Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday August 7, 1912 Charleston, West Virginia – Mother Jones Speaks to Striking Miners
Thursday, August 1, 1912, Charleston Levee -Mother Jones speaks to striking miners from the back of a dray wagon.
The Wheeling Intelligencer August 2, 1912
Now, you have gathered here today for a purpose. Every movement made in civilization has had an underlying purpose. You have reached the century in human civilization when the charge of human slavery must forever disappear. (Applause.)
You, my friends, in my estimation, have stood this insult too long. You have borne the master’s venom, his oppression, you have allowed him to oppress you. When we said, “a little more bread” he set out to get the human blood-hounds to murder you. Your Governor [Glasscock] has stood for it. He went off to Chicago [Republican convention] and left two Gatling guns with the blood-hounds to blow your brains out.
Then you elected a sheriff, that began to shake like a poodle dog the night of the trouble on Paint Creek. He began to tremble and ran into a store to be sheltered. I have never in all my life—in all the battles I have had—taken back water, and why should a public officer do it—elected by the people. The best thing you can do is to apply to some scientist to give you some chemicals and put into a nursing bottle, give it to them fellows and tell them to go away back and sit down. (Applause.)
This industrial warfare is on. It can’t be stopped, it can’t be put back, it is breaking out over all the nation from the city of Mexico clean through to the border of Canada, from the Atlantic Ocean clean across the oceans of the world; it is the throbbing of the human heart in the industrial field for relief. They are preaching appeal to the Legislature, they appeal to Congress—and I must give this Congress credit—I always want to give credit where credit is due—you have had more labor bills passed in the last session than in all the days of your Congress.
I was in Washington not many weeks ago. I sat up in the gallery watching the voters. I was watching the fellows who would vote against your bill. One fellow, when they asked for roll call, he got up among those who didn’t want it, but when the vote came he had to be registered on the Congressional Record, he took mighty good care that his vote was in your favor Why? Because the whole machine of capitalism realize for the first time in history that there is an intellectual awakening of the dog below, and he is barking. Have you been barking on Paint Creek?
I want to say, without apology, without fear of the courts, without fear of jails, you have done what ought to have been done a long time ago. When-when a corporation which is bleeding you to death, would go and hire,-send over the nation and hire human blood-hounds to abuse your wife, your child, it is time every man in the State should rise.
I saw an inscription on your statehouse, and looked at it,-because I know Virginia. I know the whole machine of capitalism; they locked me up and put me out of the State and shook their fists at me and told me not to come back again. I told them to go to hell, I will be back tomorrow.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 11, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for May 1910, Part I:
-Found Speaking in Sioux City, Iowa, and Fort Wayne, Indiana
From The Sioux City Journal of May 2, 1910:
FIGHTING WORKERS NEEDED.
—–
Mother Jones Says Capitalism Drives
Laboring Men to Drink.
We don’t get the philosophy we want from the preachers, that is why we don’t go to church.
-declared Mother Jones, known country wide as a battler for the cause of the working man, during her address before a large socialistic audience at Bennett’s hall last night.
[She continued:]
Ministers never work. We need fighting workers now.
Mother Jones is well advanced in years and small in stature. In her opinion the capitalistic class owns the officials, the policemen and the ministers. She has her own theory regarding prohibition. She figures the antisaloon leagues are going at the question from the wrong side. In her opinion the factories in which the working men toil away their lives and the hardships imposed upon them by the capitalistic class drive them to drink, and it is through a radical change from this source that temperance will come.
The speaker said the womanhood of the nation is sinking slowly but gradually because girls and women are forced from home to sweatshops, where also may be found little children. When the history of this age is written, in her opinion, it will go down on the books as the most corrupt of all times. If the women would assert themselves she believes the trouble of the working man would be cleared up over night.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday September 28, 1908
Pittsburg, Pennsylvania – Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Talks of Socialism
On their way to Chicago to attend the Convention of the Industrial Workers of the World, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Jones and her husband, J. A. Jones, stopped off at Pittsburg where Gurley Flynn was interviewed for the Pittsburg Press regarding her views on Socialism and Suffrage.
From The Pittsburg Press of September 27, 1908:
The force of Miss Elizabeth Gurley Flynn’s personality impresses one the first five minutes one talks to her. This girl Socialist leader is not wildly enthusiastic nor does she “rant” as would be expected of a young, prominent, Socialistic leader, but there is a quiet, compelling strength about her words and herself that claims and holds the attention immediately.
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 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.
Hellraisers Journal, Thursday October 18, 1917
Mother Jones News for September, Part I: Speech in Springfield
From the Illinois State Register of September 1, 1917:
On the evening of August 31st, Mother Jones spoke in Springfield, Illinois, to striking carmen and their supporters. The speech was well-covered the next day by the Register.
MOTHER JONES ASKS AID
FOR CAR STRIKERS
—–
Tells Unionists to Unite in Fight
Against Street Car Company and Win
—–
4,000 HEAR SPEAKER
—–
Crowds Throng Court House Yard
and Cheer as Advocate of Labor Talks
—–
Four thousand striking car men, members of allied labor organizations and curious outsiders last night on the court house square heard “Mother” Jones, self-confessed labor agitator and proud of it, urged the strikers and their sympathizers to disregard judges, courts, injunctions or any other power that might be invoked and to fight the street railway company until it is forced to meet the demands of the union.
Less extreme than she is reported to have been in other cities where labor troubles were in progress, “Mother” Jones did not directly urge the strikers to resort to violence in gaining their ends, but she demanded that every allied labor organization in Springfield take up the cause, have their meters removed and go out on “sympathy” strikes to tie up the city’s industries until pressure is brought to bear to force the utility company to admit itself beaten.
Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday August 27, 1907
From The Labor World: “Labor’s Little Angel” Speaks in Duluth
Mother Jones spoke at the Duluth Armory on Sunday August 18th. With her on the platform where William E. McEwen, editor and publisher of The Labor World, and C. E. Mahoney who served as acting president of the Western Federation of Miners until the recent release of Charles Moyer from jail in Boise.
The striking iron miners of the Mesabi Range were supported by the speakers, and the steel trust and their gunthugs were condemned.
During her speech Mother Jones declared:
When they bring in the guns and the military, they think they have conquered; they rejoice at the thought they have conquered labor. You can conquer the steel trust, you can conquer the paper trust—every other trust in the world, but put it down for the editor in the morning that you can’t conquer the labor trust. If you wipe out the working class, what are the rich people going to do; they can’t even cook a meal of victuals for themselves.
From The Labor World of August 24, 1907:
ARMORY MASS MEETING WAS
MOST SUCCESSFUL
—–
Mother Jones Tells Working People of
Duluth Something About
Labor Conditions.
—–
Large Crowd Turned Out in Spite
of Inclement Weather—
Interest Was Great.
—–
The mass meeting at the armory last Sunday evening [August 18th] brought out 300 of the faithful. The weather was most unfavorable. The worst storm of the season was at its height, and even those on the program as speakers didn’t expect to see more than the committee on hand. However, the attendance was good, and spirit was high.
The meeting was called lo order by W. E. McEwen. On the platform with him were Alderman Jos. Shartell, Mother Jones, C. E. Mahoney, acting president of the Western Federation of Miners, and M. Kaplin. The Finnish band opened the meeting with the playing of the Marseilles.
The miners need no angel.
They are living in hell
and they want to raise hell.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal, Thursday October 12, 1916
Mother Jones Found in Indiana During Month of September
Mother Jones spent the much of the month of September 1916 in Indiana campaigning for the re-election of both President Wilson and Senator Kern. But before beginning our coverage of Mother’s activities in Indiana, we found an article from an Arizona newspaper which complained of her campaign on behalf of the re-election of Governor Hunt in that state.
Hellraisers Journal of September 2nd republished an article from the September 1st edition of the Graham Guardian of Safford, Arizona, which expressed much outrage over “The Stormy Petrel” and the bad language use by the supposedly foul-mouthed union agitator at a rally held in Phoenix on August 21st. The Guardian claimed that Mother campaigned as much for whiskey as she did for Governor Hunt.
Hellraisers Journal of September 5th republished two interviews with Mother Jones conducted while she was in Evansville, Indiana, to speak at the city’s Labor Day Celebration. Mother Jones declared herself in favor of the re-election of President Wilson and the Indiana Senator, John Kern. She demanded the six-hour day, and, on the subject women and the economic struggle she stated:
The problem of this age is not suffrage, not feminism, not liquor: it’s the industrial question. That’s the nation’s disease, that has bred nearly every war of mankind, for most wars are wars fought for capital.
You never can change the situation in which those who toil are illfed and ignorant, until woman is awakened to the economic situation in this country. She is by nature more human than man. When she becomes more enlightened to real labor conditions in this country, she will not rest until every child is well fed, well clothed and well educated.
I reside wherever there is a good fight against wrong-
all over the country.
Wherever the workers are fighting the robbers
I go there.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal, Saturday September 30, 1916
Logansport, Indiana – Mother Jones: Interview and Speech
From the Logansport Daily Tribune of September 27, 1916:
Comes to Address Federation of Labor
and Grants Testy Interview
—–
STILL VIGOROUS AT AGE OF 86
—–
(By Helen C. Kuppenheimer.)
Mother Jones arrived in the city last evening. The office sent me out to hunt her up and get an interview. These were the directions: “You’ll find her in one of the down-town restaurants-she’s a little, sweet-faced women with white hair and just as kind as she looks.”
I found her down at a Broadway restaurant sitting at a table with three men. I knew her because she was little and white-haired and sweet-faced, just like the office said she would be. I walked over to the table confidently, even boldly-here at least was one interview over which I need feel no timidity or trepidation-because she was as kind as she looked.
She was talking to the men at the table with her and I stopped beside her chair until she would give me an opportunity to speak to her. Finally she glanced up at me and then down at my feet and back up again-and then, very sharply, “Well?” I told her rather hurriedly who I was and what I wanted.
“An interview? What for? The paper? No I am going home and go to bed. I have nothing to say.” All these rapid fire remarks were made in a voice which might easily have reached to the farthest corner of a large hall. While her voice is as strong as a fog horn, it is as nothing compared to the quality of her glance which first pierces and then shrivels the person upon whom it is directed.
The future of this country is
in the hands of the women,
but they must wake up
and they must demand.
-Mother Jones
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hellraisers Journal, Thursday September 21, 1916
Mother Jones Interviewed During July Visit to Atlanta, Georgia
From The Atlanta Constitution of July 9, 1916:
“Mother” Jones Will Reach Atlanta
Monday on a Secret Mission
—–
“Mother” Jones, famous internationally for her work for miners, will arrive in Atlanta Monday morning on a mission, the nature of which she refuses to disclose in advance, and for a visit of indefinite duration.
She is coming directly from Washington, D. C., and will be met upon arrival by a party of local friends, headed by Jerome Jones, who Saturday received a telegram from William Green, Chicago, secretary of the United Mine Workers of America, announcing “Mother” Jones intention to pay this city a call.
The visit of “Mother” Jones to Atlanta while the general assembly is in session would in itself be somewhat significant, because she is noted as a lobbyist and worker for laws which are intended to brighten and lighten the lot of the laborer. Many take her visit just at this time, with a factory inspection-child labor and factory labor bill on the calendar for debate and vote in the house during the week, as especially significant, and in all probability the week’s legislative grind will be materially enlivened by her presence in the city, if not in the lobbies and the galleries at the capitol.
“Mother” Jones-she is known by no other name-is a unique and at once an extraordinary American woman. About 80 years old, she has devoted the greater part of her life thus far to the cause of labor, and most of her years have been spent in the mining camps of the west, although she is equally well-known among the underground workers of every other section of the country and in Canada.
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