Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for September 1921, Part I: Found Celebrating Labor Day in Indiana, Pennsylvania

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Quote Mother Jones Princeton WV Speech Aug 15, 1920, Steel Speeches, p227—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday February 8, 1922
Mother Jones News Round-Up for September 1921, Part I
Found Celebrating Labor Day in Indiana, Pennsylvania

From Pennsylvania’s Indiana Evening Gazette of September 3, 1921:

Labor Day.

Mother Jones, Lecompton KS Sun p10, Sept 8, 1921

The local committee announced this morning that the arrangements for the Labor Day celebration had been practically completed and that all that was lacking for a proper observance of the occasion was the promise of fair weather. “We expect all organized labor to join in the parade on Monday,” said the chairman of the committee this morning.

There will be hundreds of visitors for the occasion, music by four bands and a drum corps and talks from three well-known speakers-President John Brophy of Clearfield, President of District No. 2, United Mine Workers of America; Mother Jones, and John Ghizzoni, international board member. It was stated that Mother Jones would probably arrive here on Sunday afternoon, direct from the scene of the conflict in West Virginia.

—————

[Photograph added.]

From the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel of September 4, 1921:

“Labor Day and the Closed Shop” 
-Ad from The Employers Association of Fort Wayne:

Ad for Open Shop, re WV, Mother Jones, Ft Wyn Sent p6, Feb 4, 1922

From the Pennsylvania’s Indiana Evening Gazette of September 6, 1921:

Labor’s Holiday.

With the presence of three notables of the international association of the United Mine Workers of America in attendance-John Brophy, president  of District No. 2: John Ghizzoni, international board member & “Mother” Jones-organized labor held its annual celebration under the most favorable auspices at the Fair Grounds yesterday. Members of organized labor and their families, to the number of several thousand, came into Indiana for the celebration, the events of which were carried out with a minimum of confusion and no trouble worth mentioning…..

Note: emphasis added throughout.

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks at Convention of United Mine Workers of America, Part IV: Rather Die Fighting

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Quote Mother Jones, Rather Die Fighting, UMWC p739, Sept 26, 1921—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday September 30, 1921
Mother Jones Speaks at United Mine Workers Convention, Part IV

Indianapolis Convention of the United Mine Workers of America
Sixth Day, September 26, 1921, Mother Jones Speaks, Part IV of IV:

Mother Jones, Lecompton KS Sun p10, Sept 8, 1921

The day is gone in American history when judges can assume the role of lords above us. The pulse of the world is beating, my friends, as it never beat in human history. Not alone in America is it throbbing but the world over. Editors don’t know. They sit in the oflice using a pencil and stabbing us in the back sometimes. Ministers don’t know; statesmen don’t know; professors in the universities don’t know what is going on; but the pulse of the world is throbbing for the civilization that was started back in Jerusalem two thousand years ago. You can not crush a man today; you may put him in jail; you may fill your jails, but the fight will go on. You are living in an electric age. The current is touching the human heart of man, and never again will the system of slavery that has prevailed in the past and that we are driving out now come into the world.

I want to warn that judge today that it is best to bring conciliation to bear than to drive us apart. America will live on, and we are going to march and we are going to bring back the old times of Patrick Henry and Jefferson and Lincoln. It is up to you to stop wasting time on technicalities and get down to business and save this money you are spending. You are going to need it. Put away your prejudice and let us fight. I spoke Labor Day in District 2. Then I went down into Mexico and New Mexico. I got a paper there in which I saw that President Brophy of District 2 was doing business. I wrote him a letter congratulating him. I am glad to know that District 2 has a good president, and, Brophy, I am with you. Whenever you want to raise hell with the other fellows, send for me!

I am going after this fellow (indicating Vice-President Murray) because he isn’t doing business in Pittsburgh as he ought to. That used to be the old fighting ground. Vice-President Murray, you do business there.

And now I am going to say something to the women. The destiny of nations depends upon the women. No nation had ever grown beyond its women. Whatever corruption, whatever brutal, ugly instincts the man has he hasn’t got from his mother. I have studied this for fifty years; I have studied every great man I have ever met and he has always had a great mother. Many times I walked fifteen miles to see a woman after I had met her son.

I want to say to John P. White before I close that I expressed appreciation of him for what he did for me when he was President. At no time did I go to him and explain to him what I wanted done but what he handed me money or endorsed what I had done, and we got results. I could have done a great deal more in West Virginia, but I think from all we can hear that we are going to go forward. Don’t blame the Governor of West Virginia. Don’t be so ready to knife him. There are things no statesman can override. This is a dangerous time. Presidents and Governors must move with care. There is no state in America that has better miners than West Virginia. Some of the noblest characters you have are there and you know it. They live up the creeks and the speakers who appear before them do not always use their language or appeal to them. You must know the life of those men. There isn’t another state in the Union like West Virginia, and the organizers that go out, Mr. Lewis, don’t understand the game. I have gone to Mr. White time and again and have told him to take them out because they didn’t fit into the situation. I don’t believe in giving the miners’ money to anyone who doesn’t bring results.

I asked Mr. Lewis to send a man into Mingo to handle the finance. He mentioned one or two and then said: “What do you think of Fowler?” “He is just the man,” I said, and he gave him to me and we got results. I am interested in the children and in those poor fellows who can’t be reached except by the capitalists’ papers that go in. That is all they know. You must educate them, and I want to say, Mr. Editor of the Journal, that you ought to cut out that picture “How to Dress.” We know how to dress when we get the money to dress with. What you want to tell us is how to pull that money out of the other fellow.

Up in Princeton the men were asking for years for organization. We sent a boy up to bill the meeting but didn’t tell them who was going to speak. The boy had to run away the minute he circulated the bills or he would be killed. I went up with Mr. Houston, the attorney for the miners. We were told the meeting would be in the park three miles and a half away. I said we wouldn’t hold it there, that we would start a riot out there, and then they would say: “Old Mother Jones went out in the park and started a riot.” I said: “See if the city authorities won’t give us a place in the town to meet.” We got it and seven thousand men came there, largely railroad men, machinists and farmers. Seven cars of Baldwin-Felts thugs came down, loaded with whiskey and guns. There was no prohibition men there that day. Houston got up to speak and I saw that something was being plotted. I got up and spoke, but I hadn’t talked more than ten minutes when they began to start the riot.

When I wound up my speech I said: “Mr. Baldwin-Felts guards, I am going to serve notice on you that I will take this thing up to Uncle Sam, explain the matter, and if Uncle Sam don’t protect the children of the nation Old Mother Jones will. They won’t be raised under the influence of murderers like you.” The railroad men were afraid I would be killed and asked policemen to take me away. I told them I was not afraid of being killed, that I would rather die fighting than die in my bed. I want to say to you mothers to quit buying pistols for your children. Train them to something better than a pistol and a gun. Almost every child today has a toy pistol. You began training them to use a pistol while they were in the cradles and the welfare workers never raise their voices about it. The legislature should pass a law that no mother should buy a pistol for a child.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks at Convention of United Mine Workers of America, Part IV: Rather Die Fighting”

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks at Convention of United Mine Workers of America, Held at Columbus, Ohio

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Quote Mother Jones, Grow Big Great Mighty Show CFnI, UMWC p269 Jan 21, 1911———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday January 23, 1911
Columbus, Ohio – Mother Jones Speaks at Miners’ Convention

From the Washington Sunday Star of January 22, 1911:

LIE IS PASSED FREELY AT MINERS’ CONVENTION
—–
“Mother Jones” Makes Address Calling
Supreme Court Judges Real Anarchists.
———

Mother Jones crpd ed, WDC Tx p5, June 18, 1910

COLUMBUS, Ohio, January 21.-Control of the United Mine Workers’ convention came to a severe test in the contest for the seating of delegates from nine locals of district No. 2 of central Pennsylvania. Charges of falsehoods were made freely by each side and the convention finally adjourned to continue the fight Monday.

Expected contests over the seating of President Francis Feehan of the Pittsburg district did not materialize and he was seated without final objection.

“Mother” Jones spoke before the convention. She classes members of the United States Supreme Court and Gov. Harmon of Ohio among “the real anarchists of the country.”

[…..]

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for August 1900, Part I: Found Visiting Jailed Strikers of Georges Creek Coal District

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Quote Mother Jones, Shoulder to Shoulder, Blt Sun p10, July 26, 1900———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday September 9, 1900
Mother Jones News Round-Up for August 1900, Part I
Found Visiting Jailed Strikers of Georges Creek Coal District

From The Philadelphia Inquirer of August 5, 1900:

STRIKE LEADER GOES TO PRISON
FOR SIX MONTHS
——-
Woman Sympathizer Creates a Sensation
in a Maryland Jail

Special to The Inquirer.

Mother Jones, Kenosha Ns WI p7, June 26, 1900

CUMBERLAND, Md., Aug. 4.-William Warner, the strike leader, was sentenced this afternoon to six months in the House of Correction, having been convicted of unlawful assembly during trouble which arose at an anti-strike meeting. Seventeen miners were also sentenced. They were visited at the jail this afternoon by Mother Jones, the woman labor organizer, who created a sensation by proposing three cheers in the jail for the strikers and three hisses “for the blacklegs.” She led the cheering, as well as the hissing. Warner, who is from Pittsburg, took an appeal.

—————

[Photograph added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for August 1900, Part I: Found Visiting Jailed Strikers of Georges Creek Coal District”

Hellraisers Journal: From International Socialist Review: “The Irwin Coal Strike” by Thomas F. Kennedy, Part III

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Quote Mother Jones, Last Great Battle, UMWC p420, Jan 26, 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday August 27, 1910
“The Irwin Coal Strike” by Thomas F. Kennedy, Part III

From the International Socialist Review of August 1910:

Westmoreland County Coal Strike, by TF Kennedy, ISR p99, Aug 1910

[Part III of III]

Westmoreland Coal Strike Begins Mar 10, Omaha Daily Bee p15, Mar 12, 1910

At a Socialist meeting at Jamison No. I on the evening of July 8 three well known scabs walked up and took seats on the grass in the middle of the crowd. Several armed deputies were also present, and we heard later that a large body of these cut-throats were concealed nearby. The purpose of course was to irritate the strikers so they would attack the scabs and use this as an excuse for whole sale murder. They were disappointed because the scabs were not molested, except for the scourging usually given scabs and deputies by the speakers.

* * *

Not a single beer keg, beer case, beer bottle or whiskey bottle around any camp that I have visited. Not a sign of intoxication. This is one of the gratifying features of the strike.

* * *

Numerous dynamite explosions have occurred throughout the district during the strike. No one was injured and no damage to property resulted. If experienced miners accustomed to using explosives had been guilty of such folly there would be somebody or something destroyed. I have not the slightest doubt about declaring that this is the work of the operators or their agents, or of deputies who want their $5.00 day jobs to last and who perhaps are doing it without the knowledge of the sheriff or his employers, the operators.

One of the noteworthy features of the strike is the sympathy displayed by the farmers. And it is no mere lip sympathy either, but takes the good substantial form of defying the coal corporations and permitting the strikers to erect tents on their farms right under the noses of the scabs.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From International Socialist Review: “The Irwin Coal Strike” by Thomas F. Kennedy, Part III”

Hellraisers Journal: From International Socialist Review: “The Irwin Coal Strike” by Thomas F. Kennedy, Part I

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Quote Mother Jones, Last Great Battle, UMWC p420, Jan 26, 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday August 25, 1910
“The Irwin Coal Strike” by Thomas F. Kennedy, Part I

From the International Socialist Review of August 1910:

Westmoreland County Coal Strike, Irwin Field Camp, ISR p99, Aug 1910

[Part I of III]

THE fourth startling shock sustained by complacent, self-satisfied American Plutocracy within ten months is the strike of 20,000 or more miners in the Irwin coal fields in Westmoreland county, Pa.

It is a shock not because of its magnitude or duration, but because of the feeling of absolute security enjoyed for years by the operators. They convinced themselves that their kingdom was strike proof. They had established a perfect quarantine against labor agitators from the outside. Numerous failures of small strikes extending over a long period of years clinched their convictions that they had established ideal labor conditions. They felt as secure as the ancient slave masters, the Feudal barons or Schwab when he drank that toast to “The best, most contented and CHEAPEST labor in the world,” meaning of course the workers in his private Siberia at Bethlehem.

The first of the four tooth-loosening shocks was the unorganized, spontaneous revolt of the workers at McKees Rocks in June 1909. The second was at Bethlehem, and the third the general strike at Philadelphia.

The fourth, the strike in the Irwin field, presents some features that were absent in all of the others.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From International Socialist Review: “The Irwin Coal Strike” by Thomas F. Kennedy, Part I”

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for March 1900: “For many years she has devoted her life to the downtrodden.” -J. A. Wayland

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Quote JA Wayland, Mother Jones, AtR p1, Mar 17, 1900———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday April 10, 1900
Mother Jones News Round-Up for March 1900
Found Receiving Tributes from J. A. Wayland and Arnot Miners

From Appeal to Reason from March 17, 1900:

AtR p1, JA Wayland, Mar 17, 1900

Mother Jones, Title, AtR p1, Mar 17, 1900

[by J. A. Wayland]

WHEN the history of these times, shall be written by people living under a state of industrial harmony and peace, in the years to come, the name of “Mother” Mary Jones will occupy a prominent place. For many years she has devoted her life to the downtrodden, and is known to every railroad man and miner who is intelligent enough to be called a man. She was my guest during the winter and early spring of 1898-9, and I learned to love her great heart and gray hairs. For many months she has been working among the striking miners of Pennsylvania, encouraging the men and advising them not only absent the tactics necessary to win the industrial battle, but teaching them the lessons of brotherhood and the rights of the working people to have the full results of their labor. Writing to “Grit,” a correspondent recites the tribute paid Mother Jones at the ending of the long struggle as follows:

Blossburg, Feb. 23.A most appropriate finale to the long struggle between operaters and miners in this section, and a just tribute of love, honor, and respect to one of the most active participants in the whole affair, was the immense parade of men, women, and children, which marched from Arnot to Blossburg, a distance of five miles, on Saturday night, Feb. 17, one of the roughest and coldest nights of this winter, to pay their last heartfelt tribute to one, who, while her labors in this county are ended, and she may never return to this locality again, bears away with her the most sincere gratitude of the mining portion of Tioga county-Mrs. Mary Jones. As they had marched to Blossburg at critical times during the strike to hear words of encouragement from her, and to feel strengthened by her presence, so they marched on that last night of her stay, through a gale of wind and snow, to proclaim their fealty to her, and their true appreciation of her labor.

On Saturday night Mrs. Jones made her last speech and the “striking” portion of Arnot, together with the citizens of Blossburg, turned out in full farce to do honor to the old lady who is generally credited with having won the strike.

Both Mr. Wilson and Mrs. Jones addressed the people, but interest was mainly centered on “Mother” that night, and her bright beaming face told how happy she was at the miner’s success. She spoke at length on the strike and its results, and cited it as a repetition of the Civil war on a small scale. She addressed the women feelingly, and ended by advising the men to be always peaceful, and to bury the hatchet, to forget all little animosities, to be careful in the future at the polls, and to be sure and pay those men who had stood by them, if only a dollar a month. The speaking ended about 11 o’clock and the procession quickly formed and started homeward. The settlement includes the restoration to their houses of the evicted miners, but as Mr. Lincoln is away none have been able to move back as yet. The men of Arnot and Landrus are to be provided with work first, and the mine foremen are offering to put on three shifts of eight hours each in order to more speedily open the north drift headings and to employ as many men as possible.

———-

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for January and February 1900, Found Receiving Fervent Ovation from Arnot Strikers

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Quote re Mother Jones at Arnot, Wellsboro PA Agitator p1, Jan 17, 1900———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 9, 1900
Mother Jones News Round-Up for January and February 1900
Found in Pennsylvania Receiving “Fervent Ovation” from Arnot Miners

From The Wellsboro Agitator of February 28, 1900:

Mother Jones, Arnot Strike ed, Elmira NY Dly Gz p5, Oct 7, 1899

LOCAL FACTS AND COMMENTS.
—–
Recent Haps and Mishaps in this County and Its Vicinity.

[…..]

Arnot miners, who sought work elsewhere after the strike began, are now coming home.

[…..]

Mrs. Mary Jones, of Pittsburg, the striking miners’ champion, left this county on the 19th instant to go to Toby valley whither she had been summoned. The night before her departure there was a fervent ovation in her honor at the opera-house in Blossburg. Mr. W. B. Wilson, of Blossburg, President of the 5th District United Mine Workers of America, presided and paid Mrs. Jones a glowing tribute. Mrs. Jones’s remarks were very affecting.

[…..]

———-

[Inset added from Elmira Gazette of October 7, 1899.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Arnot Miners’ Strike Ends in Victory; Mother Jones Given Rousing Farewell at Blossburg

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Quote re Mother Jones at Arnot, Wellsboro PA Agitator p1, Jan 17, 1900———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday February 24, 1900
Blossburg, Pennsylvania – Arnot Miners and Families Bid Mother Jones Farewell

From the Wilkes-Barre Daily News of February 17, 1900:

Mother Jones ed, St L Rpb p2, Feb 5, 1898

STRIKE DECLARED OFF.

BLOSSBURG, Pa., Feb. 16.-The strike at the Arnot and the Landrus mines of the Blossburg Coal Company, which began eight months ago, was officially declared of to-day, when all the demands of the miners were conceded by the company. The men will be put to work as fast as places can be made for them. One thousand men are affected. During the strike forty families were evicted from company houses at Arnot. There were daily demonstrations and parades and many were arrested charged with riot, true bills being found against 35 persons, including several women.

———-

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

From the Mansfield Advertiser of February 21, 1900:

-Mrs. Jones, of Pittsburg, otherwise “Mother Jones,” was given a rousing farewell at Blossburg Opera House last Saturday by the miners, late on strike, among whom she has labored so unceasingly the past few months.

[Emphasis added.]

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