Hellraisers Journal –Wednesday October 29, 1919
Mother Jones News for September 1919, Part I
Duquesne, Pennsylvania – Mother Jones Arrested for Organizing Steel Workers
From the New York Sun of September 8, 1919:
RAID ENDS MEETING OF STEEL WORKERS
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Mother Jones and Other Organizers
Seized in Duquesne.
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Special Dispatch to THE SUN.
PITTSBURG, Sept. 7.-Duquesne was the scene of much excitement on the part of the police and union organizers this afternoon when Police Chief Thomas Flynn and a squad of patrolmen appeared at an open air meeting at Linden and River avenues, where more than 1,000 steel workers had assembled, and arrested four labor organizers, including “Mother” Jones, the veteran organizer, and forty steel workers. The organizers were charged with holding a public meeting without a permit and the workmen were charged with illegal congregating. After staying in the Duquesne police station four hours they were released on forfeits for a hearing to-morrow.
Mother Jones with William Z. Foster
The organizers arrested besides “Mother” Jones were William Z. Foster, secretary of the national committee for organizing iron and steel workers; J. L. Beaghen, president of the Pittsburg Bricklayers Union, and an American Federation of Labor organizer, and J. M. Patterson, vice-president of the Brotherhood of Railway Car Men.
The organizers said the meeting was being held on a vacant lot, the owner of which had given permission.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday October 25, 1919
Gary, Indiana – Mother Jones: “Fight for Righteousness and Justice on Earth”
Mother Jones at Gary, Indiana, October 23, 1919:
Christ himself would agitate against [the Steel Barons]. He would agitate against the plutocrats and hypocrites who tell the workers to go down on their knees and get right with God. Christ, the carpenter’s son, would tell them to stand up on their feet and fight for righteousness and justice on the earth.
[Emphasis added.]
From The New York Times of October 24, 1919:
-The kept press is suddenly concerning itself with strike violence. Not a word, have they, of course, for the strikers and organizers (including Mrs. Fannie Sellins) slaughtered thus far, before and during the strike. But should the strikers decide to get off their knees and stand up and fight for their lives, well, that’s another matter altogether.
MOTHER JONES URGES STRIKERS TO VIOLENCE
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Col. Mapes Says Situation in Gary Is Serious
and Orders Troops to Shoot Rioters.
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Special to The New York Times.
CHICAGO, Oct. 23.-Making the first public appeal for violence since the steal strike started in the Calumet region and declaring herself a Bolshevik, Mother Jones stirred to enthusiasm some twelve hundred strikers and their wives in Turner Hall, Gary, Ind., today following the refusal of the authorities to permit her to speak in East Side Park.
Mother Jones with William Z. Foster -from New York Daily News of October 1, 1919
[Said Mother Jones, who was cheered for five minutes:]
So this is Gary. Well, we’re going to change the name and we’re going to take over the steal works and were going to run them for Uncle Sam. It’s the damned gang of robbers and their political thieves that will start the American revolution and it won’t stop until every last one of them is gone.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday October 24, 1909
Mother Jones Praises Article by Turner on Brutality of Mexican Government
From the Appeal to Reason of October 23, 1909:
Mexico and Murder
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BY MOTHER JONES
I RISEto ask the American people, have you read John K. Turner’s article in the American Magazine for October on the frightful brutality of the Mexican government towards its people? If not, read it at once. Then ask your Christian minister why they are silent in the face of this frightful tragedy at our very doors.
Why are they silent? Because they worship at the shrine of Mammon.
If the Revolutionary fathers could come back to earth, the first question they would ask would be what has become of the national pride? Did it die with the immortal Lincoln? Look at the frightful pictures in the American Magazine. Imagine these lashes falling on your flesh. See and feel the blood dripping from your body. Go down to Belem prison see the shocking pictures there. Then, men and women, ask yourselves, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Look at their lacerated bodies, their hopeless lives.
They ask you, does God sleep? No, he does not. He will wipe out injustice with suffering, wrong with blood, and sin with death. The disgraceful phase of it all is that we stand and see the public officials whom we pay, become bloodhounds and man-grabbers in the service of bloody Diaz.
Hellraisers Journal –Friday October 17, 1919
Mother Jones News for August 1919, Part II
Homestead, Pennsylvania – Mother Jones Arrested for Speaking to Steel Workers
From the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader of August 21, 1919:
SEIZE MOTHER JONES
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Pittsburgh, Aug. 21.-“Mother” Jones, J. G. Brown, of Seattle; J. L Boghan [J. L. Beaghen], of Chicago, and R. W. Riley, of Homestead, organizers of the American Federation of Labor, were arrested last night in Fifth avenue, Homestead, when they attempted to hold a mass-meeting on the street. Acting Chief of Police Hood, who made the arrests, charged them with violating a borough ordinance when they were unable to produce a permit for the meeting.
When the automobile from which “Mother” Jones was speaking when she was ordered to stop by Chief Hood carried her and the other speakers toward the Homestead police station, a crowd of 1000 persons, mostly foreigners, who had gathered in Firth avenue,followed. Amity street in front of the police station, was blocked by the crowd for half a block on either side of the station.
“Mother” Jones and the others were released on forfeits. Mounting the rear seat of the automobile which carried her to the police station, “Mother” Jones addressed the crowd and advised them to “go home and be good boys”. After the crowd had cheered her, “Mother” Jones asked that they give three cheers for the United States and then told them to go home.
Hellraisers Journal –Thursday October 16, 1919
Mother Jones News for August 1919, Part I
Clairton, Pennsylvania – Mother Jones Stands with Steel Workers
From The Quarry Workers Journal of August 1919:
[T]he same spirit [of liberty] that impelled men to fight for freedom in other times is not dead now. Mother Jones, gray-haired, stooped and bent under the load of her 89 years of fighting for labor, but with a soul on fire and the flash of her eyes undimmed, hearing of the outrages [against union organizers] in North Clairton, sent a wire demanding that she be billed for a speech in North Clairton on Sunday, Aug. 10. Her offer has been accepted. Thousands of mine workers, in grateful remembrance of the many sacrifices Mother Jones has made for them, insist that they too are going to be in North Clairton and if she is going to be dragged to jail by the brutal Carnegie Steel Co police with the sanction of the municipal authorities, they want to be eye-witnesses’ to the depths to which corporate hirelings can sink.
The spirt of liberty still lives! The American Federation of Labor proposes to plant its banner in every steel center in western Pennsylvania. Other national figures in the labor movement will follow Mother Jones. Wires are pouring into the office of the national committee for organizing iron and steel workers announcing the names of men who wish to enlist “for the duration of the war.” North Clairton and other autocratic boroughs will have to back up. Democracy is on the ascendency. Justice for labor is the cry that is encircling the world and wise men will heed this cry.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday October 15, 1909
Mother Jones News Round-Up for September 1909:
-Found Speaking at Labor Day Celebration in Lead, South Dakota
From The Deadwood Daily Pioneer-Times of September 1, 1909:
From the Appeal to Reason of September 4, 1909:
Mother Jones Doing Good Work.
Mother Jones is speaking in Texas and New Mexico in behalf of the accused [Mexican] revolutionists and is attracting great crowds of workers. Even the papers are compelled by the force of public opinion to speak well of her work. The Houston Chronicle recently devoted a column to her full of praise. It quotes her as saying:
I hope the time will come when the lead which is now used for making bullets will be used for making type to educate the masses.
Everywhere she goes she is greeted with large and enthusiastic audiences.
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Note: We last found Mother in Texas, speaking in San Antonio, on August 21st.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday October 11, 1899
Arnot, Pennsylvania – Agitator Mrs. Mary Jones on Scene of Miners Strike
From the Philadelphia Times of October 9, 1899:
Elmira Daily Gazette and Free Press October 7, 1899
MINERS EVICTED
FROM THEIR HOMES
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Blossburg Miners Are Facing
Starvation by Reason
of Their Strike.
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WILL NOT YIELD A POINT
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Special Telegram to The Times.
Arnot, October 8.
The strike situation hereabouts is becoming serious, and the sufferings of the miners will be severe if an agreement is not soon reached with the Blossburg Coal Company. During the past week the company has discharged its superintendent, ordered the mules sold and made preparations to close down the mines permanently.
Although the strikers have been out sixteen weeks, and are facing certain starvation, they are as determined as ever not to “cave in” to the company, as they term it. The action of the miners in deciding to return to work, and then changing their minds after hearing the harangues of Mrs. Mary Jones, a woman labor agitator of Pittsburg, has apparently aroused the ire or the officials of the company.
Evicted Their Tenants.
As soon as the intention of the miners to remain out became known the company took steps to evict the men who occupied houses belonging to the company for non-payment Thus far thirty-six families have been forced from the houses which they have occupied for years. The evictions were effected by Sheriff Johnston and a force of deputies from Wellsboro. There was no show of force. Those who had no place to go were taken in by neighbors who own their own houses, and are therefore out of reach of the company’s eviction process.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday October 8, 1919
Buffalo, New York – Mother Jones Speaks to Striking Steel Workers
Mother Jones spoke Thursday evening, October 2nd, at Miller’s Harmonia Hall and said in part:
The revolution is on and nothing can stop is now. Old George III didn’t think the Americans would rise and lick h— out of him, and Gary thinks the same way. They call me an agitator well, the United States was founded on agitation by radicals, and we will make no apologies for that name if that is what they want to call us until we clean the whole lot of them out. American liberty was bought not by the money of men like Gary, but by the blood of men like you, who have left you that glorious emblem, the Stars and Stripes, of which the first stripe is red the color of the blood they shed.
The labor union represents the only Christianity of the present time. The labor union has done more of humanity than all the churches, universities, Y. M. C. A. and other institutions of capitalism. When the miners’ union took the children out of the mines and put them into the school the cry of anarchy went up. The master class has a new word now-Bolshevism-for those who do not agree with the capitalists. If Bolshevism makes the world any better for the workers, I am for the Bolsheviki. I want the spies who have followed me all day today to know this.
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[Photograph added is from New York Daily News of October 1, 1919.]
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday October 7, 1919
Buffalo, New York – Steel Strikers Standing Firm as Gibraltar
From Buffalo Labor Journal of October 2, 1919:
STEEL STRIKERS HOLDING FIRMLY
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Propaganda in Sunday Papers Fails in Desired Effect
-Gunmen Modest in Their Retirement
-Big Mill and the Assessors
A flood of printer’s ink and a mountain of good white paper was utterly wasted in the campaign of propaganda which the barons of the Steel Trust and their affiliations poured forth in last Sunday’s papers of this good, old America of ours.
According to the writings of the lads employed by Kaiser Gary and his entourage, the gates of the big mills would be choked on Monday morning with the men, eager to bend their backs to the crack of the driver’s whip
Their fond anticipations failed to realize and there was no response to the weasel voice of the hired scribblers. The men are standing as firm as the rock of Old Gibraltar.
None went back-divel the wan.
In all this pyrotechnical display of the propagandists we fail to catch the sonorous voice of our old friend, False Alarm Donner. In the first week of the strike Donner could be heard with his discordant bray over the thunderous voices of both master and men. That lad made a high mark for himself as the Grand Claimant of All. He spouted interviews like a Texan oil gusher.
They have put the soft pedal on Donner and the atmosphere no longer vibrates with his amazing prognostications.
So much for friend Donner; now for the big mill with its company houses, its Moses Taylor hospital, its Smokes Creek and its favored assessments. All are interwoven closely with its desire for welfare work and its Oh! Be Joyful efforts at uplifting.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday September 20, 1919
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – Mother Jones Arrives to “Raise Hell”
From the Fairmont West Virginian of September 18, 1919:
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“I’ve Come to Raise Hell!”
Mother Jones Announces
Famous Labor Worker is
in Pittsburgh for the
Steel Strike.
—–
By LEE J. SMITS.
N. E. A. Staff Correspondent.
PITTSBURGH, Pa., Sept. 18.-The chief of police in a steel town said: “I’d rather see a mob of armed strikers marching down Main street than have that old lady arrive on the scene.”
He meant Mother Jones.
From mine fields of West Virginia and Colorado; from every field where labor and capital have battled, come the tales of this white-haired warrior, who has been in jail more times than she can remember, who is called a demon by her foes and an angel by her friends.
She says she is 89 years old, but her voice rings out like a bugle call and she expects to see labor triumphant, not only in the steel strike, but in every industry in the United States.
“I came here to raise hell,” said Mother Jones, as she looked up from her sewing to welcome me.
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