What the lawmakers give you
they can take away.
The only thing you are sure of
is what you win for yourself.
-Mother Jones
Hellraisers Journal, Thursday May 10, 1917
Mother Jones News for April: Mother Jones Returns to West Virginia
Who could ever forget the story of Mother Jones in West Virginia during the Paint and Cabin Creek Strike of 1912 and 1913 when she was held prisoner and court-martialed by the military forces of the that state?
Mother Jones has recently returned to the state of West Virginia, along with Peggy Dwyer, as an organizer for the United Mine Workers of America. This is where we find her during most of the month of April 1917.
First, however, we find her mentioned in and article in the New York Tribune of April 1, 1917, written by John J. Leary, Jr., and entitled “How Old Is The Eight-Hour Movement?”
“How old is the eight-hour movement,” asked the city editor, when the attention of the country was focussed on the labor question by the decision of the Supreme Court upholding the Adamson eight-hour act….
As a matter of cold fact, the first law fixing the hours of labor at eight was enacted in New York fifty years ago, in 1857, to be exact. A joker in the law, however, prevented its being much more than a dead letter, for it was also provided that the law should apply only “where there is no contract or agreement to the contrary.” [With the bosses, of course, writing the contracts.]