Tag: Mother Mary Harris Jones

Hellraisers Journal: From the New York Liberator: “The Wars of West Virginia” by Robert Minor, Part II of IV

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Mother Jones, Doomed, Wmsn WV, June 20, 1920, Speeches Steel, p213———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday August 3, 1920
Robert Minor Reports on Efforts to Organize Mingo County

From the New York Liberator of August 1920:

WV Mingo Logan Coal Wars by Robert Minor, Lbtr p7, Aug 1920

II of IV

UMW D17, Mooney Keeney, Lbtr p9, Aug 1920

When the United States entered the World War and the getting-out of coal became important, the United Mine Workers of District 17, comprising the southern half of West Virginia, grew in membership from five thousand to forty-two thousand. Young and energetic leaders developed out of the coal pits, advances were made in pay, and the workday was reduced from nine to eight hours.

In 1919, Unionism knocked hard on Old Man Baldwin’s door, and even slipped her foot over his sill. Unionism entered Logan County. Logan County is the “fortified town” of Don Chafin. Old Man Baldwin ruled Mercer, McDowell, Wyoming and Mingo Counties from his headquarters at Bluefield, but the County of Logan is held by his ally, Don Chafin, officially known as County Clerk.

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Hellraisers Journal: From the New York Liberator: “The Wars of West Virginia” by Robert Minor, Part I of IV

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Mother Jones Robbers Tremble, Montgomery WV, Aug 4, 1912———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday August 2, 1920
Robert Minor Travels to West Virginia to Report on Coalfield Wars

From the New York Liberator of August 1920:

WV Mingo Logan Coal Wars by Robert Minor, Lbtr p7, Aug 1920

I of IV

Robert Minor, ed, KC Wkrs Wld p1, Sept 19, 1919

As the train from Charlottesville ran through the Blue Ridge Mountains, a Negro looked out of the window, arose and walked from the stuffy compartment “for colored people” into a more comfortable car marked “for whites.” From that I knew the train had passed into West Virginia. The Negro sat down facing a weatherbeaten man with a white mustache and a broad-brimmed hat. The white man’s face did not change expression at the Negro’s entrance, and from that I knew that the white man was a mountaineer of the West and not an inhabitant of Old Virginia.

From Chesapeake Bay, across the Blue Ridge Mountains and away up around the southwest corner o£ Pennsylvania, used to extend the domain of Old Virginia. But the rich planters of the eastern valleys went to war against the Union, and the “po’ white” men hoeing their corn alone on the mountains and not owning any n——, refused to follow. The new State of West Virginia was made of these soft green mountains and lonely cabins and corn patches.

For another generation the people of the mountains hoed their corn. Then somebody discovered that the green-covered mountains were made of coal. The railroads began to scratch their way through the green, and to nose out the great black insides that were worth more than the cabins and corn patches. Men from Northern cities took part in West Virginia affairs and soon could prove with legal papers that they owned the black contents of the mountains and the green surface, too.

Many mountain families quit hoeing corn. They settled near the coal pits where regular wages and store clothes seemed to offer more of a living. The population passed from the outside of the mountains to the inside of them, and the grip of the men with the title deeds dosed down hard upon all.

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for June 1920, Part II: Found Speaking in Mingo County, WV: “You can’t make me take back water”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Every Damned Robber, Wmsn WV, June 20, 1920, Speeches Steel p222———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday July 25, 1920
-Mother Jones News for June 1920, Part II
Found Speaking in Williamson, Mingo County, West Virginia

From Hellraisers Journal of June 23, 1920:

Williamson, West Virginia – Sunday Evening June 20, 1920
-Mother Jones Speaks at Public Meeting in Front of Courthouse.

[Excerpts from Part II of Speech of Mother Jones]

[Mother Jones on Agitators.]

Mother Jones, NYC Dly Ns p12, May 7, 1920

I went to a meeting and the secretary of the steel workers went with me. He got up to speak. They took him. The next fellow got up; they took him. I got up. They arrested me. I wouldn’t walk. They had to ride me. A big old Irish buck of a policeman said, “You will have to walk.” “No, I can’t.” “Can you walk?” “No, I can’t.” “We will take you down to jail and lock you up behind the bars.”

After a few minutes the chief came along.
“Mother Jones?”
“Yes, sir.”

“There is some of the steel managers here want to speak to you.”
“All right, let the gentlemen come in. I am sorry gentlemen, I haven’t got chairs to give you.” (Laughter.)

One good fellow says, “Now, Mother Jones, this agitation is dangerous. You know these are foreigners, mostly.”
“Well, that is the reason I want to talk to them. I want to organize them into the United States as a Union so as to show them what the institution stands for.”

“They don’t understand English,” he says.
I said, “I want to teach them English. We want them into the Union so they will understand.”
“But you can’t do that. This agitation won’t do. Your radicalism has got to go.”
I said, “Wait a minute, sir. You are one of the managers of the steel industry here?”
“Yes.”
“Wasn’t the first emigrant that landed on our shore an agitator?”
“Who was he?”
“Columbus. Didn’t he agitate to get the money from the people of Spain? Didn’t he agitate to get the crew, and crossed the ocean and discovered America for you and I?

“Wasn’t Washington an agitator? Didn’t the Mayflower bring over a ship-full of agitators? Didn’t we build a monument to them down there in Massachusetts. I want to ask you a question. Right today in and around the City of Pittsburgh I believe there has assembled as many as three hundred thousand people [bowing the knee to Jesus during Easter season.] Jesus was an agitator, Mr. Manager. What in hell did you hang him for if he didn’t hurt your pockets?” He never made a reply. He went away.

He was the manager of the steel works; he was the banker; he was the mayor; he was the judge; he was the chairman of the city council. Just think of that in America—and he had a stomach on him four miles long and two miles wide. (Laughter.) And when you looked at that fellow and compared him with people of toil it nauseated you.

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for June 1920, Part I: Found in Mingo County, WV: “Workers Must Be Waked From Their Sleep.”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Doomed, Wmsn WV, June 20, 1920, Speeches Steel, p213———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday July 24, 1920
-Mother Jones News for June 1920, Part I
Found Speaking in Williamson, Mingo County, West Virginia

From the Baltimore Evening Sun of June 10, 1920:

REPORTS COMPANIES TERRORIZE MINERS
—–
Lawyers Sent To Pike County, Kentucky, By Union,
Tells Of Brutalities Perpetrated.
—–

FEARFUL DEPUTIES WILL BRING ON GREAT TRAGEDY
—–
Tells Of Man’s Hands Shot Off And Of Others
Chained Together On Long March.
—–

(Special Dispatch to the Evening Sun.)

Mother Jones, NYC Dly Ns p12, May 7, 1920

Charleston, W. Va., June 10.- Conditions in Pike county, Kentucky, are described in a written report to headquarters of the United Mine Worker here by Thomas West, attorney, of Williamson, W. Va., who visited the scene of the trouble. Pike county is opposite Matewan, across Tug river, in which section mine workers are organizing, miners being evicted from their homes by coal companies after joining the union. Frank Keeney, miner’ district president, asked West to go into Pike county, which he did. He reported:

The miners were chained together and, with a mounted armed guard, were walked through to Pike, 25 or 30 miles away, in a pouring rain. Mud was almost knee deep. Pike county deputies shot a man’s bands off on the Kentucky side at Borderland. About 30 of them are terrorizing both aides of the river. The miners came to Williamson and asked for assistance. I would not be surprised to hear any minute of a tragedy which would make the Matewan difficulty look like 30 cents. Pike county deputies were all drunk. In my opinion they constituted one of the most dangerous gangs of men I have ever come in contact with. I would not go back into Pike county for any amount of money.

The Borderland Coal Company and the Pond Creek Coal Company have employed the detectives. Fred Mooney, miners secretary, requested Attorney General Palmer to take some action. Governor Morrow, of Kentucky, was also asked by Mooney to help. It is feared that miners of Matewan will secure arms and cross the Kentucky Border to help their fellow miners. Mother Jones is here and will go to Pike county.

———-

[Photograph added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for June 1910, Part III: “Friend of Labor” Interviewed in Washington, D. C., by Selene Armstrong

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Husband Children, WDC Tx p5, June 18, 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday July 19, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for June 1910, Part III:
-Interviewed by Selene Armstrong in Washington, D. C.

From The Washington Times of June 18, 1910:

Mother Jones, Home ed, WDC Tx p5, June 18, 1910

Mother Jones, WDC Tx p5, June 18, 1910Thus spoke Mother Jones, the plucky little white-haired woman, whose home, to use her own words, is “wherever there’s a labor war, and the President of the United States, when she had journeyed across half a continent to lay before him for the first time the cases of a number of political refugees in prison in Arizona, Kansas, and other Western States.

Today and on other days this week, Mother Jones has been busy at the Capitol, where it said that members of certain committees before which she has appeared have gasped for breath and begged for mercy before she had finished outlining to them their duties in regard to the Mexicans whose freedom she seeks from the Government.

Meets Old Friends.

She has hobnobbed with her old friends Representatives Wilson and Nicholls of Pennsylvania, and has made new friends of many other statesmen, who, however little they sympathize with her decided views on this or that public question, cannot harden their hearts against the cheery good humor and keen wit which radiate from her.

When asked by Chairman Dalzell of the Rules Committee of the House, before which she has appeared this week, to state her place of residence, Mother Jones replied:

My home is wherever there a labor war, sir.

The life story of this little woman with the snow white hair, the childlike blue eyes, and the look of perennial youthfulness on her face, would, if it were written, be the history of the of cause of organized labor. For thirty years she has traveled throughout the length and breath of the land in order to stand by the workers in time of stress. In the roughest mining camps of the West, and in the crowded tenement districts of eastern cities, she has brought to the women of the working class a woman’s gentle counsel, and to the men sagacity and keen judgement the equal of a man’s.

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for June 1910, Part II: Found Testifying Before House Rules Committe on Behalf of Mexican Refugees

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, No Abiding Place, WDC Hse Com Testimony, June 14, 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday July 18, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for June 1910, Part II:
-Found in Washington, D. C., Testifying Before House Committee

From the San Francisco Call of June 15, 1910:

“MOTHER” JONES DENOUNCES DIAZ
—–
Mexican Refugees Persecuted by American Officers,
She Tells House Committee
—–
Writer Declares Los Angeles Detectives Open
Private Letters in Postoffice
—

Mother Jones, WDC Tx p5, June 18, 1910

WASHINGTON, June 14.—”Mother” Jones addressed the rules committee of the house today in behalf of the Mexican refugees, who, it is alleged, are being persecuted in the United States through the agencies of American officers and Mexican government “spies.”

Mrs. Jones related that while she was in Douglas, Ariz., addressing a meeting, of “the unorganized slaves who work in the smelters,” she witnessed the kidnaping of a Mexican refugee, who, she said, was seized, strangled, thrown into an automobile and carried across the line into Mexico.

“Mother” Jones” denounced President Diaz of Mexico for sending “his hirelings across the border to crush the constitution of our country.”

John Kenneth Turner, a magazine writer, and John Murray, a newspaper writer, continued their testimony. The offering of evidence was finished today and the committee will decide within a few days whether an investigation by congress shall be recommended.

Murray testified to the opening of his own mail and that of a large number of other persons by the American authorities.

Turner said he had discovered city detectives in the Los Angeles postoffice examining the mail of Mexican residents there. He also told of the suppression by the authorities of many small newspapers published by Mexican refugees in various cities in Texas, California and Arizona.

———-

[Photograph added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for June 1910, Part I: Found Resting and Recovering from Illness at Grand Hotel in Cincinnati, Ohio

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, No Abiding Place, WDC Hse Com Testimony, June 14, 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday July 17, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for June 1910, Part I:
-Found Recovering from Illness at Grand Hotel in Cincinnati, Ohio

From The Cincinnati Post of June 2, 1910:

MOTHER JONES IS GROWING WORSE,
LONGS FOR “BOYS”
—–

Mother Jones Ill, Coshocton OH Tb p1, June 1, 1910

Mother Jones, “Angel of the Mines,” who is ill at the Grand Hotel, is worse, according to Attorney Nicholas Klein, who has been in attendance at her bedside. From her bedside Thursday came word that what was considered a slight nervous breakdown had developed into a serious illness.

From the sick woman came a pathetic wish characteristic of her life devoted to the workers in the mines.

“I want to get well,” she said. “I want to be able to get back among the boys.”

When stricken a few days ago, after she had filled an engagement at an outing given by Cincinnati Socialists, she refused to believe she was seriously endangered. She continued with her plans for brightening the lives of the toilers and preaching a gospel of optimism.

“It is nothing.” she said, and Dr. S. J. D. Meade, who is attending her, sought to encourage that belief. Dr. Meade says she will recover as soon as she gets a good rest.

For years the little woman has been the light-hearted ally of the miners throughout the nation.

———-

[Newsclip added from Coshocton Daily Tribune of June 1st.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for June 1900, Part III: Mother Jones Returns to Georges Creek District to Assist Striking Miners

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote JA Wayland, Mother Jones, AtR p1, Mar 17, 1900———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday July 12, 1900
Mother Jones News Round-Up for June 1900, Part III
Found Returning to Georges Creek Coal District to Assist Striking Miners

From the Washington Times of June 28, 1900:

WARRANTS FOR STRIKERS.
—–
The Lonaconing Editor’s Assailants
to be Arrested.

Mother Jones, Atlanta Constitution p9, June 8, 1900CUMBERLAND, June 27.-Warrants have been issued for the arrest of Lonaconing rioters. Joseph J. Robinson, editor of the Lonaconing Star, Robert A. L. Dick, who addressed tho anti-strike meeting; Mayor Thompson and others have made information. It is expected that another batch will be sworn out in the case of the brutal assault on James Stapleton, the roadsman yesterday. The region is being patrolled by union miners and a fresh outbreak is expected at any time. “Mother” Jones, the famous woman agitator, has returned to the region and is lending to the excitement.

Hugh Muir, a prominent resident of Lonaconing and a member of the United Mine Workers, was here yesterday to obtain advice regarding entering a libel suit against one of the strike leaders. The charge grows out of a publication by a strike organization. The organization seems to be divided and is believed by many to be disintegrating.

[Photograph added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for June 1900, Part II: “Labor’s Joan of Arc” -Leads Strikers, Comforts Wife and Child

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote JA Wayland, Mother Jones, AtR p1, Mar 17, 1900———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday July 11, 1900
Mother Jones News Round-Up for June 1900, Part II
Fondly Remembered in Birmingham as “Labor’s Joan of Arc”

From the Birmingham Labor Advocate of June 16, 1900:

MOTHER JONES
—–
“I Have Devoted Myself to Humanity.”
—–

LABOR’S JOAN OF ARC
—–
Comforts the Wife and Child,
Touches as With a Mother’s Hand
the Brow of the Sick,
and Leads the Strikers.
—–

Mother Jones, Atlanta Constitution p9, June 8, 1900Mother Jones, who is distinguishing herself and honoring her dear old gray head by her efforts in labor’s cause in Pennsylvania and Maryland, is well and affectionately known in Birmingham, where she labored a few years ago, largely in the interest of cotton mill serfs. God bless her. No truer, braver or more devoted champion of the right ever graced the earth.

We are making history, and she will live in its pages. Her life will be held up as an example to emulate in that better day when right shall rule.

The following article is clipped from the editorial page of the Philadelphia North American, illustrated by a double column likeness of our well-beloved sister:

“Mother” Mary Jones comes to the front again, as is evidenced from the reports from the George’s Creek coal mining region of Maryland. By talking to the miners and their families there she has persuaded them to remain on strike. The scenes attending the speech-making of Mother Jones are intensely dramatic, as, indeed, they well might have been, judging by the Meyersdale situation and the character of the woman labor leader.

Mrs. Mary Jones is better known among the workmen of the United States and especially among the miners, as “Mother.” She has earned the title by the truly motherly manner in which she cares for the families of those men who happen to be on strike in her neighborhood. As she says, “the women are great factors in a strike.” By controlling the women and children, Mother Jones is able to win many strikes for the men.

“A man can face the devil.” says Mother Jones, “but he can’t stand out against capitalism and its servants when the wife points to the little children and says there is no bread.”

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for June 1900, Part I: Found Marching with Striking Miners of Georges Creek Coal District

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote JA Wayland, Mother Jones, AtR p1, Mar 17, 1900———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday July 10, 1900
Mother Jones News Round-Up for June 1900, Part I
Found Marching with Striking Miners of Georges Creek Coal District

From the Baltimore Sun of June 1, 1900:

THE MINERS’ STRIKE
—–
Mother Jones Rallies The Union Men
At Knapp’s Meadow.

(Special Dispatch to the Baltimore Sun.)

Mother Jones, Kenosha Ns WI p7, June 26, 1900CUMBERLAND, Md., May 31.-“Mother” Jones, the noted woman organizer of Punxsutawney, Pa., arrived in the George’s creek mining region today accompanied by District President Allan Barber. They had been attending the miners’ celebration at Dubois, Pa. Mother Jones was accorded great honors. She at once took hold of affairs, Organizer William Warner and Thomas Haggerty becoming secondary in importance.

This afternoon over three hundred miners from Frostburg, Eckhart and Vale Summit, headed by Mother Jones, who is regarded as a Joan of Arc in the present struggle, started on a march to Knapp’s Meadow, one mile from Lonaconing, where a meeting had been called today. The circular call was supposed to have been issued from non-union sources and the union men proceeded to capture the meeting. Mother Jones rode in a carriage and Organizers Warner and Haggerty followed on foot. The procession marched to music from a bass drum, a fife and a horn. A number of banners were carried bearing inscriptions demanding 60 cents a ton. The procession marched and countermarched through the main streets of Lonaconing. But few miners of Lonaconing participated in the parade and but few attended the meeting at Knapp’s Meadow.

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