and we got results. I could have done a great deal more in West Virginia, but I think from all we can hear that we are going to go forward. Don’t blame the Governor of West Virginia. Don’t be so ready to knife him. There are things no statesman can override. This is a dangerous time. Presidents and Governors must move with care. There is no state in America that has better miners than West Virginia. Some of the noblest characters you have are there and you know it. They live up the creeks and the speakers who appear before them do not always use their language or appeal to them. You must know the life of those men. There isn’t another state in the Union like West Virginia, and the organizers that go out, Mr. Lewis, don’t understand the game. I have gone to Mr. White time and again and have told him to take them out because they didn’t fit into the situation. I don’t believe in giving the miners’ money to anyone who doesn’t bring results.
I asked Mr. Lewis to send a man into Mingo to handle the finance. He mentioned one or two and then said: “What do you think of Fowler?” “He is just the man,” I said, and he gave him to me and we got results. I am interested in the children and in those poor fellows who can’t be reached except by the capitalists’ papers that go in. That is all they know. You must educate them, and I want to say, Mr. Editor of the Journal, that you ought to cut out that picture “How to Dress.” We know how to dress when we get the money to dress with. What you want to tell us is how to pull that money out of the other fellow.
Up in Princeton the men were asking for years for organization. We sent a boy up to bill the meeting but didn’t tell them who was going to speak. The boy had to run away the minute he circulated the bills or he would be killed. I went up with Mr. Houston, the attorney for the miners. We were told the meeting would be in the park three miles and a half away. I said we wouldn’t hold it there, that we would start a riot out there, and then they would say: “Old Mother Jones went out in the park and started a riot.” I said: “See if the city authorities won’t give us a place in the town to meet.” We got it and seven thousand men came there, largely railroad men, machinists and farmers. Seven cars of Baldwin-Felts thugs came down, loaded with whiskey and guns. There was no prohibition men there that day. Houston got up to speak and I saw that something was being plotted. I got up and spoke, but I hadn’t talked more than ten minutes when they began to start the riot.
When I wound up my speech I said: “Mr. Baldwin-Felts guards, I am going to serve notice on you that I will take this thing up to Uncle Sam, explain the matter, and if Uncle Sam don’t protect the children of the nation Old Mother Jones will. They won’t be raised under the influence of murderers like you.” The railroad men were afraid I would be killed and asked policemen to take me away. I told them I was not afraid of being killed, that I would rather die fighting than die in my bed. I want to say to you mothers to quit buying pistols for your children. Train them to something better than a pistol and a gun. Almost every child today has a toy pistol. You began training them to use a pistol while they were in the cradles and the welfare workers never raise their voices about it. The legislature should pass a law that no mother should buy a pistol for a child.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday June 16, 1921 Lick Creek Tent Colony of Mingo County – Striker Alex Breedlove Shot Down
From The New York Herald of June 15, 1921:
ONE KILLED, TWO HURT IN NEW MINGO FIGHT ————— 47 in Tent Colony of Idle Miners Are Arrested. ———-
WILLIAMSON, W. Va., June 14.-One men was killed, two others were wounded and forty-seven residents of the Lick Creek tent colony of idle miners near Williamson are held in the county jail as the result of the fight to-day at Lick Creek between authorities and the colonists.
Alex Breedlove is dead, while James A. Bowles, State trooper, was wounded and Martin Justice, in charge of the colony, received wounds in the cheek and leg.
The fight started after Major Tom Davis, commanding Mingo under martial law proclamation, had returned to Lick Creek with reinforcements of citizen State troopers to arrest about two-score of the idle miners, as his forces had been fired on in the vicinity earlier in the day. Trooper Bowles, in charge of a party of citizen State police [deputized company gunthugs], encountered several men near the colony. Orders from Bowles to throw up their hands brought shots, it was said, resulting in Breedlove’s death and in the wounding of Bowles.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday October 21, 1910 Fresno, California – Many Fellow Workers Jailed, More Men Arrive Daily
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of October 19, 1910:
FRESNO FIGHT IS ON: MANY MEN IN JAIL —————
The fight for free speech in the State of California has opened in Fresno. The boys have been gathering for the last month and more are on the way to the front. Telegrams received by the WORKER informs us that 19 men were arrested on the streets up to the time of sending the message. Large crowds are on the streets and the populace is much excited. Men are arriving on every trainand more are coming by boat from Portland and Seattle, according to the statements of letters just received from these cities.
The boys have been forced from their hall and cannot rent another, but are doing well in their camp in the jungles. There the incoming men are fed and prepared to go to the “can.” While there has been no news from the men already in jail, it is a safe bet that they are roaring the “Red Flag” and other working men’s songs.
The boys evidently took the police by surprise, as an editorial in the Fresno Herald of a few days ago asserts that November has been selected as the time for opening the fight. This same slimp street, a scurrilous sewer of degenerated conceptions that rivals the infamy of the “Morning Liar” (sometimes called the Spokane Spokesman-Review), states in its columns that the members of the I. W. W. are thugs, holdups, etc., and that one was killed in an attempted robbery on the way to Fresno. This monumental liar does not mention names, dates nor locations, but leaves it to the scurvy imagination of his own class of degenerates to fill in the missing items of mis-information.
He further advocates the use of the whipping post for men the insist on their privilege of free speech, and even suggests that to wash their wounds with salt water would increase the agony. Such a vicious apostle of a return to the methods of the Inquisition is a fitting herald for the ideas and intentions of the master class, and he only advocates the desires of them all. It is just such articles and just such tactics on the part of the ruling class and their tools that puts murder in the hearts of the helpless victim and breeds a psychology of violence it is to be hoped that no member of the I. W. W. will so far lose control of himself as to attempt to retaliate in kind, but should such articles inflame the minds of the weaker minded workers to the extent that violence is returned for violence, the boss and his prostitute lackeys have only themselves to blame. One thing is certain. Whatever the outcome of the fight, the workers will have been educated to a better understanding of their relationship to the boss and they will have learned to hate the condition of slavery to that extent.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday July 1, 1900
Chicago, Illinois – Great Lock-Out of Building Trades Continues
From the International Socialist Review of July 1900:
“The Chicago and St. Louis Strikes”
Part I of II.
At the beginning there were various points of contention, but as time passed these all gave way to one main point of contention, the question of the principle of federated trades. All the building trades of Chicago are federated for such common action as may be thought necessary in the Building Trades Council. The contractors insist that this body disband as a condition to any settlement whatever.
This is, of course, an absolutely impossible condition for the laborers, the concession of which would not be a settlement at all, but a crushing defeat. It would mean the setting back of labor one step in the long upward struggle of centuries; the abandonment of one vantage point gained at terrible cost. The individual union is almost if not quite as helpless in the face of the intensely concentrated capital of today as was the individual work man before the capitalist employer of a generation ago. This was especially emphasized in the Chicago struggle as the employers were all united in a Central Contractors’ Council. The fact that the contractors never dreamed of dissolving their central body proved the purely class nature of their demand and showed that the dispute was one that could be settled only by a test of strength.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday June 9, 1920
Butte, Montana – W. F. Dunne on the Anaconda Road Massacre
From The Liberator of June 1920:
Why Copper Is Red
By W. F. Dunne
ANOTHER crimson chapter has been added to the bloody history of Butte, Montana. It was written on April 21 when Winchester repeaters in the hands of gunmen of the Anaconda Mining Co;, poured their deadly loads of buskshot into a peaceful assemblage of striking miners.
Thomas Manning is dead, two more lie at the point of death, twelve more were wounded. Everyone of the victims was shot in the back.
The Butte Daily Bulletin of April 26, 1920
The miners struck on Monday, April 19. Their demands were as follows:
Release of all industrial and political prisoners. Six-hour day from collar to collar. Minimum wage scale of $7 a day for all workers in the mining industry. Abolition of the rustling-card. Abolition of contract and bonus and so-called efficiency system. Two men work together on all machines, and two men to work together in all workings.
The picket lines were sent out and by Tuesday evening, as they say in Butte, “the hill was clean.” The hoisting of ore ceased. The strike was called on Sunday, April 18, by Local 800 Metal Mine Workers Industrial Union of the Industrial Workers of the World, at two meetings attended by over 2,500 miners. For several weeks miners had been leaving Butte by the dozens, dissatisfied with the contract and bonus system instituted by the mining companies. Men were forced to take contracts and if they made more than a day’s pay received but a fraction of their increased earnings in their envelopes; if they failed to break enough rock, at the price per cubic foot paid, to equal a day’s pay, they were fired. At the Sunday meetings some speakers urged postponement of action until June but were greeted with silence. The miners wanted to strike and strike at once. The demands were drawn up, the strike declared and a committee appointed to close all of the boot-legging joints to eliminate trouble as far as possible. Between forty and sixty illegal places were closed on Monday evening by the miners committee but they were immediately told to open up the following morning by the authorities, and did so.
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