Tag: Trenton NJ

Hellraisers Journal: From the Burley WA Co-operator: Mother Jones Describes the March of the Mill Children of July 1903

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Quote Mother Jones to TR, These Little Children, Phl No Am July 16, 1903, Foner p552—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday September 4, 1904
Mother Jones Describes the March of the Mill Children of July 1903

From The Co-operator of September 1904:

The March of the Children.

Lena Morrow Lewis, in The Socialist, Seattle, Washington, June 19th, 1904. From notes by Mother Jones.

Mother Jones w Army, March of Mill Children, AZ Rpbn p1, July 18, 1903

PHILADELPHIA is famed far and wide as the ” City of Brotherly Love.” Churches abound everywhere, and her people look with holy awe upon the sins and vices of their sister city on Long Island Sound. And an unsuspecting and unobserving public has been quite ready to accept without question all that the City of Brotherly Love has claimed for herself.

It has remained for the wicked labor agitator to ferret out and unearth the criminal conditions that exist in this quiet, peaceful church- going city of Philadelphia, and it is only in a Socialist paper that these facts are permitted to see the light of day.

The writer is indebted to “Mother” Jones for the items contained therein.

Last summer the textile workers of Philadelphia, 125,000 men, women and children, went on a strike. They demanded shorter hours, an increase of wages and better sanitary conditions. Filthy closets and a defective sewerage system produced a very unwholesome atmosphere in which to work. Meanwhile the rest of the world wagged merrily on, and no one seemed to know or care anything about the strike, except a few labor cranks and Socialists and the owners whose profits were being affected. Not a daily newspaper mentioned the cause of the strike, nor the fact that among the strikers were a large number of children. During this time “Mother” Jones “happened” to drop into town and, as is her custom, she began to stir up matters. The public should be forced to know what these people were striking for. But strikes were such common affairs and it would require drastic measures to arouse an indifferent public.

At last she hit upon a plan. She would marshal all the children between the ages of ten and fourteen and take them on a thirty-mile march and they were to stop at every town within that radius and tell the people the story of their wrongs. Many of these children had worked in the factory since they were seven years of age and had never been inside a school room. When they were gone about forty miles they decided to go over to Oyster Bay and present their case to President Roosevelt. There was some risk connected with a project of this kind. If any of the children had sickened or died on the way, that fact would have been heralded all over the country, and “Mother” Jones proclaimed a murderer. The mills could maim and disfigure and kill scores of children annually and no mention be made of the fact. However, “Mother” Jones felt that they could afford to take chances and proceeded with the children.

As they journeyed from town to town, members of the working class provided them with food and shelter.

The children marched thru the streets of the towns, held meetings and, thru their leaders, told the story of their wrongs. Every child was keyed up to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. Every step northward was taking them farther away from Philadelphia. Some of their fathers had voted for President Roosevelt; in their eyes he was the greatest man in the United States and so they went hopefully and merrily on. When they reached Bristol the leader sent a request on behalf of the children for a permit to hold a street meeting and, when it was learned that an army of children was coming into town, a squad of policemen armed with guns were ordered to stand guard on the bridge to protect the city against the children.

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones and Her Army Rest and Relax in New York City, Hold Evening Meeting Near Madison Square Park

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Mother Jones Quote ed, Suffer Little Children, CIR p10641, May 14, 1915—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday July 28, 1903
New York, July 24th: Mother Jones and Amy Relax During Day, Hold Evening Meeting

From the New York Tribune of July 25, 1903:

Mother Jones March of Mill Children, Army in NYC, NY Tb p7, July 25, 1903

From the New York Sun of July 25, 1903:

Mother Jones March of Mill Children, Eve July 24 Speaks at 4th Ave & 24 St NYC, Sun p1, July 25, 1903

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Marches On With Her Army of Striking Children from the Textile Mills of Kensington

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Quote Mother Jones, Child Labor Silk Mills, WB Dly Ns p1, May 11, 1901—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday July 14, 1903
Mother Jones and Her Army March from Trenton to Princeton, New Jersey

From The New York Times of July 10, 1903:

“MOTHER” JONES’ MARCHING ON
———-
Army of Mill Workers Camped Near Trenton
on Its Way to New York to Air Grievance.

Special to The New York Times.

Mother Jones, March of Mill Children, NY Eve Wld p3, July 8, 1903

TRENTON, N. J., July 9.- Mother Jones and her textile army, composed of workers from the mills of Kensington, Penn., is encamped to-night on the Delaware River in Morrisville, Penn., just across from Trenton.

“Mother” Jones to-night visited the meeting of the Plumbers’ Union and made a speech. She received a donation. Her assistants visited other union meetings, and as Trenton is one of the most solid union cities in the United States quite a sum of money was collected to aid “the army” on its march to New York, where a mass meeting in Madison Square Garden is projected. “Mother” Jones expects to reach the metropolis by the end of the week.

Mayor Katzenbach of Trenton has granted a license  for mass meeting be held here in the shadow of Battle Monument to-morrow night, when the grievances of the strikers will be aired and where Mother will tell her plans against the New York millionaires’ hearts and pocket books. This meeting will be preceded by a concert by the “army band.”

This morning at Bristol sixty men and girls deserted, going back to Philadelphia. There are about 280 left, however.

In the army are ten or twelve boys who are not more than thirteen years old. These little fellows stand up under the great heat and the hard march with commendable bravery. With the marchers there is a band comprised of six fifes, four snare drums, and a bass drum.

[Photograph and emphases added.]

From the New York Tribune of July 11, 1903:

Mother Jones MMC, Rest at Delaware Rv, MJ at Morrisvl PA, Drummers and Banners, NY Tb p1, July 11, 1903

ARMY CROSSES DELAWARE
———-

YOUNG GIRLS SENT HOME
———-
“Mother” Jones Says Her Crusade Is Against Child Labor.

[On the evening of July 10th the Army crossed the Delaware River and entered Trenton. Mother Jones spoke at a meeting of the Central Labor Union of Trenton, and later spoke at an open-air meeting near Battle Monument. On the afternoon of July 10th, a reporter visited the camp at Morrisville Point and described the meal served there. The boy-strikers, all under fifteen, were described by the reporter as “veritable little old men, with stooped shoulders and a serious expression of countenance far beyond their years.” The reporter was able to interview Mother Jones who described Kensington as “one of the worst places in the world for child labor.” She described the hard life of the girls working in “that hellhole.” Mother denied that there had been any “desertions,” stating that some would turn back at various points along the march.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for December 1909, Part II: Found in Philadelphia Speaking to Shirtwaist Makers

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Quote Mother Jones to Philly Shirtwaist Makers Dec 19, NY Call Dec 21, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday January 10, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for December 1909, Part II:
-Found in Philadelphia Speaking to Shirtwaist Makers

On Sunday evening, December 19th, Mother Jones spoke to shirtwaist makers of Philadelphia at meetings held at the Labor Lyceum and Mercantile Hall. By unanimous vote and to deafening cheers, a strike was declared and set to begin at 9 a. m. on December 20th.

From The New York Call of December 21, 1909:

[Mother Jones Speaks.]

Mother Jones, Elkhart IN Dly Rv p2, Crpd, July 19, 1909

The action of Director Clay in forbidding the holding of a meeting in the Arch Street Theater, last night, to declare the strike was severely criticised by Mother Jones, in her speeches. She denounced the city administration as roundly as she denounced the bosses, who, she declared, had become wealthy through the toil of the girls before her.

[She said:]

They have an Independence Hall down here on Chestnut street; I wonder what it means to those who, for some deep political purpose, prevented you from having independence in the way of having a meeting to assert your rights? Tomorrow morning I hope every girl in this hall will walk out of the shops and let the employers make the waists themselves. Walk out at 9 o’clock, and don’t wear your Sunday-go-to-meetings clothes.

Let the people see you. Let them see that you are going to strike the shackles of slavery off your body. Get the spirit of revolt and be a woman. It’s not a Mrs. Belmont or an Anne Morgan that we want, but independent workers who will assert their rights.

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Hellraisers Journal: James Connolly, Editor of The Harp, Speaks on Socialism, Religion, and Conditions in Ireland

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Edit Irish Socialist Federation, James Connolly, NYC 1908
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday December 30, 1908
Trenton, New Jersey – Irish Socialist, James Connolly Speaks

From the Trenton Evening Times of December 28, 1908:

IRISH SOCIALIST MAKES ADDRESS

James Connolly, 1902, Multitext of U College Cork

J. C. Connelly [Connolly], an Irish Socialist, and editor of the Harp, of New York, addressed a meeting of the Trenton Socialists last night in Arcade Hall. Mr. Connelly spoke of the conditions in Ireland as regards the two great classes, the capitalist and the laborer.

He stated that the capitalist there, and in all other countries, disregarded the question of race and religion. He said that the Irish people were beginning to realize the folly of attempting to liberate the Irish race and on the very next day to find it necessary to [beg?] the capitalist for means of sustenance; that, although Cardinal Logue and other eminent men of the Catholic Church have scouted the idea of Socialism in Ireland, nevertheless there are many Socialist clubs in Ireland.

He said that the revolutionist of Ireland is taking the same stand as the Socialist, that religion is a private matter; that clerical leaders will not necessarily be safe guides in politics whatever they might be in theology.

[Photograph added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Class War Prisoner, Patrick Quinlan, Exposes Horrors of New Jersey’s Modern-Day Bastile

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There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday December 27, 1916
From the Appeal to Reason: Newly Released, Quinlan Describes Prison Life

Unspeakable Horrors of New Jersey’s
Bastile Exposed by Quinlan
—–

“Political Prisoner”, Recently Liberated After Serving Unjust Sentence, Tells Appeal Readers of Atrocities Practiced on Helpless Victims of Social System-Quinlan’s Remarkable Training as Labor Agitator Combined With His Terrible Experience in Penitentiary Brings Forth This Unprecedented Story of “Crimes Against Criminals.”

—–

BY PATRICK L. QUINLAN

Paterson Silk Strike, Pat Quinlan, Current of 1913

My experience in New Jersey’s penitentiary compels me to say that I am not prepared to accept in full the statement so often made that our public institutions reflect the spirit, the mind of the people. If it were entirely true that institutions were the mirror of a people, then the state of New Jersey and its two and a half million inhabitants would occupy the largest place in Dante’s Inferno of lost souls. One would be compelled to conclude that the people of New Jersey were fiendish in their cruelty, diabolical in their oppression, medieval in their conception of their duties toward the inmates of their state prison, located within the shadow of their capitol at Trenton. But they are not, I am sure, more cruel, not more oppressive, nor more medieval than the people of other states; they are, only, perhaps, more indifferent and, I hope they will pardon me, more ignorant. Their social soul, their public conscience, is not formed to harmonize with the spirit of the times, nor is it developed to work sympathetically with its progressive sister states.

If New Jersey’s penitentiary reflected the people of the state, then we would be prepared to disagree with Edmund Burke’s famous dictum that one cannot indict a whole people, and proceed to charge the two and a half million people of the state of New Jersey with murder, robbery and graft.

Pictures the Bastile.

With this brief apology for the citizens of New Jersey, I will, in the following lines, give the readers of this paper an unexaggerated picture of New Jersey’s bastile, with the hope that the same good results will be accomplished for its unfortunate inmates as were done for the victims of Fort Leavenworth federal prison.

Men who had been in every big prison in the United States told me in language that was emphatic as well as picturesque, that Trenton’s “Big House” was the worst prison in the country, and the study of prison reports and the literature of penology convince me that the convicts told the truth. Personally, I cannot imagine anything worse except the contract prison camps of the south and the Siberian dungeons, where the victims of the Russian autocracy are buried alive.

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