Hellraisers Journal – Monday November 17, 1902 Mother Jones News Round-Up for October 1902, Part III New York, New York – Mother Jones Speaks to Socialists at Cooper Union
From The New York Times of October 18, 1902:
From The Pittsburg Post of October 18, 1902:
Thomas Duffy, Mother Jones and President John Mitchell
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday November 15, 1902 Mother Jones News Round-Up for October 1902, Part I Found in Colfax, Iowa, and at New York Anthracite Strike Conference
From the Des Moines Registrar and Leader of October 1, 1902:
Colfax, Ia., Sept. 30.-(Special.)-Mother Jones, the famous organizer of the miners in the anthracite region, gave an address, tonight at the Methodist church, and urged the miners of the Sixth district to work for John P. Reese of Albia for congress.Mother Jones denounced the capitalists of the country in severe terms, and was bitter against the use of the injunction by the courts.Her address was listened to by a large audience, composed for the most part of miners. Immediately after her speech, Mother Jones started across the country to Prairie City and caught a night train for Albia, where she will speak. She will also deliver an address at Ottumwa and then return east.
Mother Jones is now over sixty years of age, her hair being white as snow. Yet she is vigorous and energetic, and speaks with wonderful feeling and eloquence when describing the sufferings of the miners in the anthracite regions. She urged the miners and workingmen to wake up and work for their rights.
[She said:]
You don’t need a gun. Let us bury the bullet and resurrect the ballot.
Wants Iowa to Act.
I want Iowa to be the first state to carry the banner of organized labor into congress and elect a workingman to that body. I want a worker to make laws for me and not a henchman. If ever an awakening comes in this country it must come now. The injunction must be stopped. I plead with you young men; shall you all be slaves or shall you be men? You have got to take hold of this government and run it for all the people. It is your duty to see that the next congressman from this district is a miner so that the next congress shall have a miner in it.When the last injunction bill was up before congress there was no one there to press it, because no one there had felt the sting of the injunction injustice.
I say down with the government that upholds injunctions. I repeat I want to see the next congress have a miner in it. When the corporations see the workingmen waking up and electing workingmen to office they will tremble. You have got to break up this corporate power. The only way to break it up is by legislation. If you men feel that you are too big cowards to do it, stand aside and let us women do it and we’ll show you how. Woman is the greater sufferer from the power of corporate wealth.
Mother Jones, at the outset of her address, spoke of the progress of the human race and the various inventions that have been made.
[She said:]
Yet the workers have not the benefit of these inventions. A few men who have never done anything in their lives have taken advantage of them all and the human race stands aghast and asks “What shall we do?” If these inventions have been produced by society, why should one band of thieves and robbers, and assassins, and plunderers possess them to the detriment of all the rest? That is the great question before the human race. There is no other question before you. You have the labor question to settle, and it will be settled in this century. The men who produce the wealth will have the wealth.
Who has built your magnificent homes and public buildings? Who have gone down into the depths of the earth and toiled sixteen hours a day? The workers. Who live in your palaces? The parasite. Why? Because he has plundered other men of what they produce. When he boasts of prosperity, what is it to 30,000 breaker boys in the anthracite region? That you can make money by scheming doesn’t make a nation prosperous. You can’t have a prosperous nation until the workers prosper. If you give to your nation an illiterate broken down body of workers, ruin will overtake your country.
Mother Jones paid her respects to Morgan for saying he had nothing to arbitrate, and to Baer, who says he owns the earth and is the “steward of the Almighty.”
[She said:]
I wish he would take care of these men and women down in West Virginia, if he is the Almighty’s steward, as he claims.
[And again:]
Every page of every book of every Carnegie library in the country is written with the blood of Homestead.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday November 13, 1901 Mother Jones News Round-Up for October 1901, Part II Found in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and West Virginia
From the New York Evening World of October 28, 1901:
“MOTHER” JONES TO SPEAK TO THRONGS ———————-
GREAT TURNOUT EXPECTED IN PATERSON TO-NIGHT. ——- Unionists of All Trades Are Invited to Hear the Famous Labor Agitator. ——-
A great gathering of silk weavers and other factory workers is expected to-night at Apollo Hall in Paterson, where “Mother” Jones, the famous Pennsylvania labor agitator, will deliver an address on the advantages of unionism.
Although she comes here at the special invitation of the silk workers, the members of all other trades are invited to attend the meeting, and a great turnout of factory hands is looked for.
Daniel Teevan, the labor leader, has returned to Paterson, after having accompanied “Mother” Jones in her tour through the upper part of New Jersey.
He reports she was well received every where, and at Phillipsburg, Summit and Sterling she addressed large and enthusiastic meetings.
After leaving Paterson “Mother” Jones will go to Hazleton, where she will speak on Tuesday.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday April 11, 1901 Mother Jones News Round-Up for March 1901, Part II Found Arriving in Hazleton, Pa., for Mine Worker’s Convention
From the Philadelphia Times of March 13, 1901:
National Organizer Chris Evans Makes an Impassioned Appeal to the Delegates at Hazleton. ———- LEGISLATION IS DISCUSSED ———- Bills Now Pending at Harrisburg Come Up for Debate in the Convention and Evoke Heated Discussion. ———- [Mother Jones Arrives]
From a Staff Correspondent.
Hazleton, March 12.
National Organizer Chris Evans, in a speech before the convention of the miners here this afternoon, struck the keynote of the situation when he made an impassioned appeal for uniformity…..
…It is sure that a resolution will be introduced in the convention, making a demand for uniformity in the day wage scale for each of the three districts.
The convention was called to order by President Mitchell in the Grand Opera House at 10 o’clock. The house was filled, and it is believed that 700 delegates are in attendance.
In his opening address President Mitchell referred to the great growth in this region since the strike of last fall, which, he said, had proven that there is a community of interest between the anthracite and bituminous miners which makes needless the argument that they should stand together in one union.
[…..]
[…..]
Mitchell Refuses a House.
President Mitchell created somewhat of a sensation this afternoon by positively refusing to accept the offer of a house which the anthracite miners have decided to give him. In a touching speech he thanked the men very kindly for their appreciation of his efforts, and strongly urged them to devote the money to erecting a monument to those members of the union who gave up their lives in the cause of unionism at Latimer in 1897……
“Mother” Jones arrived here to-night from Scranton and immediately went to MacAdoo, where she and District President Duffy and National Organizer Chris Evans addressed a big meeting. “Mother” Jones will remain here several days and will likely address the convention to-morrow.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday December 19, 1900 Mother Jones News Round-Up for November 1900, Part III Found in Giving Ringing Speech to Large Audience in Vandling, PA
From the Carbondale Leader of November 24, 1900:
Mother Mary Jones was given a rousing reception in Vandling last night. The famous female friend of the miners came to this city on the 3 o’clock train and was met at the station by a number of people. Early in the evening she went to Vandling. Quite a number of Carbondalians went up to hear her. So large was the crowd which wished to attend the lecture, it was found that Mr. Closkey’s hall would not accommodate all. Rev. Clarke and the trustees of the Methodist church kindly offered its use and this large edifice was filled to overflowing. The audience was an attentive one and for over two hours and a quarter Mother Jones held the listeners’ close attention. She is a woman of about sixty-five and her hair is very white. She speaks in a very straight forward positive manner leaving no doubt as to the meaning of what she says. With “Mother” Jones there were on the platform Thomas Davis, J. Johns and Rev. Mr. Clarke.
SCORED WALL ST.
“Mother” Jones began by scoring the Wall street men whom she characterized as a lot of idling robbers. Then she cut into the coal operators. She told an incident where to save a piece of wood valued at two and one-half cents the corporation sacrificed a mans life. That was held of less value than a piece of wood. In part the speaker said:
We believe we live in a Christian nation and yet why do we take our children from the school and put them in the mills and breakers. The Christian church never murdered. Christianity means the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God; it means that all men should be fed; it means that our schools should be populated. But look at the vile language the children learn in mill and factory. Look, and see what the coming generation will be. You and I will have to render an account for our life’s work here below. How can you expect justice then if you wont give it now.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday December 18, 1900 Mother Jones News Round-Up for November 1900, Part II Found in Freeland, Pennsylvania, Fighting for Silk Mill Strikers
From the Hazleton Plain Speaker of November 13, 1900:
The Silk Mill Strike.
The [Freeland] Grand Opera House was packed last evening with men, women and children who came to hear “Mother” Jones discuss the silk mill strike. The lack of system, cohesive organization, and sympathy, that characterized this strike in its incipient stage was amply atoned for by last night’s meeting, for “Mother” Jones appeared at her best and her pathetic appeal for justice for the little army of frail and youthful girls that sat upon the stage, touched a responsive chord in the large audience.
The boys and girls, many of whom appeared very young, were arranged on the stage with good effect, and the speaker lost no time in getting down to the core of her subject. She exhibited a little boy before the floodlights whom she claimed worked in the Freeland silk mill for one cent per hour. She next brought forward a pale-faced frail little girl who received $1.10 per week and pointed out in forcible language the decay of the Republic and the degeneration of the race if the mothers of the men of the future were permitted to be thus enslaved. The speaker gave a brief history of the abolition of child labor in England, and denounced the silk mills as vile hell holes where cursing and foul language was the order of the day. She denounced the men who employ babes in violation of the law and make money by their labor as “commercial cannibals” who would find it difficult to justify their stewardship when called to answer before the Supreme Judge.
She compared the conduct of a mother living at Upper Lehigh who flogged her little girl back to work in the silk mill with the conduct of the negro mother who in the days of chattel slavery clung to her offspring with a maternal affection that the tortures of the masters lash could not sever. The speaker became dramatic as she exhibited the frail little girls that the local authorities could not control without the aid of deputy sheriffs and her sarcasm in denouncing the men who brought them here was withering and eloquent. She “roasted” a local merchant who it is alleged said that the girls should be arrested and appealed to the manhood of her audience to abolish profanity in the mill and appoint a committee to confer with the management and intercede for better conditions for the girls. She told her audience that she would personally appeal to the state factory inspector to enforce the law and closed with an earnest appeal to the men to save their money and keep away from the saloons, “You will need it all” she said “for we are on the eve of the greatest panic in the history of the world.”
“Within the next two years” she said “a financial crash will take place that will paralyze industry from ocean to ocean, and the working men should carefully husband their earnings as they will then need it.” She prophesied a social revolution with the close of the century, that will upset existing conditions and free the human race from the curse of competitive slavery.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday November 20, 1900 Mother Jones News Round-Up for October 1900, Part II Mother Jones with Army of Women Shuts Down Lattimer
From The Scranton Times of October 6, 1900:
Hazleton, Pa.. Oct. 6. The striking miners here made a raid on the Lattimer colliery this morning and executed a unique coup. Sheriff Harvey, with a number of deputies and coal and iron police, were on hand to protect the miners who have remained at work at the colliery.
The company also made thorough preparations for offensive and defensive warfare against the raiders. They were determined to keep their miners at work, but they failed to count on the cunning of “Mother” Jones, who was operating with the raiders.
She, with a small band of strikers, entered the company store and persuaded the workmen to follow her out into the road.
She kept the men there talking to them, and the sheriff and his deputies directed all their attention to the woman. In the meantime other strikers made a detour of the mine property and talked with the men they found at work. As a result all of these men laid down their tools and left for home, and the mine is now closed tight…..
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.
————–
———————-
———-National Organizer Chris Evans
———-
———-Hazleton, Pa.. Oct. 6. The striking miners here made a raid on the Lattimer colliery this morning and executed a unique coup. Sheriff Harvey, with a number of deputies and coal and iron police, were on hand to protect the miners who have remained at work at the colliery.
The company also made thorough preparations for offensive and defensive warfare against the raiders. They were determined to keep their miners at work, but they failed to count on the cunning of “Mother” Jones, who was operating with the raiders.She, with a small band of strikers, entered the company store and persuaded the workmen to follow her out into the road.She kept the men there talking to them, and the sheriff and his deputies directed all their attention to the woman. In the meantime other strikers made a detour of the mine property and talked with the men they found at work. As a result all of these men laid down their tools and left for home, and the mine is now closed tight…..———-
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