Hellraisers Journal – Friday May 9, 1902 Mother Jones News Round-Up for April 1902 Found Speaking in Streator, Illinois, at Celebration of Eight-Hour Day
From the Streator Daily Free Press of April 2, 1902:
EIGHT-HOUR WORK DAY. ———- Various Labor Unions Are Celebrating Its Fifth Anniversary.
The fifth anniversary of the establishment of the eight-hour work day in Streator is being celebrated here today, and an excellent program has been prepared for the occasion by the committee having the affair in charge. Owing to the very disagreeable weather the attendance from the surrounding towns is not as large as was hoped for, although there is a goodly sprinkling of visitors in the city, many of them coming in on the noon trains to hear the addresses in the opera house this afternoon by a number of distinguished speakers.
Among these are “Mother” Jones, of Pennsylvania, and she entertained a constant stream of callers at the Plumb House this morning…..
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[Photograph added]
From the Streator Daily Free Press of April 3, 1902:
CELEBRATION A SUCCESS.
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Large Audience Hear Addresses
by Good Speakers.
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Mr. Chipperfield Talks Against Convict Labor-“Mother” Jones Tells of Conditions in West Virginia, and What Must Be Done There-Secretary Ryan Says Illinois Miners Can Expect No Increase in Scale Until West Virginia is Brought Into Line.
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When our report of the celebration of the eight-hour day anniversary closed yesterday Mr. Chipperfield, of Canton Ill., was speaking. He said that great problems confronted the United Mine Workers organization. Among those were the Chinese and convict labor questions. The Chinese exclusion bills should receive the hearty support of the organization. and it should see that the congressmen from this state voted for them. Convict contract labor is also a menace to free labor, and the constitution is violated when such contracts are entered into…..
The speaker closed with a eulogy of the organization, and when the applause ceased the chairman introduced “Mother Jones, who was given a most cordial welcome. She is a gray-haired woman of probably fifty years of age, and is possessed of a fire and spirit which makes her a power among the men in whose cause she is a timeless worker.
“Mother” Jones said that there was one great problem to be settled today, and that was the labor problem. It was an old one, and efforts had been made in olden times to settle it. Labor had always made the advancing step to better conditions. It had lined up its army time and again, and although the arm of the government had been against it in many ways, labor had marched on and upward until the time had come to settle the question forever.
The declaration of independence was the opening wedge to labor. If any class is entitled to enjoy the luxuries of life, it is the laboring class, for it makes them all. If it was not for labor there would be no luxuries. She told of the awful condition prevailing in the mining districts in West Virginia. where men and children work ten, twelve and fourteen hours in the mines, and the scale was a low one. It was that field which made it impossible for the miners of other states to get the scale increased, as the operators there can sell coal so much cheaper than the operators of Illinois. Now, said the speaker, if you will furnish ammunition we will make the fight and bring the miners up with you.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 20, 1920
-Mother Jones News for May 1920, Part II
Found Described by John D. Barry and Speaking in Streator, Illinois
From The Pacific Commercial Advertiser of May 15, 1920:
AN EVENING WITH MOTHER JONES
BY JOHN D. BARRY
The News “New York’s Picture Newspaper” May 7, 1920
A few months ago I heard someone say: “I wonder where Mother Jones is now. I suppose that, like many an other she has pulled in her horns and gone into retirement.”
I thought of those words as I listened to the old lady in Los Angeles recently, on her way to San Francisco, and heard her declare in that deep, strong voice of hers, the highly developed voice of the practiced orator, that she had passed her ninetieth milestone.
“You’ve got a lot of fight in you yet,” said a man who had himself long been a fighter for good cause.
[Mother Jones announced:]
Whenever there’s a fight for labor, I want to be there. I’m still in the ring.
I wondered if those fights hadn’t been the means of keeping her so well and young. She fulfilled the law emphasized by the psychologists, that life, to be a success, must mean persistent devotion to the ideals of the mind and the spirit. Her ideals had been high. They had exacted hard service. She had lived up to them devotedly.
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She knew that a group of us had come to hear her talk and it was characteristic of her good humor to talk freely for our entertainment and enlightenment. She was evidently a born story teller. She had a dramatic quality that, under different circumstances, might have made her a great actress or a great playwright. Her memory was like a series of brilliant slides. Now she would give us one picture, now another.
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