Hellraisers Journal – Monday September 10, 1900 Mother Jones News Round-Up for August 1900, Part II Found Visiting Massacre Site at Lattimer, Pennsylvania
From the Freeland Tribune of August 17, 1900:
DEMANDS OF THE MINERS ——-
[…..]
Miners marching near Hazelton, Pennsylvania, September 10, 1897.
As announced in Wednesday’s issue of the Tribune, the representatives of the United Mine Workers of America, in convention at Hazleton, adopted a resolution which calls upon the coal operators to meet delegates from the three districts in joint conference in Hazleton on Monday, August 27. [A] committee was appointed to correspond with the operators…..
The convention then adjourned. The delegates afterwards visited Lattimer, where the miners were killed three years ago by Sheriff Martin’s posse. On the exact spot where the men were shot down addresses were delivered, and the men rededicated themselves to the cause of labor. Speeches were made by President Mitchell, District President Duffy, “Mother” Jones and National Board Member James.
John Bernoski, of Shamokin, addressed the crowd in Polish. Frank Riecco, who carried the American Flag and was with the miners on that fatal day, was present and spoke a few words. On the way back many of the delegates visited St. Joseph’s cemetery, where the dead miners were buried.
The [strike] situation now hinges on the operators’ attitude next Monday.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday September 9, 1900 Mother Jones News Round-Up for August 1900, Part I Found Visiting Jailed Strikers of Georges Creek Coal District
From The Philadelphia Inquirer of August 5, 1900:
STRIKE LEADER GOES TO PRISON
FOR SIX MONTHS
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Woman Sympathizer Creates a Sensation
in a Maryland Jail
Special to The Inquirer.
CUMBERLAND, Md., Aug. 4.-William Warner, the strike leader, was sentenced this afternoon to six months in the House of Correction, having been convicted of unlawful assembly during trouble which arose at an anti-strike meeting. Seventeen miners were also sentenced. They were visited at the jail this afternoon by Mother Jones, the woman labor organizer, who created a sensation by proposing three cheers in the jail for the strikers and three hisses “for the blacklegs.” She led the cheering, as well as the hissing. Warner, who is from Pittsburg, took an appeal.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday September 8, 1900
Mother Jones News Round-Up for July 1900 Found Speaking in Baltimore for Striking Miners of Georges Creek Coal District
From the Baltimore Sun of July 26, 1900:
MOTHER JONES FOR MINERS ————— She Denounces The Courts And The Federation Gives $25.
The courts of Cumberland are God Almighty in the State of Maryland, and there is no justice for the laborer in them. They are dirty, contemptible courts, and a lot of “my boys” have been brought up before them for standing up for their rights. You know how much justice they will get. The poor man has no rights any more, and all we workers will get will be what we stand shoulder to shoulder and fight for, miners and all other workingmen included. The man or woman who will not fight for his or her rights is unworthy to be a father or mother.
With these words “Mother” Jones, the female labor agitator, opened a speech at the regular weekly meeting of the Federation of Labor last night. She had two young men, striking miners, with her, whom she called her “boys,” and said she had brought them along with her to appeal to the labor unions of Baltimore for financial aid for the strikers of the George’s Creek region. Every union in the city will be visited and asked to contribute. The Federation of Labor, at the suggestion of President Sullivan, headed a subscription for the striking mine workers with $25.
In describing the alleged deplorable condition of some of the mine workers in [West?] Virginia, where she had been endeavoring to organize unions, “Mother” Jones said:
If you could be there and see little children coming up out of the mines, you would not want to be missionaries to China, but would become missionaries to the coal fields. If those fellows over there in China had stayed at home and minded their own business they would be better off, and so would we. I don’t blame the Boxers a bit.
We had a visit from a sort of a missionary not long ago. He was looking after himself, though. This Roosevelt, the Rough Rider, comes down from New York, and, say, what happened? Why, every mine workman was made to turn out and cheer for him. Roosevelt wants a job.
The speaker made a stirring appeal for money to help the men now on strike, and alleged that the fight against the “money power” was just the same, whether conducted in Baltimore or in Cumberland.
Charles Dold, of Chicago, general organizer of the Piano Workers’ Union, stated that on Saturday he had organized a local union of 60 members. Union-made pianos are hereafter to have union labels upon them.
The nominations for officers, to be balloted for at a later meeting, were as follows:
For president, J. M. Sullivan; for first vice-president, William Biggins and George D. Simpson; for second vice-president, William H. O. Thompson and J. Pearson; recording secretary, H. L. Elchleberger; financial secretary, George Greisman; treasurer, John W. Ringrose.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday September 4, 1900 “Outlook for Socialism in the United States” by Eugene V. Debs
From the International Socialist Review of September 1900:
[Part II of II
-by Eugene Debs, Social Democratic Party’s Candidate for President.]
What the workingmen of the country are profoundly interested in is the private ownership of the means of production and distribution, the enslaving and degrading wage-system in which they toil for a pittance at the pleasure of their masters and are bludgeoned, jailed or shot when they protest—this is the central, controlling, vital issue of the hour, and neither of the old party platforms has a word or even a hint about it.
As a rule, large capitalists are Republicans and small capitalists are Democrats, but workingmen must remember that they are all capitalists, and that the many small ones, like the fewer large ones, are all politically supporting their class interests, and this is always and everywhere the capitalist class.
Whether the means of production—that is to say, the land, mines, factories, machinery, etc.—are owned by a few large Republican capitalists, who organize a trust, or whether they be owned by a lot of small Democratic capitalists, who are opposed to the trust, is all the same to the working class. Let the capitalists, large and small, fight this out among themselves.
The working class must get rid of the whole brood of masters and exploiters, and put themselves in possession and control of the means of production, that they may have steady employment without consulting a capitalist employer, large or small, and that they may get the wealth their labor produces, all of it, and enjoy with their families the fruits of their industry in comfortable and happy homes, abundant and wholesome food, proper clothing and all other things necessary to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” It is therefore a question not of “reform,” the mask of fraud, but of revolution. The capitalist system must be overthrown, class-rule abolished and wage-slavery supplanted by the co-operative industry.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday September 3, 1900 “Outlook for Socialism in the United States” by Eugene V. Debs
From the International Socialist Review of September 1900:
[Part I of II
-by Eugene Debs, Social Democratic Party’s Candidate for President.]
The sun of the passing century is setting upon scenes of extraordinary activity in almost every part of our capitalistic old planet. Wars and rumors of wars are of universal prevalence. In the Philippines our soldiers are civilizing and Christianizing the natives in the latest and most approved styles of the art, and at prices ($13 per month) which command the blessing to the prayerful consideration of the lowly and oppressed everywhere.
In South Africa the British legions are overwhelming the Boers with volleys of benedictions inspired by the same beautiful philanthropy in the name of the meek and lowly Nazarene; while in China the heathen hordes, fanned into frenzy by the sordid spirit of modern commercial conquest, are presenting to the world a carnival of crime almost equaling the “refined” exhibitions of the world’s “civilized” nations.
And through all the flame and furore of the fray can be heard the savage snarlings of the Christian “dogs of war” as they fiercely glare about them, and with jealous fury threaten to fly at one another’s throats to settle the question of supremacy and the spoil and plunder of conquest.
The picture, lurid as a chamber of horrors, becomes complete in its gruesome ghastliness when robed ministers of Christ solemnly declare that it is all for the glory of God and the advancement of Christian civilization.
This, then, is the closing scene of the century as the curtain slowly descends upon the blood-stained stage—the central figure, the pious Wilhelm, Germany’s sceptered savage, issuing his imperial “spare none” decree in the snag froid of an Apache chief—a fitting climax to the rapacious regime of the capitalist system.
Cheerless indeed would be the contemplation of such sanguinary scenes were the light of Socialism not breaking upon mankind. The skies of the East are even now aglow with the dawn; its coming is heralded by the dispelling of shadows, of darkness and gloom. From the first tremulous scintillation that guilds the horizon to the sublime march to meridian splendor the light increases till in mighty flood it pours upon the world.
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What the workingmen of the country are profoundly interested in is the private ownership of the means of production and distribution, the enslaving and degrading wage-system in which they toil for a pittance at the pleasure of their masters and are bludgeoned, jailed or shot when they protest—this is the central, controlling, vital issue of the hour, and neither of the old party platforms has a word or even a hint about it.
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