Hellraisers Journal – Sunday November 19, 1911 Mother Jones News Round-Up for October 1911, Part I
Found in Los Angeles at Trial of J. B. McNamara
From the San Francisco Examiner of October 14, 1911:
LOS ANGELES, October 13-[…..]
To-day [at the McNamara trial] the most notable visitor undoubtedly was “Mother Jones,” “the woman to whom a strike is an inspiration to action-the only revolutionary woman we have in America,” as she has been described…..
Hellraisers Journal – Friday July 14, 1911 Members of P. L. M. Junta Arrested in Los Angeles
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of July 13, 1911:
SAN DIEGO, Cal., June 28.-Already Madero the Dictator, has shown “the claw and the fang.” He has, through his Governor Vega of Lower California, demanded the return of the Liberals to Mexico, and warrants have been issued by the United States calling for the arrest of every man who participated in the capture of Tijuana on May 9. The charges are “murder and arson.” The charge is merely a pretext to get them into the power of Madero., where unarmed they will be slaughtered like lambs.
It will be impossibles to arrest the privates as they can’t be identified, but the officers have been arrested and the Mexican government has commenced extradition proceedings. It is now up to every revolutionist to let the government know that if these men are turned over to Mexico, we will have OUR INNING. We must not permit this deal to come off.
The men now arrested are: C. R. Pryce, former commander at Tijuana; J. R. Mosby, J. B. Laflin, Jos, Reed, and two Mexicans. These six men are arrested in San Diego, and as IMMEDIATE ACTION WAS IMPERATIVE, E. E. Kirk, a radical attorney, has been engaged by us to defend them.
Besides this, through Madero’s orders, four members of the Los Angeles Liberal Junta have been arrested, and the capitalist class will try to put them in prison again, where they have already served several years for being Mexican revolutionists. The case the Junta members is being handled by a Los Angeles lawyer. Kirk is a San Diego attorney and as we are without funds to defend our fellow workers, we appeal to every “RED” to remit what he can. If you cannot afford to send us a dollar or fifty cents or more, send it as a loan. Send the money to E. E. Kirk, Union Building, San Diego, Cal., who will issue a receipt for it. These receipts will be treated as notes if you so desire and we will repay them later, as soon as we can.
Remember, we must not let our fellow workers be returned to Mexico to be shot. Stir up public sentiment about this. Get busy. These men fought like men, on the deserts of Mexico. YOU do your part of a man. Yours in the Perpetual Revolution.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday October 24, 1920
Mother Jones News for September 1920, Part II Found in Stone Cutters’ Journal: Los Angeles Speech of March 7th
From The Stone Cutters’ Journal of September 1920:
Mother Jones Speaks in Los Angeles.
Los Angeles Times March 11, 1920
Mother Jones spoke to the workers in the Labor Temple in Los Angeles recently. She said in part:
Fellow Workers:-I came here to rest, but I never allow rest to interfere with an opportunity to spread my religion among the workers. First of all, I want to say to you secret service men, get out your books and pencils and come right up here on the platform, and listen closely to every word I say. You might learn something for your own good-some new ideas might percolate through your thick skulls, and you might form a desire to lead a cleaner, better, more useful life.
Fellow workers, you are today in a most critical position. You are either facing liberty and emancipation or else if you don’t wake u , you are going into the blackest, most abject slavery ever known by man in the history of this world.
We whipped the Kaiser abroad and all his autocrats; now, let’s clean ’em up at home.
The inhuman way in which the workers were dealt with in, the steel strike is a fair example of the Prussianism of big business. They tell you that the steel strike was lost, but I say to you that the steel strike was one of the greatest victories ever won by labor in this country—great, because 350,000 workers of all nationalities, and different tongues, stood shoulder to shoulder, and demonstrated what “solidarity” means. They paralyzed one of our strongest industries, and the supply of steel will not be normal for six months yet.
There’s a great cry going up now to Americanize these foreigners—that’s the trouble with them now, they are Americanized. Most of them were imported here 20 years ago or more by those patriotic profiteers, Carnegie, and Gary, to act as scabs during the Homestead strikes— they scabbed then, and broke that strike, but they’re Americanized now and there’s no scabs in their families any more. You can bet on that.
They have learned what true “Americanism” means, and they want it; they want freedom and decent working conditions and they’ll get it some day.
They’ve been slaving 12 and 14 hours a day, with a 24-hour shift every other Sunday. That’s not Americanism, and that’s why they struck. They are not machinery or animals; they’re human beings and they want a square deal.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday October 3, 1910 Los Angeles, California – Mexican Revolutionaries to Start Newspaper
From the International Socialist Review of October 1910:
A. I. Villarreal
To fight Diaz. A. I. Villarreal writes us that the Mexican refugees-recently liberated from prison, are about to start a newspaper as “a vehicle of our agitation, as a hub of the fighting organization that we propose to build.” Comrade Villarreal advises us that the Mexican comrades desire very earnestly to start with a circulation of 10,000 subscriptions. The paper will be printed in Spanish, at Los Angeles. Subscription rates will be $2.00 a year; $1.10 for six months.
A. I. Villarreal. Address 420 W. 4th. St., Los Angeles, Calif.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday August 15, 1910
Los Angeles, California – Mexican Political Refugees Arrive after Release
From the Appeal to Reason of August 13, 1910:
Refugees Released–Their Persecution.
[-by John Kenneth Turner.]
Story of the Release.
By Telegraph to Appeal to Reason.
Los Angles, August 5.-Magon, Villarreal and Rivera, the refugee leaders of the Mexican Liberal party, are free at last, free and resting with friends in this city preparatory to reassembling their forces and launching again upon their campaign against the “Perpetual President” Diaz.
In order to meet them as they came out of prison, to be present if they were rearrested, so that through the Appeal to Reason the story of the latest crime against these men might be given to the world, I undertook the journey into that human bake oven, Arizona. I found the sweltering town of Florence, and that walled institution wherein some five hundred unfortunates pant and fight flies throughout the burning summer days and nights, bunked like sardines four or more in a cell. The trip nearly finished me. What long drawn agony it must have been to these persecuted men!
When Wednesday morning the three refugees stepped out through the iron gates into the open air, they looked about them for a man with a star and handcuffs, and could hardly believe their eyes when they saw none.
Arriving down town, they looked again for such a man, and at the station they looked for him again. As the train pulled into Phoenix Magon leaned back, resigning himself as it were, to the inevitable. Villarreal bent toward me and said: “He can’t believe that we are to be free, he cannot believe it. I could not believe it myself.”
But the man with the star and the handcuffs did not appear, nor has he yet appeared. As we disembarked at Los Angeles we heard a cheer, then the three Liberals were surrounded by scores of men and women. Americans and Mexicans, who shook their hands, patted them on-the back, and hugged them…..
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 20, 1920
-Mother Jones News for May 1920, Part II
Found Described by John D. Barry and Speaking in Streator, Illinois
From The Pacific Commercial Advertiser of May 15, 1920:
AN EVENING WITH MOTHER JONES
BY JOHN D. BARRY
The News “New York’s Picture Newspaper” May 7, 1920
A few months ago I heard someone say: “I wonder where Mother Jones is now. I suppose that, like many an other she has pulled in her horns and gone into retirement.”
I thought of those words as I listened to the old lady in Los Angeles recently, on her way to San Francisco, and heard her declare in that deep, strong voice of hers, the highly developed voice of the practiced orator, that she had passed her ninetieth milestone.
“You’ve got a lot of fight in you yet,” said a man who had himself long been a fighter for good cause.
[Mother Jones announced:]
Whenever there’s a fight for labor, I want to be there. I’m still in the ring.
I wondered if those fights hadn’t been the means of keeping her so well and young. She fulfilled the law emphasized by the psychologists, that life, to be a success, must mean persistent devotion to the ideals of the mind and the spirit. Her ideals had been high. They had exacted hard service. She had lived up to them devotedly.
* * *
She knew that a group of us had come to hear her talk and it was characteristic of her good humor to talk freely for our entertainment and enlightenment. She was evidently a born story teller. She had a dramatic quality that, under different circumstances, might have made her a great actress or a great playwright. Her memory was like a series of brilliant slides. Now she would give us one picture, now another.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday May 9, 1920
-Mother Jones News for March 1920, Part III
Jim Seymour Describes Labor Defense Meeting in San Francisco
From The Butte Daily Bulletin of March 29, 1920:
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Bulletin’s “Minister Without Portfolio”
Attends Interesting Gathering of
“Vicious Syndicalists.”
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BY JIM SEYMOUR.
(Special to the Bulletin.)
Frisco (known bourgeoiseally as San Francisco), March 20 (By Mail).-Last night [Friday, March 19th] California hall was filled to “S. R. O.” by specimens of the various breeds of workers and a very few others. William Cleary, attorney for a number of vicious criminal syndicalists, and some woman called “Mother Jones,” were billed to speak under the auspices of the Labor Defense league. Cleary jimmed the meeting by exercising his prerogative as a member of the bar and coming late. The trial was kept waiting for him until several of the chairs got too hot for the comfort of the sitters, whereupon Robert Whitaker, ex-sky pilot [preacher] and chairman of the meeting, who seems too good-natured to be named anything more dignified than Bob, delivered a serm-an opening address in which he mentioned the names of Anita Whitney, Kate O’Hare and one Eugene Debs. The applause percentages follow: Whitney, 96; Debs, 72; O’Hare, 49. Collection for defense of criminal syndicalists, for which the Lord be praised, $148.03.
The Rev. Bob then addressed us a few remarks that convinced us that the white-haired old woman on the stage was really Mother Jones and that nobody was trying to palm off a ringer on us. I don’t know just what it was, but Whitaker said something that Mother Jones didn’t quite agree with; and I don’t know just what Mother Jones’ reply was, but she gave him a good-natured bawling out that seemed to amuse the audience but failed to disturb the equanimity of the man who had just collected $148 for the cause. And so long as it didn’t harm him, or us, or the boys in jail, we will remark that it served him jolly well right-he should have known better than to pull that absurd burgeoise stunt of introducing a speaker that is better known than Jesus Christ. [Note: Mother Jones as a devote Catholic would certainly dispute that description of her fame.]
Hellraisers Journal – Friday May 7, 1920
-Mother Jones News for March 1920, Part I
Found Supporting Shipyard Strikers of San Francisco and Vicinity
From The Los Angeles Times of March 11, 1920:
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“Mother”‘ Jones, one of the most widely known union labor agitator in the world, who has been resting in this city for the last week, will leave today for Oakland to lend her support to the shipyard strikers in the Bay cities, according to information given out yesterday at the oil workers headquarters, room 111, Central Labor Temple.
The aged agitator last night stated that she did not know whether she was going to Oakland today or not, and intimated that it was none of the newspaper’s business what she was going to do. But at the home of Frank Flaherty, 2759 Marengo street, where “Mother” is staying, it was announced that she would leave tonight.
A telegram also was sent to V. C. Doaslaugh, secretary of the Alameda county Metals Trade Council, yesterday, in which it was stated that “Mother” Jones would arrive there Friday. The message was signed by C. B. Harvey, vice-president of the local Oil Workers’ Union.
“Mother” Jones came to Los Angeles to recuperate from a nervous breakdown, it was said at the Central Labor Temple, yesterday. The elderly woman participated in the recent fiasco of the Pennsylvania Steel workers, and report indicate that the collapse of that strike brought on an attack of “nerves” which caused her to retire to this city.
During her stay in this city, “Mother” Jones has had only one opportunity to talk. Last Sunday [March 7th] she addressed a few union laborites at the Labor Temple.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday March 24, 1909
Tucson, Arizona – Mexican Patriots “Chained Together Like Wild Beasts”
From the Appeal to Reason of March 13, 1909:
CHAINED TOGETHER LIKE WILD BEASTS
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Magon, Villarreal and Rivera are Delivered in Tucson Jail
Under Heavily Armed Escort
-Appeal to Reason Trampled Upon By Guard.
—–
Latest Developments in the Mexican-Washington Conspiracy
-The Inauguration of Taft Was Signalized by an Event
Not Chronicled in the Daily Papers.
—–
BY LUELLA TWINING
Special Correspondence Appeal to Reason
—–
Tucson, Ariz., March 4.
I have just come from the train that brought Magon, Villarreal and Rivera from the Los Angeles jail, in shackles, to be locked up in the jail at Tucson. At three o’clock in the morning a large party was there to greet them and let them know they are remembered.
It was difficult for them to alight, chained together as they were. Mrs. Sarabia ran up to speak to them and give them some sweet peas, but a deputy threw them down with, “You can’t give them any flowers.” Flowers are not for patriots-only chains and jails. I offered Mr. Magon a copy of the Liberty Edition of the Appeal, which had just come, but a deputy took it and would not allow him to have it.
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