Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday June 21, 1922 Ricardo Flores Magón Denied Clemency, Remains at Leavenworth
Editorial from the Oklahoma Leader of June 15, 1922:
TO OUR EVERLASTING SHAME ———-
Ricardo Flores Magon, was transferred from McNeil Prison to Leavenworth, arriving there on November 3, 1919
The breadth and depth of the ever-widening and deepening gulf which separates this government from the lofty ideals which glorified the minds of the lovers of human liberty who founded it, was never so clearly illustrated than by the recent refusal of the so-called department of justice to extended clemency to Ricardo Flores Magon.
Magon, Mexican patriot, poet and idealist, fled from Mexico when the tyrant and usurper Porfirio Diaz, always popular in this country, sought to take his life because he raised his voice and pen in behalf of his oppressed countrymen. Across the Rio Grande, safe, as he thought, from the power of his persecutor, and in a country which in times past had offered asylum to those who were exiled by liberty hating tyrants, Magon sought to arouse his countrymen to rebel and repudiate the government which was traducing the spirit of liberty and trampling the Mexican constitution in the mire.
Because of his activity in this respect, and at the instance of the secret service agents of Diaz, Magon was arrested and indicted in federal courts for inciting revolution against a friendly nation, and was convicted and given a long sentence twenty years in Leavenworth. Meantime the little flame he had fearlessly kindled burst into a refining conflagration Diaz, the bloody tyrant and usurper, abdicated his throne and escaped to a foreign land, never daring to return to the country he had impoverished and betrayed.
But notwithstanding the goal for which Magon yielded his liberty was won, the usurper removed and his regime destroyed, a servant of the people placed in office, order restored and constitutional government instituted Ricardo Flores Magon is still a poor and miserable prisoner in a stone cell in a penitentiary, the property of the United States, a nation conceived in justice and born in the name of Liberty. More than that, Magon is going blind and unless he is shortly released will never see the result of his humble labor, so fearlessly performed, to achieve his country’s redemption.
The Mexican ambassador, the legislatures of the states of Yucatan and Coahuila de Zeragoza and the Mexican Federation of Labor have memorialized the alleged department of justice at Washington for clemency for Magon, and for his fellow prisoner, Libraro Rivera, all to no avail. The capitalist government at Washington is taking sweet revenge upon the man, who was most responsible for the exile of Diaz, the dear friend of the capitalists of this country.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday March 27, 1912 Mother Jones News Round-Up for February 1912, Part I Found in Colorado, Wyoming, Illinois, Ohio and Indiana
From the Appeal to Reason of February 3, 1912:
The California Building Trades convention [of late January] unanimously adopted a resolution calling for a conference between the Socialist Party, the state A. F. of L. and the State Building Trades, with a view to united political action for the working class. Job Harriman, Mother Jones and Alexander Irvine were among the speakers at the convention.
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[Photograph added.]
From the Denver Rocky Mountain News of February 7, 1912:
ROOSEVELT ‘MONKEY CHASER,’ DECLARES ‘MOTHER’ JONES ———-
“WALL STREET WILL ELECT HIM NEXT PRESIDENT,” SAYS WOMAN LABOR LEADER. ———-
That Theodore Roosevelt is a “monkey chaser,” but will be elected the next president of the United States despite the fact, is the opinion of “Mother” Jones, who arrived in Denver yesterday to investigate labor conditions.
“I have no doubt that Roosevelt will be the next president,” she says. “Of course, I have no use for him, but he plays to the galleries, and a Wall street will elect him.
“He is the fellow who sent guns to murder the working men in the strike of 1904 [Telluride, November 1903].
“Taft is right in with him, but I think that Taft is more of a gentleman than Roosevelt is.”
“Mother” Jones will make an address at Eagle hall tomorrow night, under the auspices of the Western Federation of Miners.
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From Denver’s United Labor Bulletin of February 8, 1912:
“MOTHER” JONES SPEAKS TO FEDERATED SHOPMEN
Strike Is Already Won, Says “Mother” Many Entertainments for Benefit of Strikers
“Mother” Jones spoke to a large crowd at Eagles’ hall Wednesday night, and during her address but one man left the hall. She spoke to the striking Federated Shopmen, and her discourse covered a period of two and one-half hours. “Mother” Jones has passed through the entire life of the labor movement in the United States. The daughter of a miner and later a miner’s wife, she was reared and spent her life in the labor movement. She has a wonderful memory, and in her address she followed the evolution of the labor movement in the United States, and told of how labor has been exploited by capital to the detriment of the human race.
“Mother” Jones has been traveling over the Harriman system, and said that the strike of the shopmen was won now, and it was only a matter of time until the roads will sign up. She said that on one occasion where a train on which she was riding had a nine-hour schedule it took the train thirty-six hours to make the trip.
From Rawlins Republican (Wyoming) of February 8, 1912:
MOTHER JONES HERE
Last Thursday evening in the Danish hall Mother Jones spoke to the striking shopmen and several of their friends. The crowd was very enthusiastic and frequently applauded the speaker.
Mother Jones is a strong and vigorous speaker and does not hesitate to call a spade a spade. She assured the strikers that she was confident that a settlement of their troubles would be made in the near future, advised them to remain firm in their demands and not desert the cause for which they had been fighting for so long. She urged the men strongly to remain away from the saloons and gambling houses and prophesied that if this was not done much discredit would be thrown upon the cause they represent.
As is usual in labor leaders, she strongly denounced the capitalist class and even took a shot at several of she religious organizations.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday February 21, 1912 Mother Jones News Round-Up for January 1912, Part I
Found in California Speaking on Behalf of Striking Shopmen
From The Sacramento Bee of January 8, 1912:
SHOPMEN HEAR “MOTHER” JONES
Mother” Jones, the famous labor leader, spoke in this city for the second time Saturday night, when she addressed meeting in Socialist Hall at 1024½ J Street. Her theme was the principles of labor unionism, and her remarks were made principally in behalf of the striking shopmen. “Mother” Jones declared the strikers were right, and urged them to hold out firm against the efforts of the Harriman lines to prevent them from establishing a shop federation.
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[Photograph added.]
From the Ogden Evening Standard of January 9, 1912:
MOTHER JONES AT M. E. CHURCH ———-
Evidently holding with Kipling that “the female of the species is more deadly than the male,” Mother Jones, internationally known because of her fiery oratory in defense of labor, arraigned and chided the women of her audience in the Methodist church last night, claiming that women are always the dangerous element to the cause of labor during strikes. Mother Jones spoke under the auspices of the Harriman federation, although the expenses of her present tour over the Harriman railroad system are being bourne by the Western Federation of Miners.
The aged “guardian of the minors,” now nearing her eightieth birthday, did not lack in oratorical vigor and spoke with all the vehemence that has marked her forty years experience in the labor movement. While Mother Jones spoke with almost brutal force at times, there was withal a kindly thread of sentiment throughout her talk which softened the harshness with which she emphasized her contempt for “scabs,” “corporation lap dogs,” “capital’s spies and detectives,” “capital’s rats,” and kindred vindictive frequently used.
Mother Jones turned many of her remarks to the women of her audience, stating that because the women in many instances do not understand the economic problems of the day they often persuade their husbands or brothers to return to work when their union is on strike. She contended that a large per cent of strike breakers became strike breakers because of the urging of women. “Women,” she asserted, “are the dangerous element in every strike, because they cannot see the need of labor’s organizations and do not know the struggle between capital and labor”
[She told the women:]
If I had a husband and he had never gone on a strike I would lick him and make him go on a strike. I would not live with such a servile slave, as the worker that never strikes. This nation was founded on a strike against George III and the bravest and best men of the nation have been striking against various forms of injustice ever since. And there have always been ‘scabs,’ men who were traitors to their fellows. There were traitors in the army of Washington and there were traitors to the Immortal Lincoln; always there have been traitors but the traitors have never in the end defeated a just cause. Labor never loses. It becomes better educated with each battle and its struggles becomes more intelligent and more heroic, and in the end it cannot lose.
The gray haired speaker recounted many of her experiences in different strikes, in which she has taking place, told of facing militia bullets in Pennsylvania during the coal strike of a year ago and during the greater strike of 1904. She said that the present strike on the Harriman lines was but a symptom of the industrial disease which infected the nation and the entire world and which would never be cured until the workers themselves owned the tools with which they worked. She ridiculed those whom she termed the timid strikers who were always asking how long the strike was going to last and told them that some strikes had been on after the workers had remained away from their jobs for five years. “This strike is going to last,” she said, “until the railroad company recognizes the federation of shop workers.”
Mother Jones will leave this city today for Salt Lake City where, she will deliver an address to the striking shopmen of that city tonight.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday January 24, 1922
Mother Jones News Round-Up for August 1921
Found Advocating for Mexican Workers and Standing with West Virginia Miners
From the Salina Kansas Leader of August 4, 1921
-from The New Majority (Chicago Federation of Labor):
U. S. LABOR ASKED TO ASSIST MEXICO ———- Mother Jones Brings Request for Alliance in Fight for New Civilization
The Republican administration under President Harding is beating the tom-toms to arouse the country to stand for a war against Mexico to bind and gag that country while the oil profiteers continue to pick its pockets. Excuse has been made of a strike of oil workers to send United States gunboats to Mexican waters in an effort to cow the Mexican workers back to work for their “American” employers.
Only the labor movement of the United States can prevent war with Mexico. The Denver convention of the A. F. of L., adopted a policy of resisting such a war. The time seems to be at hand for the American unions to start their protest, if it is to become effective.
Mother Jones has just returned from her second trip to Mexico within the year. She was in Chicago last week and brought with her a message from the Mexican organized workers. Just before she left, she attended a meeting of the presidents and secretaries of the unions affiliated with the Mexican Federation of Labor. They asked her to bear this greeting to organized labor of the United States :
We send greetings to our brother workers in America and we want you, Mother Jones, to carry the message to them that the world is in the birth throes of a new civilization and that we in Mexico are coming to her aid to relieve her pain. We also wish you would ask our brothers in the United States to join us and we will stand shoulder to shoulder with them to usher in the new day and the civilization.
Now is Time to Help
If the workers of the United States are to stand shoulder to shoulder with the workers of Mexico, the job has got to begin with making impossible a war by our oil kings against the Mexican people.
Mother Jones reports that labor is making great strides in Mexico. She says that the newspaper reports that President Obregon is giving in to American demands that article 27 of the Mexican constitution be repealed are false. Article 27 vests ownership of the underground wealth of Mexico in the Mexican people.
She says that recently the Mexican government provided 300 striking miners with agricultural implements and placed them on farm lands so they could support themselves during their struggle and that in another case when the workers of a factory were locked out, the employer was compelled to reinstate them and pay their back wages.
[Said Mother Jones:]
Mothers who are employed are now retired on full pay for three months before childbirth and three months thereafter. Then for another three they bring their babies to work and have them cared for during working hours in nurseries provided by the employers. Whereas Mexican workers heretofore never knew when starvation and death would overtake them, their condition has improved so that now their children are going to school and are assured of their breakfast every morning before they go.
-New Majority.
[Photograph added.]
From North Carolina’s Wilson Times of August 5, 1921:
UNION MINERS GO TO COAL
FIELDS N MINGO COUNTY
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MOTHER JONES IS GOING ———- Union Official Sates if the Organizers Were Arrested
He Would Send More Until the Jails Were Full.
Coal Fields in Mingo County Are Under Martial Law ———-
Charleston, W. V., July 29.-100 members of the United Mine workers of America from Cabin Creek and Paint Creek fields will start for Mingo county according to C. F. Keeney, president of district No. 17.
Mother Jones, organizer, is expected to arrive here tonight and also will go to the coal fields.
The decision to send the union men into the district which is under martial law was made the miners president said after C. F. Workman an organizer was reported arrested. Keeney claimed Workman had permission from the state authorities to return to the fields to wind up his personal business.
Keeney stated if organizers were arrested he would send more until every jail was filled, and if they were not arrested it would prove “organizers can go into a strike zone unmolested.”
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday December 21, 1921
Mother Jones News Round-Up for May and June 1921
Found in Mexico City, Standing for Organization of Mexican Workers
From the Tucson Citizen of May 11, 1921:
MOTHER JONES WILL RESIDE IN MEXICO.
In January Mother Jones, the noted socialistic agitator who has been in the public eye throughout the United States through many years, went to the City of Mexico to attend an international congress of workingmen and women.
It is announced now that Mrs. Jones has decided to make her permanent residence in Mexico. She is quoted as saying that after many years of story experience in the United States including six penitentiary sentences served she finds Mexico “the only country where she can live la tranquility.”
[Photograph added.]
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Note: Mother has been taken into custody many times during her long life of standing with working people, but has never served a sentence in any penitentiary sentence that we know of.
From the Cleveland Toiler of June 4, 1921 -excerpt from article by Geo. N. Falconer:
MOTHER JONES.
Seemed as if she had been imported specially to boost the Workers’ Mexican Government. “Workers,” she shouted during her several addresses during the Pan-American Congress, “stand by your government and it will stand by you.”
“The pulse of the world is throbbing today,” declared ‘Mother’ Jones. “Humanity is watching the new Mexico. I want to tell you that there will be no intervention by the capitalist robbers of the United States in the affairs of Mexico. We won’t stand for it. We are going back to the United States and appeal to the workers there to stand by the workers here.”
When she shouted, “You are going to bring the new day in this country and center the eyes of the world on Mexico as well as Russia,” the applause was tremendous.
Didn’t Mother Jones boost for Woodrow Wilson in 1916? And Mother Jones paid many compliments to that “grand old man of labor,” King Gompers. Why? Is she so ignorant of Samuels’ labor history?
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From Proceedings of the Convention of American Federation of Labor at Denver, Colorado, June 13-25, 1921:
…..Ernest Greenwood representing the International Labor Office at Geneva, Frank Bohn, publicist, together with Mother Jones as the invited guest of General Villarreal, minister of agriculture of Mexico, accompanied the party [of representatives of the American Federation of Labor] from St. Louis to Mexico City. Mother Jones attended the meetings of the convention and spoke on two occasions.
On arrival at Nuevo Laredo we learned that that the government of Mexico had sent a reception committee representing the government and labor to the boundary line to meet and greet us…..
Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 25, 1921 Mother Jones News Round-Up for February 1921 -C. H. Newell Claims Mother Jones is Helping to Make Mexico Safe
From the Salt Lake Telegram of February 1, 1921:
MAKING MEXICO SAFE PLACE FOR ALL ———- Obregon, Villareal, Gompers and “Mother Jones” Fight Bolshevism ———
By C. H. NEWELL
MEXICO CITY, Feb. 1.-Mexico’s “big four” are Obregon, Gompers, Villareal and Mother Jones.
They’re making Mexico safe for Americans and American business.
The great American drive to capture the immensely rich Mexican trade is on full blast…..
“MOTHER” IS HELPING.
Mother Jones, America’s 90-year-young labor leader, is helping to put the skids under bolshevism in Mexico.
Her visit to Mexico, at first hailed with glee by Communist party organizers, has resolved itself into a characteristic crusade for trade union organization.
This means, employers and government officials say, a better chance for the Obregon administration to get the country back on a productive basis.
[Mother Jones says:]
Education is the fundamental need of Mexico. I’m down here to preach the gospel of education for workers.
When they get education they will know how to act to achieve full industrial as well as political rights. And the agency through which they will make the most rapid, peaceful progress is the Pan-America Labor federation, backed as it is by the American Federation of Labor.
This is what Mother Jones told the communists at the labor convention:
SAYS IT IS BEST.
Uncle Sam’s government may not be perfect, but it is the best one on earth today. So you rats may just as well understand that if you open your mouths against my country, I will grab you by the collar, drag you out of your hole, and shake hell out of you.
Mother Jones is the personal guest of General Antonio Villareal, who, as secretary of agriculture, is trying to restore farming and ranching pursuits, with real success.
Several years ago an effort was being made by mining and timber interests of northern Mexico have Villareal deported from the United States. His deportation would have meant his death.
Mother Jones made a trip to Washington in his behalf and he was not deported.
Villareal has been one of the foremost in restoring mail, wire, railway and ship service, so all important lines of communication are now open in the country.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday January 13, 1921 Mexico City – Mother Jones Greeted by Shower of Flowers
Translated from Mexico City’s El Universal of January 10, 1921:
Mother Jones Arrives in Mexico City
Upon arriving at Buena Vista station in Mexico City [on the morning of January 9th], Mother Jones was met by 2,000 workers among whom were a large feminine contingent from the factories: El Recuerdo, El Buen Tono, Tabacelera, Cigarrera, La Estrella, Departmentos Fabules, and from the Trade Union of Waitresses, etc., all of whom carried, as did the male element, the banners of their respective groups…..
Mother Jones was the object of singular interest. With ninety years on her shoulders, she is one of the most indefatigable fighters for working-class organization in the United States.
Amidst a veritable shower of flowers, Mother Jones was brought in an auto from the platform of the station to the Glorieta Cuauhtémoc, where another contingent of trade union workers were awaiting her. They applauded her and threw fragrant sprays of roses. In the Glorieta, a demonstration was organized to honor Mother Jones, and was followed by a parade to the Hotel St. Francis where several Mexican workers spoke, and the guest of honor answered. She did so in virile and intrepid language, saying , in short, that when she first visited Mexico [in 1911], she never believed the workers’ movement in this country would have reached its present numbers and effectiveness; that she had been struggling in the field of ideas and action for years and years, a a struggle which would end only with her death; that she had dedicated her existence to seeking the economic, moral, and cultural development of the working class. She ended with a tribute to the Mexican workers affirming that only on the day when a single language and a single nation would exist on earth, would human happiness have been achieved.
Mother Jones is an elderly lady whose appearance is as modest as it its admirable, a woman with a very friendly behavior.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday November 20, 1918
Laredo, Texas – Charles Moyer Spews Bitter Venom at Bill Haywood
With great sadness we report and correct the half-truths and untruths spewed by Charles Moyer at Big Bill Haywood during the recent Pan American Labor Conference held at Laredo, Texas. Charles Moyer knows what it is to face the persecutions of the ruling class. He nearly lost his life in the 1913 Michigan Copper Miners strike when he was kidnapped, shot, and deported from the strike zone by company gunthugs.
From the Chicago Day Book of December 29, 1913:
He nevertheless returned to the strike zone after his release from the hospital, and was greeted by thousands of cheering strikers and their families. That this hero would now turn on his fellow workers brings deep disappointment and sadness.
Don’t worry, Fellow Worker,
all we’re going to need
from now on is guts.
-Frank Little
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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday November 19, 1918
Laredo, Texas – A. F. of L. Defeats Plan to Assist I. W. W.
From El Paso Morning Times of November 16, 1918:
DEFEAT PLAN TO ASSIST
MEMBERS OF I.W.W.
—–
Labor Leaders at Pan-American Labor Conference
Attack Resolution Offered by Mexican
Delegates That Was Intended
to Aid Imprisoned Men.
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GOMPERS AND MOYER DENOUNCERS OF MOVE
—–
President of Mine Workers Bitter
in His Arraignment of Haywood,
Secretary of Organization,
Who Is Serving a Sentence
for Espionage.
—–
By Associated Press.
From the Appeal to Reason of February 16, 1907
Laredo, Texas, Nov. 15.-An attempt by Mexican delegates to the pan-American labor conference to have adopted a resolution aiming at the release from prison of Industrial Workers of the World today brought forth an attack on that organization by American labor leaders, who defeated the plan.
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The California Building Trades convention [of late January] unanimously adopted a resolution calling for a conference between the Socialist Party, the state A. F. of L. and the State Building Trades, with a view to united political action for the working class. Job Harriman, Mother Jones and Alexander Irvine were among the speakers at the convention.
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, spoke in this city for the second time Saturday night, when she addressed meeting in Socialist Hall at 1024½ J Street. Her theme was the principles of labor unionism, and her remarks were made principally in behalf of the striking shopmen. “Mother” Jones declared the strikers were right, and urged them to hold out firm against the efforts of the Harriman lines to prevent them from establishing a shop federation.
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