Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks at Pittsburg, Kansas-Addresses Convention of District 14, United Mine Workers of America

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JP White re Mother Jones, Pittsburg KS, Apr 30, 1914, Speeches Steel p130—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday May 2, 1914
Pittsburg, Kansas – Mother Jones Speaks at Convention of U. M. W. A., District 14

From the Pittsburg Workers’s Chronicle of May 1, 1914:

Mother Jones Addresses Conv, UMW D14, Pittsburg Ks, Apr 30, Workers Chc p1, May 1, 1914

Yes, she swears. Says “dam” and “hell” and other such words. That’s Mother Jones. But did you ever hear people swear when it sounded like a benediction or a prayer? Mother don’t swear like other folks. Some way or other her swear words are more like poetry than vulgarity. Ask ANYONE who ever heard her.

She spoke to the delegates at the convention yesterday morning and not a miner in that hall will ever forget her message. Among other things she said:

I was asked by the congressional committee if I was opposed to sending the federal troops into Colorado, “I certainly am” I said. I am deadly opposed to bayonets being sent into any strike district where an industrial conflict is being waged. The miners in Colorado have had bayonets for months. They are not needed. Justice is what they want, not bayonets.

Out of the past eleven months I have served more than six of them in the bastiles of West Virginia and Colorado. I have seen the suffering of these wretched strikers, their ragged and defenseless wives and their starving babies in these strike districts and human pen or tongue will never be able to adequately portray the awful scenes enacted there.

She told of the Greek, Louis Tikas, whose truce with the gunmen of Mr. Rockefeller, ended in his murder; of the 51 bullet holes in his body and its laying exposed for days after his infamous murder. Told of his coming to her early in the strike and in his broken language and with tears streaming down his bronzed cheeks explaining how his Greek government had tried to draft him into the Balkan war and how he resented it to the extent that he was almost branded as a coward by the minions of that government’s plutocracy. This, however, was a fight of his class and he was willing to die a thousand deaths rather than see his fellow workers submit to the shackles of the mine owner corporations.

In dealing with the Colorado and West Virginia strikes she said that the ones who had died had not given up their lives in vain, but that they had died for a great cause.

When the congressional committee asked her if it would be acceptable if Rockefeller would consent to grant every demand of the miners except the one compelling recognition of the U. M. W. of A. she replied: “NO! We’ll give up every demand before that. It is the meat in the nut and without it we would be just as helpless as before.”

It might be well to state that Mother Jones’ confinement in Colorado was due to a fight for a principle. In 1904 what is known as “The Moyer” decision was passed by the supreme court. That decision gave to the military the right to arrest and confine any person without preferring charges of any kind against them. This was one of the most infamous decisions against labor ever rendered and has been the instrument with which more than one strike has been broken. Her fight was to get out of jail on a writ of habeas corpus and secure the reversal of that infamous Moyer decision. Up to the present time they have managed to evade the testing of the law but Mother Jones is still after them and if it is within human power to secure a reversal she will assuredly secure it.

Mother Jones came direct from Denver to Girard [home of the Appeal to Reason] where she arrived on Wednesday night. She will return to the strike zone immediately after a monster protest meeting in Kansas City next Sunday. She speaks in Frontenac at the May Day celebration today. Don’t fail to hear her.

[Emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Thousands Gather in Denver for Rain-Soaked Protest Meeting; Ammons Denounced; Mother Jones Speaks

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Quote Mother Jones, Fight n Keep On, Hzltn Pln Spkr p4, Nov 15, 1900—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 27, 1914
Denver, Colorado – Thousands Gather to Protest Slaughter of the Innocent at Ludlow

From The Denver Post of April 27, 1914:

Photos Denver Mass Meeting Protest re Ludlow, Crowd, Doyle, Vetter, DP p3, Apr 27, 1914HdLn re Denver Apr 26, Mass Mtg Protest re Ludlow, DP p3, Apr 27, 1914

[Photos above: Top: Crowd standing in the rain at the state house. Bottom left: Edward Doyle. Bottom right: Jesse Vetter.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Thousands Gather in Denver for Rain-Soaked Protest Meeting; Ammons Denounced; Mother Jones Speaks”