Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for October 1916: Aids New York Street Car Strike & Campaigns for Democrats in Illinois and Kentucky

9th November 20169th November 2016 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

You, the wives of the strikers,
ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones

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Hellraisers Journal, Thursday November 9, 1916
Mother Jones News Round-Up for month of October, 1916

UMWJ, Feb 10, 1916, Cover, Mother Jones, TVP, Pres White

During the month of October, Mother was first found in New York City advising the wives of the street car strikers to put on their fighting clothes and go out and raise hell. Her words greatly shocked the kept press, the same press which is never much shocked whenever workers are killed on the job, or beaten, shot, and otherwise brutalized on the picket line by the powers-that-be.

Mother was next found in Illinois and Kentucky campaigning for the re-election of President Wilson and Senator Kern. She was sent into the region by the United Mine Workers of America to speak to the miners and other working men.

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Hellraisers Journal: 400,000 New York City Trade Unionists Threaten Sympathetic Strike on Behalf Street Carmen

9th October 2016 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones

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Hellraisers Journal, Monday October 9, 1916
New York, New York – The Review Reports on Street Carmen’s Strike

From this month’s edition of the International Socialist Review comes a report on the strike now being conducted by the Amalgamated Association of Street and Electric Railway Employes of America (A. F. of L.) against the Interborough Rapid Transit Company:

THE NEW YORK STREET CAR STRIKE

NEW YORK, the tremendous city of five million inhabitants, has become the Prize Ring in which is being fought one of the most colossal battles ever waged in this country between Capital and Labor. A general strike on the subway, “L” roads and street car lines of the Interborough Rapid Transit Company was declared on September 7th, in spite of the truce signed by the company and the men on August 7th. It developed that the company merely signed to gain time to organize to break the new union which has sprung up so amazingly within the past few weeks.

When it felt that it was in a position to defeat the carmen, the Interborough began to circulate the “master and servant” [individual or yellow dog] contracts the purpose of which was to destroy any benefit that might accrue thru belonging to the union. Union men on the Interborough who refused to sign were immediately discharged and at a rousing mass meeting held by the union men on the evening of the seventh, the crowd declared enthusiastically for a general strike to enforce the right of the street car men to organize into a union.

Almost from the beginning of the strike, the struggle began to take on a political, or class character. The Central Federated Union, combining all the powerful labor unions of the city voted to stand by the strikers to the last man and the last dollar. Longshoremen, firemen, engineers and boat men were among the first to rally to aid the men battling on the street car lines.
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Hellraisers Journal: “Women The Worst” -Easily Led by Mother Jones to “Riot and Revolution”

8th October 20167th October 2016 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Never mind if you are not lady like,
you are woman-like.
God Almighty made the woman and
the Rockefeller gang of thieves made the ladies.
-Mother Jones

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Hellraisers Journal: Sunday October 8, 1916
New York, New York – Mother Jones Blamed for Thursday’s “Riot”

Mother Jones, UMWJ, Feb 10, 1916

When a few of the wives of striking street carmen, out of the 500 in attendance Thursday afternoon at Mozart Hall, left the meeting and proceeded to attack a scab-run railway car, the kept press of New York City decided that this constituted a “riot” and put the blame for the disturbance on the “wild talk” of Mother Jones. There will be no apology forthcoming from Mother Jones who told reporters yesterday:

Let the working women realize what they can do and they will join with the men, and industrial troubles will soon be over.

From the New York Evening World of October 6, 1916:

WOMEN THE WORST

THE rioting women responsible for the disgraceful scenes at Eighty-sixth Street and Third Avenue yesterday afternoon furnish an example of the peculiar danger of letting professional agitators practice upon female audiences.

Even the most militant male advocates have failed to incite the striking car men to any such concerted acts of violence as those indulged in by these hundreds of women after listening to wild talk from Mother Jones.

Women are more easily persuaded to riot and revolution than men. Respect for law restrains them less, and beyond a certain pitch of excitement fear of consequences restrains them not at all.
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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones to Wives of New York Carmen: “You ought to be out raising hell!”

7th October 201622nd December 2018 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

You, the wives of the strikers,
ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Saturday October 7, 1916
New York, New York – Mother Jones Speaks, Blamed for “Riot”

Mother Mary Harris Jones, Logansport, IN, Sept 27, 1916

On Thursday October 5th, Mother Jones spoke to the wives of the striking street carmen of New York City. She spoke at Mozart Hall where she told the women:

You, the wives of the strikers, ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes

A few women left the hall and attacked one of the surface cars of the New York Railways Company resulting in a few arrests. This was termed a “riot” in blaring headlines from The New York Times and others of the kept press.

The Address of Mother Jones

During her speech at Mozart Hall, Mother spoke of the lives of the street car workers and the effect of the long hours of labor upon family life. She advised the women to stop being “sentimental” and to put on their “fighting clothes.”

I know something of what life is like for street car workers. I have talked to men who work on the cars from one end of the country to the next and I know how terribly exploited they are. But none are more exploited than the carmen in this, the leading city of the United States. You know and I know that your husbands have to work seven days a week with no provisions for days off; that their basic work day consists of ten hour time actually spent on a car run, but that it frequently takes 15 hours of working time to receive their ten hours pay. No provision exists for any overtime pay. It is not unusual, as you know, for your husbands to spend upwards of 80 hours a week on the cars. The car runs are frequently not consecutive but are split by three-or four hour breaks. When do your husbands have time for you and your children? The church and the press are worried about families breaking up, but when the workers go on strike to have the time to keep their families together, these same lackeys of the employers denounce them for doing so. And on top this, the wages your husbands bring home for the longest work week of any car workers in the country are the lowest earned by men in this trade anywhere.

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Arrives in New York City to Assist Street Car Strikers

6th October 20166th October 2016 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Friday October 6, 1916
New York, New York – Mother Jones on Scene of Turbulent Strike

Mother Mary Harris Jones, Decatur Herald IL, May 14, 1916

Mother Jones arrived in New York City on Tuesday evening to assist the striking street carmen who are now threatened with the importation of scabs. At noon on Wednesday, she spoke to the strikers at Lyceum hall. According to The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, she said, in part:

Boys, I have come to New York to help you win your fight for better homes, to win more time in them and more comfort in them. You’ve been working here for 25 cents an hour for a lot of high class burglars who reward you if you are good boys by giving you another cent and hour. A lot of good a cent will do you.

O, boys, boys, there are so many of you and so few of the high class burglars. Get together and you can lick —- out of them. You can do it without the women but to make sure, have the women with you.

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