Hellraisers Journal -Saturday March 28, 1903 Toledo, Ohio – Mother Jones Speaks at Memorial Hall, Part II
From The Toledo Bee of March 25, 1903:
[Mother Jones Speaks at Memorial Hall, Part II] ———-
A Challenge.
[Mother Jones continued:]
I hate your political parties, you Republicans and Democrats. I want you to deny if you can what I am going to say. You want an office and must necessarily get into the ring. You must do what that ring says and if you don’t you won’t be elected. There you are. Each time you do that you are voting for a capitalistic bullet and you get it. I want you to know that this man Jones who is running for mayor of your beautiful city is no relative of mine; no, sir. He belongs to that school of reformers who say capital and labor must join hands. He may be all right. He prays a good deal. But, I wonder if you would shake hands with me if I robbed you. He builds parks to make his workmen contented. But a contented workman is no good. All progress stops in the contented man. I’m for agitation. It’s the greater factor for progress.
[Society Women.]
Here the speaker changed her attention to the society woman.
I see a lot of society women in this audience, attracted here out of a mere curiosity to see “that old Mother Jones.” I know you better than you do yourselves. I can walk down the aisle and pick every one of you out. You probably think I am crazy but I know you. And you society dudes—poor creatures. You wear high collars to support your jaw and keep your befuddled brains from oozing out of your mouths. While this commercial cannibalism is reaching into the cradle; pulling girls into the factory to be ruined; pulling children into the factory to be destroyed; you, who are doing all in the name of Christianity, you are at home nursing your poodle dogs. It’s high time you got out and worked for humanity. Christianity will take care of itself. I started in a factory. I have traveled through miles and miles of factories and there is not an inch of ground under that flag that is not stained with the blood of children.
Mother Jones then returned to the subject of the miners. She said they were not drunkards. They had neither enough food or enough clothing and the amount they spent for drink would not clothe them. It was no wonder they drank. Their misery was such as to cause them to drown their sorrows for an hour or so. In conclusion, she said:
You may think, as people sometimes do, that my pictures are overdrawn. But if you would come with me I could show you that I have not the power to describe in words the awful conditions existing in some districts and especially in West Virginia. I have not told the half. And until you labor fellows wake up those conditions will grow from bad to worse.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday November 11, 1912 Belleville, Illinois – Debs Interviewed by Frank A. Wiedinger
From the St. Louis Star of November 4, 1912:
Debs Calls T. R. Chief Thief of Socialist Party’s Plank ———–
SAYS COLONEL IS A POLITICAL “DR. F. A. COOK”
BY FRANK A. WIEDINGER.
Pressure from below has for years been forcing the old parties to steal the planks of the Socialists, but in this campaign, in trying to keep up with the irresistible demand of the masses for remedial legislation, Theodore Roosevelt has become the chief offender.
Roosevelt feels that his existence depends upon keeping himself in the limelight. He knows that he would be a political corpse if he did not continually turn to the spectacular. He is now poaching on the Socialist preserves and going farther than we ourselves have even gone.
In thus assuming the spectacular, Roosevelt has become a political Dr. Cook. He is a monumental faker. He is a four-flusher. He tells the masses that he, and he alone, is standing for their interests, but the masses will no longer stand for him.
In this wise Eugene V. Debs, Socialist nominee for President, paid his caustic respects to the Progressive standard-bearer in a talk with the writer yesterday noon after a great Socialist rally in the Dreamland Theater at Belleville, Ill.
Both in the interview and in the public speech which preceded it, Mr. Debs devoted the major part of his utterances to Colonel Roosevelt. He also scored Taft and Wilson, but only as the “tools of the capitalistic classes.” In talking of Roosevelt his declarations were mainly in a personal vein, though he resorted to ridicule rather than direct attack.
In so doing he left the distinct impression that seems to obtain also in both Republican and Democratic circles, that he believes Roosevelt is the one who will gain the largest popular vote at the polls tomorrow, and that hence he is the one against whom all the foes of the progressives should turn their batteries.
[Continued Mr. Debs:]
Every decent man regrets and denounces the attempt to assassinate Roosevelt at Milwaukee, and none more so than the Socialists, but there is a thought connected with the first announcement of the shooting which shows how the press is ruled by the capitalists.
“Roosevelt Shot Down By a Socialist,” the papers announced in big flaring headlines. As a matter of fact, investigation showed that not only was Schrank not a socialist, but that on the contrary he had been a steady reader of Republican and Democratic literature. No wonder he was a maniac. This false announcement is only one of the many instances in which the capitalistic press, with one voice, seeks to throw all possible onus of crime upon the socialists.
These same papers, day after day, devoted columns and pages to Roosevelt’s condition, but if a downtrodden laborer was killed while at work because his employer had placed him at defective machinery, or if a sick child died of neglect while the mother was scrubbing at night in a big office building in order to get money for medicine and food, you might search these same papers from beginning to end and find not a mention of either case.
Cites Economic Injustice.
Why is this? Is the life of one human, in the final analysis, worth more than the life of another? The general answer to this would be yes, but I say no-a thousand times no. Given equal opportunity that same workingman might have become the great man which Roosevelt admits that he himself is. That dead child was as dear to its mother as are any of his own to this apostle of large families.
Possibly the reason these instances are generally ignored by the papers is that by calling attention to them they must at the same time reveal the economic injustice under which this country is now suffering. Vote the Socialist ticket on Tuesday and you can correct these conditions.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday November 7, 1912 West Virginia Miners Play a Waiting Game -by Edward H. Kintzer, Socialist Candidate for State Auditor
From the International Socialist Review of November 1912:
WITH the calmness of seasoned soldiers, with a purpose that presages no good to the operators, with defiance that brooks no interference with that purpose, the battling miners of West Virginia await the coming war-of-the-ballots.
In dealing with the armed mine guards these mountaineers were taught valuable lessons in solidarity and cohesion which made them effective in meeting this force. So, after delivering a blow of direct action against the operators, with equal intelligence they are preparing to strike at the ballot box. They have organized themselves in spirit if not in fact, having learned to do by concerted action whatever is to be done.
They are not living in a fool’s paradise expecting the capitalist orders to collapse because a majority might wish it to. Back of their political action there is something more tangible than a mere expression of choice.
And well there should be, for heretofore no election has gone against the operators. They will stop at nothing to purchase votes and stuff ballot boxes. They have bought legislators like they purchase mine props, “made” governors with impunity, and with open effrontery placed two senators in congress against the wishes of the people.
Frank Bohn, associate editor of the REVIEW, while recently touring West Virginia on a speaking campaign, said: “The situation here regarding Senator Watson ought to receive wide publicity. There is nothing else like it. Other Watsons exist but none of them are in congress.”
It is the coal industry and organized “Big Business” that the miners must oppose-these interests that named Watson and ChiltonUnited States senators.
SOCIALISM IS EASY.
It is not difficult to teach these battling miners the fundamentals of Socialism, for the class struggle to them is very apparent and the hallucination of “dividing up” and “destroying the homes” has no terrors for them. They have nothing to divide and no home to destroy. Having recently been evicted they know that nothing could accomplish these things more effectively than capitalism. Their only assets are experience, hope and determination. This experience suggests action, their hope is Socialism and their determination means victory.
Frank J. Hayes, vice-president of the national organization of the United Mine Workers, in a recent letter states the political situation quite clearly. He said:
We have an excellent chance of electing the entire Socialist ticket in Kanawha county. The miners poll 40 per cent of the total vote in this county and they are practically all Socialists, made so by the present strike.
This is the county [Kanawha] in which Charleston, the capital of the state, is located, and, moreover, if we capture the political power of this big county it will practically insure the success of our strike. It is a great opportunity.
Politicians of the old school are admitting that the Socialist ticket will win. Even last March, before the strike, Adjutant General Elliott, absolute dictator by right of martial law over Paint and Cabin Creek districts, stated to the writer: “Unless Roosevelt is nominated by the Republicans there is some question whether the Socialists will be first or second.” He stated that he had been over the lower section (meaning Kanawha county) and knew. He resides at Charleston.
Thomas L. Tincher, a locomotive engineer, is the Socialist candidate for sheriff. He is making the guard system the issue in the campaign.
[Says Tincher:]
A Socialist sheriff would solve the mine guard problem quickly. All he would have to do would be to enforce the law and the mine guard would become a useless institution.
With exceptional outbreaks of hostility between the mine guards and the miners, the situation in the martial law district is quiet. The operators, mine guards and miners are disposed to play a waiting game.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday November 2, 1912 On the Campaign Trail with Eugene V. Debs, Socialist Party of America
From the InternationalSocialistReview of November 1912:
On the Road With Debs By ELLIS B. HARRIS
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We Are All Optimistic
HOW can we help it after the realization that not only this is our year, but that all the years to come are to be the fulfillment of Marx’s promise to the working class, inevitable Socialism. And Socialism means the system of co-operation in which man’s inhumanity to man can no longer prevail. Then the countless millions that now mourn shall stand free men erect and smiling in the glorious vision of a universal brotherhood that they, the tireless and unconquerable working class have at last brought to practical realization; a condition in which the evil star of exploitation has set to rise no more.Not only this notion, but the whole world shall be consecrated and glorified in a service of justice, truth and love; when property right shall be the right of all the workers to possess all property in the means of production and distribution; and then control it so that man may freely enjoy life and liberty.
Time was when nearly if not quite all of the people could be fooled most if not all of the time by a system of education that teaches that capital is prior to labor; that it belongs to a sort of philanthropic organization that gives employment to the working class and is therefore necessary as an initiative to labor; that being based on private ownership and being the source of the very existence of man, it is therefore more than man and man must be subservient to it.
On this sort of education we have builded a heartless commercialism that is sapping the life blood of the nations to fertilize and make more productive the private property of a master class, property held to be more sacred than the mothers and children of all the races of men on whom this ruling class subsist.
Comes the propaganda of Socialism with the new education based on history, evolution and a true political economy; teaching the unimpeachable laws of value, industrial evolution and economic determinism; making plain to the workers the ages of class struggle that have forced them continually to fight for life against the ruling class and that shall ultimately unite the toiling masses into one great union and a solidarity of comradeship that shall win a final and lasting triumph for all mankind.
To fully realize and appreciate the success of our ceaseless campaign, one cannot confine himself to a view of any particular locality. He must have every opportunity to come in direct touch with it throughout all of the states. One must see the awakening and hear the collective voice of the masses assembled as we have seen them, east, west, north and south; and mingle with them amidst such inspiring scenes as that of Madison Square Garden, New York, and Philadelphia Convention Hall, where twenty thousand people stood beneath a very sea of waving scarlet banners and shouted themselves hoarse for the revolution and Socialism.
Heartily I wish that every comrade might share this trip with the Debs party. That they might touch hands with and feel the heart throb, through that touch of the nation’s working class. Spirits in revolt, thousands of them, class conscious, self-sacrificing and indefatigable.
[Debs asserts:]
One fact in which we may all find comfort, no matter how dark our skies may seem, is that the common heart of humanity is sound and beats true.
And nothing proves the assurance so well as the experiences of our campaign tour, where the rhythmic pulse of the collectivity is made manifest in the desire to hear some message of Socialism.
Here is the rush and the crush of the common fellowship; the good natured crowding of happy men and women that feel they are akin in this, the lobby of a brighter future. I say happy, for here at last they seem to realize that in their unity lies the achievement of every desire and effort for an abundant and happy life. They are not all Socialists by any means, but they are all interested in our message. They are all responsive to the principles of our party as they fall from the lips of its eloquent advocate, comrade Debs.
This is what we see on every hand, a thoroughly dissatisfied working class in every state in the Union, exploited by a plutocracy of wealth, which commands all the powers of government. The struggle for existence has at last become unbearable to the great majority.
The seed of Socialism that we have sown and are still sowing is coming to blossom in the great heart of working man and woman and no one who has seen it in all its phases of development can ever doubt the harvest yield.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday October 31, 1912 Lake Charles Jail, Louisiana – B. T. W. Members, Class-War Prisoners
From the Appeal to Reason of October 26, 1912:
[Brotherhood of Timber Workers on Trial]
A. L. EMERSON, head of the 60 men on trial [re battle] at Grabow, La., for seeking to better the condition of the timber workers, aptly says:
The class war is actually on. We are the largest crowd of prisoners of war in the world today.
By the way, have you noticed Woodrow Wilson saying anything about the oppression of those who wish to organize the workers in the south? Have Taft or Roosevelt protested against the fiendishness of the masters at Lawrence [Massachusetts]?
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Group of Fifty-Eight Prisoners Held at Lake Charles in Connection with the Grabow Riot. The First Trial is Set for Monday, October 7th.
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Union Prisoners in Lake Charles Jail and the big dinner given them by the ladies of DeRidder, La. July 28th. 12. Copyrighted by Geo. Hanan
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday October 22, 1912 Mother Jones News Round-Up for September 1912, Part II Found Speaking at Wheeling, West Virginia, Thrills Thousands
From the New York Sun of September 11, 1912:
MINERS TO BESIEGE GLASSCOCK. ———- Will Bring Wives and Children to West Virginia Capital. ———-
CHARLESTON, W. Va., Sept. 10.-Mother Jones announced to-day that the striking miners of the Kanawha district would make another effort to see Gov. Glasscock. Within a week they are to march into the capital again and make a demand for the use of the State House grounds as a meeting place.
[Said Mother Jones:]
The Governor must hear us this time. We want him to hear our story, we want him to see us. The very looks of the men who are fighting for freedom is a tremendous argument for their cause.
We are coming back to our capital again and twice as strong as last week. The men are going to bring their children along and their wives.
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[Photograph added.]
From The Wheeling Intelligencer of September 16, 1912:
MOTHER JONES MAKES ADDRESS ———-
TO OVER 1,500 AT FIFTH WARD MARKET HOUSE. ———- Paints Horrible Picture of Conditions in Strike District and Flays Coal Barons.
Owing to the rain the mass protest meeting that was to have been held at the wharf yesterday afternoon [Sunday September 15th] was held at the Fifth ward market house, where over 1,500 people assembled to hear Mother Jones, the lady of the mines, and other prominent speakers.
As the old lady with white hair mounted the platform she was greeted with cheers that lasted for over five minutes. She started right in to business, and did not mince words or names when it came down to condemning the conditions in the southern part of the state. Before the meeting closed, Governor William Glasscock and Senators Watson and Chilton came in for their share of flaying, as well as Senators Scott and Elkins. They were classed by her as leeches and blood suckers, and the detective force and mine guards as human blood hounds. She said that right here in the little Mountain State, peonage of the most horrible kind was being practiced, and that Russia and Bulgaria were a paradise compared to it. She said that slavery was nothing compared to it, and that only last Thursday she was forced to cross streams in the strike district in the middle of the night by wading in the water up to her waist.
She claimed that women, children and sick men were thrown out of doors by these hired toughs and compelled to find shelter in the open, and that women were hauled about by the hair if they resisted these insults.
A collection was taken up to be sent to the relief committee which amounted to over $50. It will be used for the purpose of buying food and clothes for the strikers. A large donation was also received from the miners in Cripple Creek, Colo.
Want Legislation.
By unanimous vote it was decided to send a petition to Governor Glasscock demanding him to call a special session of the state legislature to make laws to help the miners. The following legislation is wanted: To do away with the guard system; that all coal dug by the miners shall be paid for by weight; the enforcement of an employer’s liability law; the abolition of the company store; and the payment of the miners every two weeks. She said that the miners would never go back to work until these wishes were complied with, and that the guard system would have to go, and if the governor would not give the citizens their rights, they would be compelled to take the law in their own hands or starve.
Raps Watson.
She also took a rap at the Fairmont district and hit Senator Watson hard. She scorned him as a blot on the state that would take years to wipe off. As she concluded her speech she was madly cheered.
Other speakers were F. C. Harter, also from the southern part of the state, a Confederate soldier, and a well-to-do farmer over 80 years old. He condemned the tactics used by the coal barons as a disgrace to humanity, and a thing that every citizen in the state should be ashamed to tolerate. “Mother Jones left last evening for Charleston and will stay with the boys, she says, until they get their rights.
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Pressure from below has for years been forcing the old parties to steal the planks of the Socialists, but in this campaign, in trying to keep up with the irresistible demand of the masses for remedial legislation, Theodore Roosevelt has become the chief offender.
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