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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 9, 1913
Carnegie’s Bloody “Pedestal of Fame” by Art Young
From The Coming Nation of February 8, 1913:
Tag: Pinkerton Gunthugs
Hellraisers Journal: From The Labor World: Mother Mary Jones in Duluth, Speaks to Large Meeting at the Head of the Lakes
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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday April 21, 1912
Duluth, Minnesota – Mother Jones Speaks at Lincoln Park Auditorium
From The Labor World of April 20, 1912:
Mary Jones, the little mother of the miners, and familiarly known throughout the country as Mother Jones, was a visitor in Duluth Monday and Tuesday. She delivered an address Monday evening at the Lincoln Park Auditorium in the interest of the shop employes of the Harriman lines who are on strike.
Mother Jones has been sent out by the United Mine Workers’ Union to help the striking railroad men. She is meeting with much success in soliciting funds. A fairly good collection was taken up at the Lincoln Park meeting.
During her visit to Duluth, Mother Jones spent much of her time in the office of the Labor World. We have’ known her for almost twenty years, and blamed if she does not look younger today than she did two decades ago. She attributes her youthful appearance to the fact that she has not been in jail lately nor has she been quarantined for smallpox.
Is Eighty Years of Age.
Mother Jones will be eighty years of age on May first. She is as active and as sprightly as a woman of thirty. She never looked better in her life. Her complexion is as clear as that of a baby and there is not the sign of a furrow on her kind old face.
Fight? When she is asked a question about labor conditions in the mining regions of America, her eyes flash, her mouth is set firm, her fist is clenched and she stretches out her arm with the vigor and force of an athlete. She tells a story of social injustice that reaches the heart of the most hardened.
In her speech at Lincoln Park the daily newspapers dwelled only upon the shafts she hurled at men and women of the toady type who “bend the cringing hinges of the knee that thrift may follow fawning.”
Knows the Labor Movement.
Mother Jones understands the philosophy of the labor movement. She has a peculiar way, which is distinctly her own, of driving her points right to the hearts of her listeners. For a moment she will philosophically discuss the growth and development of production; then like a flash she will clinch her argument with a militant attack upon both men and women who are responsible for injustices that have been permitted to creep into the industrial system.
Mother Jones is said to be without fear. During her strenuous life she has been cast into prison, confined in bull pens, driven at the points of bayonets, and once or twice has had a pistol aimed close to her face by willing servants of the capitalistic class.
Hellraisers Journal: “Crimes of Carnegie, Protest Against Condoning Crime in the Name of Philanthropy” -Eugene Debs
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 15, 1901
Eugene Debs on the Philanthropy of Carnegie, The Bloody Benefactor
From the Missouri Socialist of April 13, 1901:
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Many thousands of misguided people are applauding the alleged philanthropy of Andrew Carnegie, and of these by far the larger number are workingmen. Manifestly they have forgotten, or they have never heard of the horrors of Homestead—or perhaps they are too ignorant to understand or too cowardly to profit by the bloody lesson.
The reckless prodigality of Carnegie with the plunder of his victims brings into boldest prominence the crimes he committed when they protested against his monstrous rapacity. Then what? An army of 300 Pinkerton mercenaries were hired by this bloody benefactor to kill the men whose labor had made him a millionaire. He did not have the courage to execute his own murderous designs so he commissioned another monster, Frick, by name, with bloodless veins and a heart of steel, to commit the crimes while he went to Europe and held high carnival with the titled snobs there until the ghastly work was done. It was one of the foulest conspiracies ever concocted against the working class and the very thought of its atrocities, after nearly 10 years, fires the blood and crimsons the cheek with righteous indignation. Not only were the Pinkerton murderers hired by Carnegie to kill his employees, but he had his steel works surrounded by wires charged with deadly electric currents and by pipes filled with boiling water, so that in the event of a strike or lockout he could shock the life out of their wretched bodies or scald the flesh from their miserable bones.
And this is the man who proposes to erect libraries for the benefit of the working class—and, incidentally for the glory of Carnegie.
Hellraisers Journal: From International Socialist Review: Partial Victory for Striking Textile Workers of Ludlow, Mass.
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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday March 5, 1910
Ludlow, Massachusetts – Textile Strikers Achieve Partial Victory
From the International Socialist Review of March 1910:
PARTIAL VICTORY AT LUDLOW.
Announcement was made Feb. 6th in a meeting of the Central Labor union that a complete understanding on the wage scale question had been reached between the Ludlow Manufacturing Associates and their 1,700 employes who struck in September because of a cut in wages.
The wage scale on which the State Board of Arbitration has been at work since the strikers returned to work has been settled by the acceptance by the strikers of a proposition from the associates.
The strike of the Polish employes, now at an end, is regarded as one of the greatest battles between labor and capital which has occurred in some time, not only because of the element of paternalism in it, but also because of the principles involved in the strike.
Hellraisers Journal: “Pennsylvania Constabulary and the McKees Rocks Strike” by Alexander Berkman
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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday October 6, 1909
Alexander Berkman on Creation & Purpose of Pennsylvania Cossacks
From Miners Magazine of September 30, 1909:
THE PENNSYLVANIA CONSTABULARY AND
THE McKEES ROCKS STRIKE.
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By Alexander Berkman.
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Even before the memorable days of the Homestead strike, of 1892, there was a law on the statute books of Pennsylvania forbidding the importation of armed men from other states. Heavy penalties were attached to the offence.
However, when the Carnegie Steel Company was preparing to destroy the Association of Amalgamated Iron, Steel and Tin Workers, the then chairman of the company, H. C. Frick, imported armed Pinkertons from Chicago and New York to intimidate and shoot down the locked-out men. The history of that great struggle is well known. But when the strike was finally settled, public sentiment forced the district attorney of Allegheny county to bring charges of murder against Frick and other officials of the Carnegie company, they being legally responsible for the atrocious deeds of their imported myrmidons.
Naturally, the authorities felt too much respect for the Carnegie-Frick millions to press the charges of murder. It was feared that a jury of citizens might possibly send the Carnegie officials to prison. The cases were therefore never permitted to come to trial. But the popular outcry against the importation of armed ruffians became so strong that the Pennsylvania legislature was forced to action. The already existing statute was amended, making the importation of armed men treason against the state, punishable with death.
The industrial Tsars of Pennsylvania were not at all pleased with the situation. The new law expressly forbade the employment of Pinkertons, foreign or local. The people execrated their very name. It would be risky to face a charge of treason. The local Iron & Coal police were not sufficient to “deal effectively” with great strikes; nor was it financially advisable to keep a large private standing army who would have to be paid even When there were no strikers to be shot.
The coke, coal, and steel interests of Pennsylvania (practically the Same concern) faced a difficult problem. They were preparing to wage a bitter war against organized labor, fully determined to annihilate the last Vestiges of unionism among their employes. It was to be done effectively, yet economically. A very difficult problem. At last the solution was found. A high priced steel lawyer struck the right key. It was quite simple. Why risk popular wrath, possible prosecution for treason and murder, by employing Pinkertons? Why even go to the expense of hiring an army of private guards? It would be far cheaper and safer to have the great state of Pennsylvania act as their Pinkerton. What is the state for if not to protect the lords of money and subdue grumbling labor? The good taxpayers will do the paying.
Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks to Convention of United Mine Workers on Behalf of Mexican Revolutionaries
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Hellraisers Journal – Friday January 29, 1909
Indianapolis, Indiana – Mother Speaks at U. M. W. Convention, Part I
From Proceedings of United Mine Workers Convention
-Wednesday January 27, 1909
Speech of Mother Jones, Part I:
President Lewis—If there are no objections we will have a short intermission at this time and hear from a visitor we have present.
We have with us this morning a friend with whom many of the delegates are acquainted. The Mine Workers of the country generally know of the work of this friend. In many of the districts in the turbulent times when our men were engaged in a struggle, when men, women and children were suffering all the hardships incident to industrial warfare, she spent her time helping them. This morning she is here in the interest of men who have been persecuted in other countries and have come to this country in the belief that they were coming to the land of the free. We understand that the men in whose interest she is here have not committed any crime, but rather are regarded as political criminals because they believed that all men have certain rights that all other men should respect. She has encouraged our men, women and children, not alone in the mountains of West Virginia and the valleys of Pennsylvania, but on the prairies of some of our states where words of encouragement were needed by those whose spirits were drooping because of surrounding conditions. I therefore take great pleasure in introducing to this convention Mother Jones, who has lost none of her vigor, none of her interest in the cause of organized labor and in the cause of humanity because of her age or her white hair.
Mrs. Mary Jones (Mother Jones)—Permit me to extend to your worthy President my appreciation for his introduction. In the days of old when the revolutionists fought against the conditions that King George III was about to fasten upon them, could he have reached his claws in and have put them around Washington he would no doubt have hung him. Today, after a century or more of history in this nation, we find two diabolically tyrannous governments reaching their hands into this country and asking us to deliver men who have taken refuge here and surrender our rights to the czar of Russia and the military despot of Mexico. You will realize, my friends, that international economic interests are back of all this; you must realize that for this change in our nation’s history there is a cause. Economic interests, both in Mexico and Russia, are dictating the policy of our government today—I mean the other fellow’s government. As the method of production changes, the policy of the government must change to fit into it. Newspapers, magazines, churches, all must fit into the changed order. It governs home life, it governs national life, it governs the newspapers, it governs all avenues of educating the people.
Hellraisers Journal: Mesabi Miners Strike, Pinkertons Arrive, Warrant Issued for Organizer Teofilo Petriella
You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday July 28, 1907
Mesabi Iron Range, Minnesota – Pinkerton Gunthugs Arrive
One wonders what would happen should strikers import into the state of Minnesota 100 armed gunthugs. We expect that the militia would be immediately called out and the bullpen made ready. The Pinkertons, however, entered the state and proceeded on up to the Range where they will most likely be sworn in as Sheriff’s deputies, as is per usual.
Meanwhile, an arrest warrant has been issued for the peaceful strike leader, Teofilo Petriella, organizer for the Western Federation of Miners.
From The Minneapolis Tribune of July 27, 1907:
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BULLETIN.
DULUTH, July 27,-(Special.)-One hundred Pinkerton detectives have arrived in Duluth. It is expected that they will go out to the strike district at once. They are here to protect the interests of the United States Steel corporation.
