Tag: St Louis MO

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for July 1909, Part I: Found in New Castle, Pennsylvania

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Old Devil, UMWC Jan 27, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday August 8, 1909
Mother Jones News Round-Up for July 1909, Part I:
-Found Speaking to Tin Workers in New Castle, Pennsylvania

From the Pittsburg National Labor Tribune of July 1, 1909:

Mother Jones, Muncie IN Eve Prs p3, July 17, 1909

VOTE AT NEW CASTLE.
—–

[…]

Pride of New Castle lodge, composed of members of the Amalgamated [Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers] employed at the Greer tin mills, decided at a meeting Saturday night to strike against the “open shop” policy the vote was 153 for and 104 against….

———-

Mother Jones Speaks Out.

Many of the tin workers who had voted to strike went to hear Mother Jones speak at the Airdome Sunday night but were not as well pleased with her remarks as they thought they would be as she held out no hope for them winning their strike. Mrs. Jones stated that the men had no hope at all unless they were solidly organized and that they could accomplish nothing in the condition that they were. She did suggest that they all get into the Socialist party and by all uniting under that banner that they would win in the end. That was the gist of her remarks pertaining to the New Castle situation.-News

———-

[Photograph added from The Muncie Evening Press of July 17, 1909.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Socialist Kate O’Hare “Dressed In” at Prison, Will Work in Sewing Shop with Emma Goldman

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Kate OHare re War Profitters, Address to Court, Dec 14, 1917———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday April 16, 1919
Jefferson City, Missouri – Kate Richards O’Hare Behind the Prison Bars

From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch of April 15, 1919:

KATE RICHARDS O’HARE ‘DRESSED IN ‘ AT PRISON
—–
Socialist Will Sew on Jumpers in Shop With
Emma Goldman at Jefferson City.
—–

By a Staff Correspondent of the Post-Dispatch.

Kate Richards O'Hare & Children, Richards, Kathleen, Victor, Eugene, Apr 1919, Spartacus, Mxorg
Kate Richards O’Hare & Children: Richard, Kathleen, Victor, and Eugene.
April 1919-taken before she turned herself over to begin serving prison term.
———-

JEFFERSON CITY, April 15.-Mrs. Kate Richards O’Hare of St. Louis, the Socialist leader convicted of violating the espionage law by speaking against war, was “dressed in” this morning at the Missouri penitentiary, to which she has been sentenced to serve five years, was given a bath and designated as “No. 21,669.” She will be put to work tomorrow sewing jumper jackets and suspenders on a machine, in the same shop with Emma Goldman, the anarchist.

Mrs. O’Hare is the wife of Frank P. O’Hare and the mother of four children. She is the author of a number of essays, pamphlets and at least one play on social and economic subjects. She was Socialist candidate for Senator from Missouri in 1916, and once was a candidate for the Socialist nomination for Vice President.

Mrs. O’Hare, after the affirmation of her conviction by the Supreme Court, made a study of criminology for the purpose of making a scientific analysis of crime and the causes of it, when she became a prisoner. She consulted several noted psychologists and criminologists, and studied the mental tests used in the army. With the aid of these she prepared an exhaustive questionnaire for prisoners to answer.

More than a month ago she visited Gov. Gardner here and obtained permission from him to purse her studies in the prison…..

———-

[Photograph added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn for Chicago Propaganda League on Working Class Women and Suffrage

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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Quote EGF, Pious women, Servant girls, Bff Cr NY p6, Mar 1, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday March 10, 1909
Chicago, Illinois – Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Speaks for Propaganda League

From The Industrial Union Bulletin of February 27, 1909:

PROPAGANDEA LEAGUE LECTURES.

EGF, Socialist Woman Cv, Dec 1908

Sunday evening, February 21, Elizabeth G. Flynn gave a very instructive lecture under the auspices of the Chicago Propaganda League, at 55 North Clark street, on the subject, “Why Women of the Working Class Need Not Be Interested in Woman Suffrage.”

The speaker argued not so much against woman suffrage in itself, as against the emphasis now being placed by Socialists upon a question of secondary importance. She pointed out that woman’s activity in the labor movement promised more fruitful results along the line of building up the economic organization, by which alone conditions in industry could be improved and rendered more nearly equal for both men and women, and the danger of “sex war” averted, which was one of the grave possibilities of the agitation merely for “equal political rights.”

The meeting was well attended, and interest manifest throughout the lecture and the discussion which followed.

Next Sunday, February 28, at the same hour (8 o’clock) and place (55 North Clark street). Theodore Hertz will speak on “Tendencies in the European Trades Unions towards Industrial Unionism.” The change in dates for these two lectures was made on account of the fact that Miss Flynn will speak in Buffalo on the 28th.

———-

[Photograph added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones 1898, Part II: June-December; Found in Kansas and Nebraska

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Get Evil at Its Root, St L Rpb p2, Feb 5, 1898———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday February 11, 1899
-Mother Jones News Round-Up for the Year 1898, Part II

Mother Jones Mrs AF Smith Preach Socialism, KC Str p9, Oct 91898
Kansas City Star
October 9, 1898

In the pages of the Appeal to Reason of July 2, 1898, Mother Jones was found as “Mary G. Jones” on the list of delegates who bolted the Convention of the Social Democracy, held in Chicago during June of 1898. The disgruntled delegates immediately set about to establish a rival organization called the “Social Democratic Party of America,” and are now calling for “every loyal supporter of socialist principles” to “promptly come to the front and join” the new party. Mother Jones finds herself in good company as Eugene V. Debs and his brother, Theodore, are among the prominent Socialists who have joined the newly founded S. D. P.

July 1898 also found Mother Jones speaking in Omaha to packing house strikers. It was reported that she was speaking as “a traveling representative of the paper known as the “Appeal to Reason.”

In October 1898, Mother Jones was found in the “two Kansas Citys” preaching socialism along with Mrs. Anna Ferry Smith of San Diego. It was reported that the two women had traveled by a horse-drawn wagon from Chicago, speaking on street corners along the way.

In December 1898, Mother Jones was found leaving Kansas City and heading towards Texas “in a prairie schooner drawn by one white horse.” She was next found in Fort Scott and Mound City, Kansas. The Mound City Torch reported:

She is on her road to Texas, traveling in a private carriage alone. She is distributing literature and lecturing on needed reforms as she goes.

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones 1898, Part I: January-May; Found in St. Louis, Missouri

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Perish in Sight of Plenty, St L Rpb p14, May 12, 1898—–

Hellraisers Journal – Friday February 10, 1899
-Mother Jones News Round-Up for the Year 1898, Part I

Mother Jones, Factory Girls, St L Rpb p14, May 12, 1898
The St. Louis Republic
May 12, 1898

During February of 1898, Mother Jones was found in St. Louis, Missouri, preparing for a Conference of Labor and Labor Reform Organizations scheduled to be held in that city on May 2nd. She was also found advocating for Domestic Workers in that city who were seeking to establish “a home of their own.”

Mother departed St. Louis in early March and headed out on a tour of Eastern cities in order to “stir up sentiment among the several reform organizations in behalf of the reform convention” to be held in May. Mother was back in St. Louis in time to present at that convention which was, sadly, not well attended. Nevertheless, Mother was soon busy attempting to organize factory girls, of whom, she declared:

The factory girls should be organized because their condition should be improved. This can be effected by organization, and by no other means. The girls are, as rule, underpaid, kept in cramped, unhealthy quarters, and ground down till their young lives have been dwarfed and stunted. Through the children the world is made what it is. In the unions they could be educated how to better themselves.

I have been all through the factories of this and other cities, and find conditions in them such that the lives of these children will be shortened many years by having worked in them. We have war abroad and war at home. The conflict with Spain is not half so grinding upon humanity as the battle for bread. A few hundred go down in a naval battle; thousands perish beneath the grinding tread of greed every day. We have reconcentrados in our own country-they are the poor, without wealth or friends, who perish in sight of plenty.

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for October 1908, Found in Kansas and Missouri

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote Mother Jones re Child Labor in AL, AtR p2, Oct 24, 1908
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal – Monday November 9, 1908
-Mother Jones News Round-Up for October 1908
Found in Kansas: “working with her sleeves rolled up…”

Other than a brief appearance in St. Louis, Missouri, at a campaign event for Eugene Debs, Mother Jones was found, during the month of October, mostly in the Girard area of Kansas campaigning for the Socialist candidates of the Third District. The Kansas Edition of the Appeal described her activities there as “working with her sleeves rolled up.”

From the Appeal to Reason of October 31, 1908:

Kansas Special Edition, AtR p3, Oct 17, 1908

[…..]

MOTHER JONES MEETINGS.

Mother Jones, Dnv Pst p2, July 19, 1908

Mother Jones is in the third district. She is working with her sleeves rolled up and is going after the democrats and republicans in her usual way showing them both to be the tools of an exploiting class. At Galena the opera house was full and a good spirit prevailed; but the meeting at Scammon was great. Mother was in her element, having a hall crowded to the doors with miners, and you may be sure that she delivered the right kind of goods and the democrats that thought that the party for which he works, stands for labor, was disillusioned by the recital of the terrible conditions in democratic Alabama. Mother is to spend the time in the mining and industrial centers until after election and expects to see Ben Wilson come in under the wire a winner.

———-

[Photograph of Mother Jones added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Socialist in St. Louis: Debs Speaks to 6000 Inside Armory While Mother Jones Speaks to 4000 Outside

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Pettibone was hounded to his death by Taft.
-Eugene Victor Debs
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday October 28, 1908
St. Louis, Missouri – Eugene Debs and Mother Jones Speak to 10,000

From the St Louis Post-Dispatch of October 24, 1908:

EVD re Taft n Pettibone, St L P-D p1, Oct 24, 1908

—–

Eugene V. Debs, Socialistic candidate for the presidency of the United States, speaking at the First Regiment Armory Friday night [October 23rd], tore into Taft and Bryan to the huge delight of an audience of 6000 people, presumably Socialists, or at least those with Socialistic tendencies, and when he finished his 50-minute speech he retired bathed in perspiration, trembling with exhaustion and tottering from weakness.

He went to the arms of his devoted wife, who hurried him between rows of young militiamen away from his shouting, applauding admirers to a room in the back of the hall, where he descended a ladder to a carriage that was awaiting him in an alley and was driven to his private car and to bed. He was thoroughly exhausted.

Debs arrived in St. Louis at 6:15 Thursday night [Oct 22nd], several minutes late, and his private car was switched out of the Union Station and to a sidetrack along Clark avenue east of Eighteenth street.

Glimpse of Debs Impossible.

On Clark avenue several hundred Socialists with a banner waited to see him, but he was so carefully guarded that his admirers did not get even a glimpse of his car, and after waiting for some time they departed.

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Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs: “Plot Must Be Foiled..Conspiracy to Murder Mexican Comrades..by Order of Diaz”

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote EVD Mex Revolutionairies, AtR p2, Oct 10, 1908
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday October 10, 1908
Eugene V. Debs Urges Working Men and Women to Save Mexican Comrades

From the Appeal to Reason:

THIS PLOT MUST BE FOILED
—–
Conspiracy to Murder Mexican Comrades
Now Imprisoned in This Country
by Order of Díaz
—–

by EUGENE V. DEBS.

Mex Rev, Juan Sarabia, St L P-D p53, Apr 5, 1908

There is no longer the least doubt, if there ever was any, that the United States government, through its present administration, has entered into a conspiracy with the bloody and barbarous government to foully murder the revolutionary leaders of the Mexican people. The visit of Secretary of State Root to the Mexican capital, the pomp and display with which he was received, and the continuous ovation that was tendered him, are well remembered, as is also the fact, by Socialists at least, that the object of that love feast was to pave the way for the exploitation of this undeveloped country by American and Mexican capitalists. The entente cordiale was established between the House of Roosevelt and the House of Díaz, and since then there has been perfect understanding and harmonious cooperation in carrying out the international program.

When the Mexican revolutionists established their junta at St. Louis and were followed by the bloodhounds of Díaz the latter were reinforced by Furlong’s detectives and the junta was finally destroyed by the joint persecution of the minions of the American and Mexican governments.

The Mexican revolutionists, whose only crime was their opposition to Díaz, the bloody butcher of the so-called Mexican Republic, are men of heart and brain and conscience who could not endure witnessing the atrocities perpetrated upon the ignorant masses; they were animated by the same passion for freedom as were the American revolutionists a century and a half ago and with far greater justification for resisting tyranny and oppression

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for May 1918, Part II: Found in St. Louis, Missouri and Grafton, West Virginia

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Let me see you wake up and fight.
-Mother Jones
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Sunday June 23, 1918
Mother Jones News for May 1918, Part I: Gives Long Interview in St. Louis

From the St Louis Post-Dispatch of May 13, 1918:

Mother Jones Interview, St L Pst Dsp p3, May 13, 1918

Valiant Champion of the Workers Pink of Cheek
at 88 and Wears a Fussy Little Bonnet.
—–
Objects to Women Doing Heavy War Time Work;
Opposes Suffrage, Knitters Rile Her.
—–

BY MARGUERITE MARTYN.

Mother Jones Drawing St L Pst Dsp p3, May 13, 1918

I WOULD like to have had a union card to show. I was glad I was conversant with the after-the-war platform of the British Labor Party as voluminously printed in the Post-Dispatch, and that I could profess full faith in the justice of trade unionism, when I went to call on Mother Jones. As it was, I came out of the interview with the valiant little 88-year-old labor champion comparatively unscathed, though I sat meekly silent while her scorching tongue excoriated many institutions I have at least looked upon with toleration.

Women in war industries supplanting men, she had little patience with.

[She said:]

I see them climbing over engines with their oil cans. I see them pumping levers on street cars; I see them pushing heavy trucks of munitions, and I think, what of the future generation? Woman’s nervous organism is not equal to such work. One of the principles of trade unionism is that women shall work under conditions that will safeguard to the utmost their bodily welfare.

Woman suffrage she dismissed with equal scorn.

Women vote in Colorado and what have they done to improve industrial conditions? After the riots at Trinidad and 20 women and children were laid out in the morgue, committees of ladies came and looked over the scene, and they said, “Too bad, too bad!”

They knew the murder of these innocents, whose men were fighting only for the right to work and earn their bread, had been authorized by the [Democratic] Governor they had helped to put in power. They did not criticise the Governor and some of the women were in the militia that committed the crimes.

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for May 1918, Part I: Found Supporting Strikers in St. Louis

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Let me see you wake up and fight.
-Mother Jones
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Saturday June 22, 1918
Mother Jones News for May 1918, Part I: Found in St. Louis

Mother Jones, DRW small, St L Pst p3, May 13, 1918

Mother Jones was first found missing from the May Day celebration in Springfield, Illinois. It appears she was called to an unspecified strike in Quincy, Illinois.

We next found her in Washington, D. C. where the May 1st edition of The Washington Times stated:

“Mother” Jones, noted labor leader, arrived here today to appear before the National War Labor Board and plead with former President William H. Taft, in the interest of commercial telegraphers demanding the right to organize.

On May 10th and 11th, we find Mother in the pages of the St. Louis, Missouri, newspapers where her efforts on behalf of the men and women on strike against the Wagner Electric Manufacturing Company are well covered.

We will pick up the story of Mother Jones in St. Louis in Part II of our Mother Jones News Round-Up for May 1918.

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