Hellraisers Journal – Monday September 10, 1900 Mother Jones News Round-Up for August 1900, Part II Found Visiting Massacre Site at Lattimer, Pennsylvania
From the Freeland Tribune of August 17, 1900:
DEMANDS OF THE MINERS ——-
[…..]
Miners marching near Hazelton, Pennsylvania, September 10, 1897.
As announced in Wednesday’s issue of the Tribune, the representatives of the United Mine Workers of America, in convention at Hazleton, adopted a resolution which calls upon the coal operators to meet delegates from the three districts in joint conference in Hazleton on Monday, August 27. [A] committee was appointed to correspond with the operators…..
The convention then adjourned. The delegates afterwards visited Lattimer, where the miners were killed three years ago by Sheriff Martin’s posse. On the exact spot where the men were shot down addresses were delivered, and the men rededicated themselves to the cause of labor. Speeches were made by President Mitchell, District President Duffy, “Mother” Jones and National Board Member James.
John Bernoski, of Shamokin, addressed the crowd in Polish. Frank Riecco, who carried the American Flag and was with the miners on that fatal day, was present and spoke a few words. On the way back many of the delegates visited St. Joseph’s cemetery, where the dead miners were buried.
The [strike] situation now hinges on the operators’ attitude next Monday.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday September 9, 1900 Mother Jones News Round-Up for August 1900, Part I Found Visiting Jailed Strikers of Georges Creek Coal District
From The Philadelphia Inquirer of August 5, 1900:
STRIKE LEADER GOES TO PRISON
FOR SIX MONTHS
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Woman Sympathizer Creates a Sensation
in a Maryland Jail
Special to The Inquirer.
CUMBERLAND, Md., Aug. 4.-William Warner, the strike leader, was sentenced this afternoon to six months in the House of Correction, having been convicted of unlawful assembly during trouble which arose at an anti-strike meeting. Seventeen miners were also sentenced. They were visited at the jail this afternoon by Mother Jones, the woman labor organizer, who created a sensation by proposing three cheers in the jail for the strikers and three hisses “for the blacklegs.” She led the cheering, as well as the hissing. Warner, who is from Pittsburg, took an appeal.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday September 8, 1900
Mother Jones News Round-Up for July 1900 Found Speaking in Baltimore for Striking Miners of Georges Creek Coal District
From the Baltimore Sun of July 26, 1900:
MOTHER JONES FOR MINERS ————— She Denounces The Courts And The Federation Gives $25.
The courts of Cumberland are God Almighty in the State of Maryland, and there is no justice for the laborer in them. They are dirty, contemptible courts, and a lot of “my boys” have been brought up before them for standing up for their rights. You know how much justice they will get. The poor man has no rights any more, and all we workers will get will be what we stand shoulder to shoulder and fight for, miners and all other workingmen included. The man or woman who will not fight for his or her rights is unworthy to be a father or mother.
With these words “Mother” Jones, the female labor agitator, opened a speech at the regular weekly meeting of the Federation of Labor last night. She had two young men, striking miners, with her, whom she called her “boys,” and said she had brought them along with her to appeal to the labor unions of Baltimore for financial aid for the strikers of the George’s Creek region. Every union in the city will be visited and asked to contribute. The Federation of Labor, at the suggestion of President Sullivan, headed a subscription for the striking mine workers with $25.
In describing the alleged deplorable condition of some of the mine workers in [West?] Virginia, where she had been endeavoring to organize unions, “Mother” Jones said:
If you could be there and see little children coming up out of the mines, you would not want to be missionaries to China, but would become missionaries to the coal fields. If those fellows over there in China had stayed at home and minded their own business they would be better off, and so would we. I don’t blame the Boxers a bit.
We had a visit from a sort of a missionary not long ago. He was looking after himself, though. This Roosevelt, the Rough Rider, comes down from New York, and, say, what happened? Why, every mine workman was made to turn out and cheer for him. Roosevelt wants a job.
The speaker made a stirring appeal for money to help the men now on strike, and alleged that the fight against the “money power” was just the same, whether conducted in Baltimore or in Cumberland.
Charles Dold, of Chicago, general organizer of the Piano Workers’ Union, stated that on Saturday he had organized a local union of 60 members. Union-made pianos are hereafter to have union labels upon them.
The nominations for officers, to be balloted for at a later meeting, were as follows:
For president, J. M. Sullivan; for first vice-president, William Biggins and George D. Simpson; for second vice-president, William H. O. Thompson and J. Pearson; recording secretary, H. L. Elchleberger; financial secretary, George Greisman; treasurer, John W. Ringrose.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday August 22, 1920 -Mother Jones News for July 1920, Part II Speech at Williamson, W. Va., Described; Found in Indianapolis
From the Buffalo Labor Journal of July 8, 1920:
MOUNTAIN MEN AROUSED —–
Williamson, W. Va. [June 20, 1920]-“The motto of West Virginia, ‘Mountainers are always free,’ will be made effective,” declared Mother Jones in an address to over 5,000 miners of Mingo county. A drenching rain did not deter the workers from coming out of the mountains, the tent colonies of evicted strikers and neighboring towns. Mayor Porter of this place assured the meeting that he was in perfect sympathy with their efforts to rid the state of Baldwin-Feltz detective thugs, employed by the coal owners.
Secretary Pauley of the West Virginia Federation of Labor told the miners that trade unionists through out the state are behind them in this fight for law and order.
The recent murder of the mayor of Matewan and other citizens by the Baldwin-Feltz detective thugs, who were attempting to evict miners without due process of law, has aroused organized labor to greater activity against these private armies of the coal owners. The same condition prevails in Logan and McDowell counties. Governor Cornwell ignores these outlaws while delivering lectures and issuing statements on the need for “100 per cent. Americanism.”
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday August 21, 1920
-Mother Jones News for July 1920, Part I
Found in Washington, D. C., after Visit to Matewan, West Virginia
From the United Mine Workers Journal of July 1, 1920:
…..Mingo county is now 100 per cent organized. Approximately 6,000 new members have been taken in in that county since the Matewan battle.
The first convention of the United Mine Workers of America ever held in Mingo county was held at Williamson, the county seat, on June 23. The sessions were held in the court house, the purpose of the convention being to formulate a set of demands as to wages and working conditions to be presented to the operators. The above photograph was taken on the court house steps, and it shows the delegates, some of the officials of District 17, and also some of the international organizers who were active in effecting the organization……
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday August 19, 1920
West Virginia – Mother Jones Speaks at Princeton, West Virginia, Part III
August 15, 1920 – Princeton, West Virginia
-Mother Jones Speaks at Public Meeting, Part III of III:
I am going to pay McDowell County a visit. They can put me in jail if they want to, but I don’t care, as I can always command more respect when I am in jail.
I knew young Al Baldwin 20 years ago. There were two Baldwins that I knew well, and if anything went wrong, they would come and tell me. One time when I went to Pocahontas the woman didn’t want to give me a room in the hotel, and young Baldwin said, “Yes, you will, give her my room.” I shall always appreciate those two men, but I want to tell you, since you became murderers—since these men are being robbed out of the coal they dig, so that we and our children have been deprived of the necessaries of life, and out of the money of which you are robbed, these Baldwin-Felts men are paid. That wasn’t done in the slavery days. The black slaves were fed and protected, and if they were sick, they were taken care of. [With all due respect to Mother Jones, this is an absurd statement: the enslaved were under the watchful eye of their master, not to protect them, but to maintain their enslavement; they were fed and cared for only in as much as that care profited their master.]
When you have as much American blood in you as the mule has, then you will be a man. I am ashamed of you. You miserable cowards. When you—you miserly un-American fellows making your living this way. You are staying where your brothers were murdered. You have to be a man to protect your brothers.
By God, I am not afraid of the Baldwin-Felts thugs. I would tell Uncle Sam straight that if he doesn’t clean them up, we will.
In 28 years the voice from labor was never raised [at Homestead]. I said to the boys, we have got to go in, and they told me they would put me in jail, and I told them that we built the jails and we had a perfect right to be put in them. Three of us went in to the steel workers. One fellow got up and told us that we were under arrest and told us to get out. I said, “Don’t you know that God Almighty never made a man that knew how to coop a woman up.” They didn’t know that anyone in the world would dare talk to the Chief of Police like that.
We were taken up to jail [August 20, 1919] and 8,000 steel workers gathered around the jail in about eight hours. There were 8,000 men there. I told them to hell with old Carnegie and all the robbers of the country. I went up to headquarters at Boston and told them not to fear the Bolsheviks, the Reds or the I. W. W. because the trouble was that the police were serving the capitalists.
But I don’t bother with them fellows.
I talk to Uncle Sam. It is up to you men not to be afraid of the newspaper men. Stand up like Americans. Join the union. Do you belong to the United Mine Workers? Say, “Yes, I do.” Put on your hat like an American.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday August 18, 1920
West Virginia – Mother Jones Speaks at Princeton, West Virginia, Part II
August 15, 1920 – Princeton, West Virginia
-Mother Jones Speaks at Public Meeting, Part II of III:
Now I am going to talk, men. I have come up against those things [the brutalities of the Baldwin-Felts gunthug system], perhaps, more than any other one person. I was up in Raleigh, and these Baldwin-Felts turned two machine guns on me—two here, and one here (pointing to each side of her head and her forehead). It was on Sunday and they put their guns against my head, but I took no back water, and they didn’t shoot them. They didn’t pull the trigger.
These Baldwin-Felts men, when they had that machine gun up there in Cabin Creek, turned that machine gun to murder thirty-six men that didn’t even have a pen-knife, and were coming down to meet me. The men screamed, and I jumped out of the buggy and went up and put my hands on the guns and told them not to shoot a bullet. They told me to take my hands off and I told them I had a right to examine them. They made me wade a creek the next day up to here (pointing), but I came back and organized the men.
I am not like you, a pack of damn measly cowards. Damn you. They are so afraid of the operators—so afraid of the managers.
Did you ever watch a mule in a mine. If a mule turns his head around and the boss goes on, the mule takes to his hind legs and says “Get the Hell out of here.”
Here is the thing. We are after this. This paper said today that I came in here and there is always trouble. Well, we are not after trouble. We are not looking for trouble. We are going to do this. The newspaper men are organized. The mine owners are organized and have their Union. The lawyers are in their Union. The sky-pilots are in their Union. The judiciary are in their Union. The merchants are in their Union. Don’t you think we have the same rights they have? Now if you don’t think so, we are going to show you, and we are not going to offer you or your press apology for doing it.
It is so sickening and nauseating to hear men talking today. We are moving.
I was along the Coast and after I had gone, the men sent for me to come back. Everywhere there is that unrest. Now, what is the cause of this unrest? It is injustice.
You cannot stop this thing with police. You cannot stop it with deportation, nor with the assassination of the press. It is the awakening. The night bell of the worker is ringing in the dawn of that new day. Hanging, deporting and shooting them is not going to stop it. There is nothing that will stop it but industrial and social justice.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday August 17, 1920
West Virginia – Mother Jones Fights for Miners, Causes Trouble for Mine Operators
From The Richmond Daily Register of August 6, 1920:
“Mother” Jones has reached the West Virginia mines and is said to be responsible for much of the recent trouble started there.
[Photograph added.]
August 15, 1920 – Princeton, West Virginia
-Mother Jones Speaks at Public Meeting, Part I of III:
My friends, in all the ages of man the human race has trod, it has looked forward to that mighty power where men could enjoy the right to live as nature intended that they should.
We have not made millionaires, but we have made billionaires on both sides of the house. We have built up the greatest oligarchy that the world has ever known in history.
On the other side, we have the greatest slaves the world has ever known. There is no getting away from that.
I am not going to abuse the operators nor the bosses for their system. The mine owners and the steel robbers are all a product of the system of industry. It is just like an ulcer, and we have got to clean the ulcer.
(Hissing from the audience.)
God—they make me sick. They are worse than an old bunch of cats yelling for their mother.
Today, the world has turned over. The average man don’t see it. The ministers don’t see it and they don’t see what is wrong. They cannot see it. But the man who sits in the tower and his fortune of clouds clash, knows there is a cause for those clouds clashing before the clap of thunder comes. All over the world is the clashing of clouds. In the office, the doctor don’t pay attention to it. The man who watches the clouds don’t understand it. People want to watch the battle.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday August 14, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for July 1910, Part II:
-Found Praised for Her Work on Behalf of Mexican Comrades
From the Appeal to Reason of July 2, 1910:
Mother Jones in Washington.
Mother Jones has for two weeks been in Washington where she went to testify in behalf of the Mexican politician refugees. She has been courteously received even by members of congress who have no special leaning to labor’s cause, and was admitted to an audience with Taft. She said this was a courtesy which was denied her by Roosevelt. After she had laid the case of the Mexican prisoners before the president, Taft remarked:
“Mother, I am afraid if I were to put the pardoning power in your hands, there wouldn’t be any men left in the penitentiaries.”
To this Mother Jones replied:
And, indeed, Mr. President, if this nation spent half as much money keeping men out as she does keeping them in, we wouldn’t need so many penitentiaries.
Mother described her residence to Washington reporters as “wherever there is a labor war,” which is literally true.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday August 13, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for July 1910, Part I:
-Found with Miners of Hazleton and Coleraine, Pennsylvania
From the Shenandoah Evening Herald of July 6, 1910:
Mother Jones Coming.
Mother Jones who led the McAdoo marchers in 1900 and who was stricken in a western city some months ago has partially recovered and is expected to arrive in Hazleton this week to spend several weeks, in the hope of regaining her former health and vigor.
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[Photograph added.]
From the Pottsville Republican of July 16, 1910:
Mother Jones at Hazleton.
“Mother” Jones, who took a leading part to two of the big miners’ strikes some years ago, arrived in Hazleton to remain for three or four days. She may make one or more addresses. She was recently stricken ill in Cincinnati, O., but has fully recovered.
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From the Shenandoah Evening Herald of July 19, 1910:
“Mother” Jones to Speak.
“Mother” Jones, who is at Hazleton for a week or ten days, will be the principal speaker at a big rally to be held at Coleraine on Thursday night.
From the Pittston Gazette of July 23, 1910:
Mother Jones at Coleraine.
Mother Jones, who came to this region over a week ago to recuperate her health, is rapidly gaining in strength and in a few weeks will have regained her former vigor and activity. Last night she addressed the miners at Coleraine and was given a rousing welcome, particularly by the breaker boys.-Hazleton Standard.
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