Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday February 21, 1912 Mother Jones News Round-Up for January 1912, Part I
Found in California Speaking on Behalf of Striking Shopmen
From The Sacramento Bee of January 8, 1912:
SHOPMEN HEAR “MOTHER” JONES
Mother” Jones, the famous labor leader, spoke in this city for the second time Saturday night, when she addressed meeting in Socialist Hall at 1024½ J Street. Her theme was the principles of labor unionism, and her remarks were made principally in behalf of the striking shopmen. “Mother” Jones declared the strikers were right, and urged them to hold out firm against the efforts of the Harriman lines to prevent them from establishing a shop federation.
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[Photograph added.]
From the Ogden Evening Standard of January 9, 1912:
MOTHER JONES AT M. E. CHURCH ———-
Evidently holding with Kipling that “the female of the species is more deadly than the male,” Mother Jones, internationally known because of her fiery oratory in defense of labor, arraigned and chided the women of her audience in the Methodist church last night, claiming that women are always the dangerous element to the cause of labor during strikes. Mother Jones spoke under the auspices of the Harriman federation, although the expenses of her present tour over the Harriman railroad system are being bourne by the Western Federation of Miners.
The aged “guardian of the minors,” now nearing her eightieth birthday, did not lack in oratorical vigor and spoke with all the vehemence that has marked her forty years experience in the labor movement. While Mother Jones spoke with almost brutal force at times, there was withal a kindly thread of sentiment throughout her talk which softened the harshness with which she emphasized her contempt for “scabs,” “corporation lap dogs,” “capital’s spies and detectives,” “capital’s rats,” and kindred vindictive frequently used.
Mother Jones turned many of her remarks to the women of her audience, stating that because the women in many instances do not understand the economic problems of the day they often persuade their husbands or brothers to return to work when their union is on strike. She contended that a large per cent of strike breakers became strike breakers because of the urging of women. “Women,” she asserted, “are the dangerous element in every strike, because they cannot see the need of labor’s organizations and do not know the struggle between capital and labor”
[She told the women:]
If I had a husband and he had never gone on a strike I would lick him and make him go on a strike. I would not live with such a servile slave, as the worker that never strikes. This nation was founded on a strike against George III and the bravest and best men of the nation have been striking against various forms of injustice ever since. And there have always been ‘scabs,’ men who were traitors to their fellows. There were traitors in the army of Washington and there were traitors to the Immortal Lincoln; always there have been traitors but the traitors have never in the end defeated a just cause. Labor never loses. It becomes better educated with each battle and its struggles becomes more intelligent and more heroic, and in the end it cannot lose.
The gray haired speaker recounted many of her experiences in different strikes, in which she has taking place, told of facing militia bullets in Pennsylvania during the coal strike of a year ago and during the greater strike of 1904. She said that the present strike on the Harriman lines was but a symptom of the industrial disease which infected the nation and the entire world and which would never be cured until the workers themselves owned the tools with which they worked. She ridiculed those whom she termed the timid strikers who were always asking how long the strike was going to last and told them that some strikes had been on after the workers had remained away from their jobs for five years. “This strike is going to last,” she said, “until the railroad company recognizes the federation of shop workers.”
Mother Jones will leave this city today for Salt Lake City where, she will deliver an address to the striking shopmen of that city tonight.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday December 16, 1911 Mother Jones News Round-Up for November 1911, Part II
Found in California Speaking on Behalf of McNamara Brothers
From The Sacramento Bee of November 14, 1911:
“MOTHER” Jones, known throughout the country as a forceful speaker on Socialistic and Labor questions is coming to Sacramento. She will be he principal speaker at the “Capital and Labor” drama that is to be staged in the Clunie Theater to-morrow night. It is announced in local labor circles that Mother Jones is to speak in defense of the McNamara Brothers, now on trial in Los Angeles for the alleged dynamiting of the Los Angeles Times.
The drama “Capital and Labor” that is to be played at the Clunie Theater to-morrow night is in the nature of a benefit for the strikers in the local shops. It will be under the personal direction of Paul Gerson who will be supported by William A. Lowery member of the Blacksmith’s Local of San Francisco, who will appear in the role of the black smith in the play.
The receipts from the play, it is understood, will go into an emergency fund. From this fund relief will be given those unskilled laborers who were not organized at the time the strike was called and who hence are not entitled to strike benefits.
The company which is to stage the play is made up of professional talent and a good production is expected.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday February 14, 1919
Sacramento, California – Sentence Suspended for Theodora Pollock
While many of those convicted with her were sentenced to ten years in federal prison, the sentence of Miss Theodora Pollock has now been suspended. Below, our readers can find a complete list of the fellow workers who were convicted under the Espionage Act in federal court in Sacramento, California. In fact they are guilty only of being members of-or sympathetic to-the Industrial Workers of the World. Missing from this list, of course, are the five fellow workers who died awaiting trial.
From the National Civil Liberties Bureau:
Convicted January 17, 1919, at Sacramento, California for alleged conspiracy to violate several sections of the Federal Penal Code, the Espionage Act and various other Federal statutes.
Sentenced to ten years:
Mortimer Downing,
Frederick Esmond,
Chris Luber,
Phil McLaughlin,
John Grave,
Louis Tori,
James Quintan,
Edward Quigley,
George O’Connell,
Roy P. Connor,
John Potthast,
Henry Hammer,
Pete de Bernardi,
Myron Sprague,
Elmer Anderson,
Caesar Tabib,
Robert Connellan,
Frank Elliott,
Harry Gray,
Gabe Brewer,
Godfrey Ebel,
William Hood,
Vincent Santelli,
Geo. F. Voetter
Sentenced to five years:
Edward S. Carey,
Harry Murphy,
Herbert Stredwick
Sentenced to four years:
Robt. Feehan,
James H. Mulrooney,
James Price
Sentenced to three years:
Joe Carroll,
Otto Eisner
Sentenced to two years:
Frank Moran,
Frank Reilly,
Edward Anderson,
Felix Cedino
Sentenced to one year:
H. Donovan,
W. H. Faust,
Chas. Koenig,
W. L. Miller,
Albert Whitehead
Convicted, not yet sentenced:
[Note: these three chose legal representation, and did not take part in the “Silent Defense.” Since this list was made, they have all received light sentences, with Miss Pollock’s sentence suspended.]
Theodora Pollock,
A. L. Fox,
Basil Saffores
[Newsclip added is from the Port Huron Times Herald of February 12th.]
Hellraisers Journal – Friday February 7, 1919
Sacramento, California – Fellow Workers Sang Their Way Back to Jail
From The Butte Daily Bulletin of February 3, 1919:
43 I.W.W. RECEIVE THEIR SENTENCE
WITH A LAUGH
The Defiant Stand of Unionists in Sacramento Trial Told in Eye-Witnesses’ Account.
An eye-witness’ account of the courtroom scene when 43 members of the I. W. W. were sentenced in Sacramento 10 days ago, after having maintained a “silence strike against capitalist justice” during the trial, has just been published by the New York defense committee, 27 East Fourth street, New York City. After being out only 70 minutes the jury brought in a verdict of “guilty as charged” against all of the defendants, showing that the case of each had been dispatched in a minute and a half.
The men seemed rather glad to have it over with, it is reported. There never had been any doubt in their minds as to what the verdict would be. As they were led out of the courtroom they sang “Solidarity Forever!”
The next morning, Jan. 17. the 43 “silent defendants” were brought in for sentence. The three who had refused to join in their decision to put up no defense were absent. “Have any of the defendants anything to say before I pass sentence?” asked Judge Frank H. Rudkin.
They had, indeed. Their pledge of silence, “in contempt of court,” was to last only until they had been convicted. Their tongues were now loosed. Eleven of them spoke, occupying the entire morning, during which time the 43 stood shoulder to shoulder before the court and delivered probably as scathing an arraignment of capitalist justice as has ever been voiced by workingmen.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday February 1, 1919
Sacramento, California – I. W. W. Defendants Silent Except for the Coughing
From The Liberator of February 1919:
The Silent Defense in Sacramento
By Jean Sterling
Silent Defenders
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“Do the defendants, not represented by attorneys, wish to interrogate the talesman?”
The court reporter held his pencil suspended. The forty-three defendants faced with mocking eyes and closed lips their jailers, prosecutors and the presiding judge.
“Do they wish to exercise the right of challenge?”
For a tense second the inexorable wheels of justice stopped turning. Some one had thrown a felt slipper in the cogs. The defendants gave the prospective juror not so much as a glance. They had read and yawned and gazed vacantly out of the high windows while the attorneys for the prosecution had been probing the talesman’s soul for any humane or modern ideas on the subject of labor.
Then, after a decorous silence, such as is observed in court procedures and funeral rites, the Judge said quietly, “If, then, there are no objections to the talesman, he may take his seat in the jury box.”
And so the juryman, an ancient rancher, the prophesy of the type to follow, took his seat.
And in this manner did the forty-three defendants, I. W. W.’s, now being tried in Sacramento, California, on charges of conspiracy, under the Espionage Act, open their “silent defense.”
Hellraisers Journal – Monday January 27, 1919
Leavenworth Penitentiary – Fellow Workers Arrive from Sacramento
From The Leavenworth Times of January 26, 1919:
MORE I. W. W. PRISONERS HERE
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Special Car Load of Them Brought in
From California Yesterday
-Names and Sentences.
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Silent Defenders
Another big batch of I. W. W. prisoners was landed in the Federal penitentiary yesterday. They were brought in from California in a special car in charge of six deputy United States marshals. They got into the prison at 3:30 in the afternoon.
These were all white men and they were a tough looking bunch. There were sharp and well dressed looking prisoners in the ninety-one that were brought over from Chicago with Haywood last fall, but the California gang seems to be run down hobos.
They will be dressed in Monday and put to work Tuesday. Like the other I. W. W. prisoners they will be divided up among the working gangs of the penitentiary.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday January 22, 1919
Mother Jones News for December 1918, Part III
-Mother Found in Taft, California, Organizing Oil Field Workers
Following her audience with the Governor of California on behalf of Tom Mooney, Mother Jones spoke in and around the San Francisco area urging working men and woman to take action to free Mooney and all other political and class-war prisoners. Mother then traveled to Taft, near Bakersfield, at the request of the oil field workers there with the intention of organizing them into the United Mine Workers of America.
We next find her in the pages of the The Kalamazoo Gazette as the author of a “Message to Women in Industry.” Here she states that the organization of women into “men’s” unions will strengthen organized labor for both working women as well as for working men:
Women ought to join men’s unions-not organize separate unions of their own. The battle against unpatriotic greed, the struggle for a free America, is no sex matter.
An infusion of women into men’s unions works for good to both men and women. Man has studied the disease longer than woman; he has a broader vision of society’s problems. Woman is less indifferent to suffering than man. She will contribute energy and inspire to action.
A woman will not see the hair torn from the scalp of a ten-year-old girl by unprotected cog-wheels, without wanting to do something about it.
Note: the photograph above is from The Buffalo Enquirer of December 26, 1918.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday January 21, 1919
Mother Jones News for December 1918, Part II
-Mother Found in San Francisco on Behalf of Tom Mooney
From the San Francisco Examiner of December 12, 1918:
‘Mother’ Jones to Aid Mooney
in His Fight for Liberty
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Labor Leader Represents 500,000 Workers
in Appeal for Man’s Release.
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“Mother” (Mary) Jones, labor leader, arrived in San Francisco last night from Chicago to urge a new trial for Thomas J. Mooney, serving a life sentence for the Preparedness Day bomb murders.
Armed with credentials from the Illinois State Federation of Labor and the Chicago Federation of Labor and a letter from Governor Lowden of Illinois, “Mother” Jones said her first errand will be to obtain an audience with Governor William D. Stephens, who recently commuted Mooney’s death sentence.
“Mother” Jones declared her dissatisfaction with the imprisonment of Mooney, who, she said, was innocent and so held by the great mass of the labor organizations that had sent her here. She said:
I believe this is an issue that goes to the very heart of the judicial system, not only of California, but of the entire nation. That is what I shall try to present to Governor Stephens.
The organizations that sent me to San Francisco number many hundreds of thousands of workers and behind them are 500,000 more, the mineworkers, who are with me on this mission.
The visitor was met by San Francisco and Oakland members of the International Workers’ Defense League at the Ferry building. She went to the Hotel Clark. “Mother” Jones will address some of the labor bodies during her stay in California.
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—————, spoke in this city for the second time Saturday night, when she addressed meeting in Socialist Hall at 1024½ J Street. Her theme was the principles of labor unionism, and her remarks were made principally in behalf of the striking shopmen. “Mother” Jones declared the strikers were right, and urged them to hold out firm against the efforts of the Harriman lines to prevent them from establishing a shop federation.
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