Hellraisers Journal – Friday September 15, 1922 Mother Jones Critically Ill at Home of T. V. Powderly in Washington, D. C.
From the Pittsburg, Kansas, Workers Chronicle of September 8, 1922:
FRIEND OF MINERS IS CRITICALLY ILL ———- “Mother” Jones, 92, “Angel Mining Camps,” Stricken With Pneumonia. ———-
Washington, Sept. 5.-“Mother” Jones, known to coal miners the country over through her work in their behalf for fifty years, lies critically ill here.
All news of the coal strike settlement and of developments in the rail strike have been kept from Mother Jones by her doctors’ orders.
The aged unofficial leader of the miners was stricken with pneumonia following her arrival here late in July. She came to Washington to recover from a nervous breakdown, following work in the Colorado [West Virginia] mine fields.
At the home of T. V. Powderly, secretary of the board of review, labor department, where Mrs. Jones is being cared for, it was said the aged woman has an even chance for recovery, despite her 92 years.
Once a school teacher in Chicago, Mother Jones became interested in welfare work for girls, and from that broadened her activities until she was nationally known. She was called “Angel of the Mining Camps” because of her frequent ministrations to miners, particularly during strikes.
[Emphasis added; newclip added from Richmond Palladium of Sept. 8th]
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday July 23, 1922 Washington, D. C. – Matilda Robbins Arrives with Petition for Political Prisoners
From The Washington Times of July 20, 1922:
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This truck, in charge of Miss Matilda Robbins, arrived in Washington yesterday, bringing a petition signed by a million persons asking for the release of political prisoners.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday May 10, 1922 Washington, D. C. – President Refuses Petitions for Political Prisoners
From the Vancouver Daily World (British Columbia) of May 2, 1922:
From the Regina Morning Leader (Saskatchewan) of May 4, 1922:
From the Oklahoma Leader of May 9, 1922:
[-from page 1]
CREDIT CHILDREN FOR HARDING ACT ———- President Calls For Reports On Politicals ———-
By LAURENCE TODD Federated Press Staff Correspondent
WASHINGTON, May 8.-President Harding has called for reports from the department of justice on the Philadelphia [?] I. W. W. cases.
News of this response to renewed pressure for release of the political prisoners was given by the attorney general’s office on Monday, to a delegation from the Women’s International league, which on Sunday adopted resolutions demanding general amnesty. Action by this national organization of women was prompted by the coming of the Children’s Crusade and the hostile reception given the children and their mothers by President Harding and his associates.
Credit for apparent anxiety on the part of the administration to get rid of the issue of amnesty is given to the children, who have touched the hearts of even the most hardened politicians and idlers in the capital. Something near indignation is manifested by the general public as it learns of the driving of these children away from the president’s church on Sunday on the pretext that the place of worship was already crowded to the limit of the fire regulations. Moving picture men pose the weary and work-bowed mothers and the tired little girls and boys, and local newspapers publish many groups of them with sympathetic comment.
The Crusaders are digging in to make the fight, however long, to change the attitude of Harding, whether they soften his heart or no.
[Reference to Philadelphia makes little sense here. Most of the families represented by Children’s Crusade were from Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri.)
[-from page 4]
CHILD CRUSADERS STAY AT CAPITAL ———- President Refuses To See Petitions For Prisoners ———-
WASHINGTON, May 9.-Even though President Harding refused to see Mrs. Kate Richards O’Hare and the children’s crusade, the results of the trip will be far from in vain. When Attorney General Daugherty, to whom the President referred them, was seen he stated that there would no general amnesty decree, that each case would be considered on its merits and action taken only upon application for pardon being made by the “offenders.”
“We shall stay here on the doorstep of the federal government until the fathers of these children and all other political prisoners are released,” Mrs. O’Hare has announced. Living quarters have been provided by the Farmer-Labor party and the American Civil Liberties union.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday April 22, 1922 Washington, D. C. – Amnesty Possible for Fletcher, Nef, Walsh and Doree
From the Baltimore Sun of April 20, 1922:
(From The Sun Bureau.)
Washington, April 19.-In the face of a renewed effort, led by the American Civil Liberties’ Union, to secure the pardon or commutation of sentences of 113 so-called political prisoners who still are in Federal prisons, it was learned today that the Department of Justice has no thought of recommending amnesty for the group. It is willing, however, to take up individual cases in the usual way, it is said. Apparently only Presidential intervention can accomplish general amnesty, and of that there is no sign.
Four cases are now concretely before the department-those of Walter T. Nef, Ben Fletcher, John J. Walsh and Edward F. Doree. They were members of the Marine Transport Workers’ Union, of Philadelphia, which is affiliated with the I. W. W. They were sentenced to prison by Judge Landis, in Chicago, because of their activity in the I. W. W., although, it is asserted by their friends, they had been wholly loyal to the Government in their work at Philadelphia.
No Evidence Yet Of Disloyalty.
Investigation made thus far by the Department of Justice has failed to disprove contentions of champions of Nef, Fletcher, Walsh and Doree that the Transport Workers’ Union in Philadelphia, which Nef, dominated and which embraced practically all of the dock workers in Philadelphia, performed its work with complete loyalty to the Government.
Dr. Frederick Edgerton, of the University of Pennsylvania, a champion of the men, has said that the Philadelphia dock workers did better than those anywhere else.
Dr. Frederick Edgerton has said that enormous quantities of munitions were shipped from Philadelphia during the war without a single accident at the dock or on any ship loaded at the dock; that many accidents occurred at other ports, and ships loaded elsewhere were taken to Philadelphia and reloaded. He also asserted that there was no strike in 1917 among the Philadelphia longshoremen, although strikes occurred elsewhere; that Nef used his influence against a strike, and also intervened against strikes in Boston and Baltimore; that many of the members of the Philadelphia union entered the service and that the members of the union bought $115,000 of Liberty bonds.
Thinks Record Should Count.
All of this, according to Dr. Edgerton and others, should outweight any significance that may attach to the activity of the four men in the central organization of the I. W. W., which led to their indictment and conviction with a large number of others, under the Espionage act, on charges of conspiracy.And it seems that Government officials, so far as they have gone into these cases, have no evidence that the men were not helpful to the Government at Philadelphia or that they were guilty of any overt acts elsewhere.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday April 20, 1922 Children’s Crusade for Amnesty Heads to Washington, D. C.
From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch of April 13, 1922:
MRS. KATE RICHARDS O’HARE, whose five-year sentence under the espionage act was commuted by President Wilson after she had served 14 months, greeting, at Union station today, the families of other prisoners similarly convicted and still imprisoned. Mrs. O’Hare will accompany them to Washington to beseech President Harding to release their husbands and fathers.
The woman at the extreme left is Mrs. Walter Reeder of Wilson, Ark., with her son, Don, 16 (rear row), and her daughter, Elbertina, 9 years old. The woman behind Elbertina is Mrs. Stanley J. Clark of Fort Worth, Tex. Next are Mrs. O’Hare’s son, Victor, and Mrs. O’Hare. Beside Mrs. O’Hare is Mrs. William Madison Hicks of Guthrie, Ok., with her son, Robert, 9, and her daughters, Rose Alice, 3, and Helen Keller, 6. The group at the right of the picture are Mrs. William Benefield of Saskawa, Ok., and her five children, Beulah, 12, Willie, a girl, 5, Dock, 18, George, 10, and Eugene, 6.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday March 8, 1912 Children of Lawrence Strikers Appear before House Committee at Washington
From The Washington Times of March 2, 1912:
[Inset: Miss Tema Camitta, Philadelphia Sunday School Teacher.]
From the Washington Evening Star of March 2, 1912:
Child Tells Her Story.
There was Camello [Camella] Teoli, a little Italian girl, who stood up when she was told and who said she was sixteen years old, although she didn’t look it. She started to work in the spinning room of one of the American Woolen Company’s mills in Lawrence two years ago and three weeks later had her hair caught in a shafting and her scalp torn off, just as did Miss Houghton, at the census office, more than twelve months ago. But little Camello Teoli was the oldest of seven children and, with her father, the support of the family.
She earned several dollars a week when “speeded up,” and her father, when he was lucky, made seven. She is still under treatment as a result of the horrible accident of which she was a victim, but lately has been working just the same, she said, for her father has been on “slack time” and has been making $2.80 a week.
There were other children there, too, who, while they showed no scars, looked even to the untrained eye as if they had been “speeded up” beyond the limit of juvenile endurance.
Cheeks sallow, lips pinched and eyes that seemed to have looked upon all the misery of the world, the children sat unmoved throughout the hearing, presented by Mr. Berger as an exhibit of what “one of the most highly protected industries in America does to the human life by which it is served,” as he declared.
The children, with several adult strikers as guardians, and accompanied byGeorge W. Roewer, the Boston attorney, who has defended in court the strikers arrested in Lawrence, reached Washington last night several hours behind schedule time, and were met at the Union station were escorted to the accommodations that had been provided for them by a big crowd of local socialists and labor sympathizers. All of the Lawrence delegation wore little cards, bearing the inscription “Don’t be a scab,” and although weary from their journey, marched to their lower Pennsylvania avenue hotel singing and cheering.
Today they marched to the Capitol in the same way, and outside of the House building had to run the fire of a battery of cameras and moving picture machines stationed right outside of the entrance.
[Note: Camella Teoli was introduced to the Committee on March 2nd. She made her full statement before the Committee on March 4th.]
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday January 24, 1922
Mother Jones News Round-Up for August 1921
Found Advocating for Mexican Workers and Standing with West Virginia Miners
From the Salina Kansas Leader of August 4, 1921
-from The New Majority (Chicago Federation of Labor):
U. S. LABOR ASKED TO ASSIST MEXICO ———- Mother Jones Brings Request for Alliance in Fight for New Civilization
The Republican administration under President Harding is beating the tom-toms to arouse the country to stand for a war against Mexico to bind and gag that country while the oil profiteers continue to pick its pockets. Excuse has been made of a strike of oil workers to send United States gunboats to Mexican waters in an effort to cow the Mexican workers back to work for their “American” employers.
Only the labor movement of the United States can prevent war with Mexico. The Denver convention of the A. F. of L., adopted a policy of resisting such a war. The time seems to be at hand for the American unions to start their protest, if it is to become effective.
Mother Jones has just returned from her second trip to Mexico within the year. She was in Chicago last week and brought with her a message from the Mexican organized workers. Just before she left, she attended a meeting of the presidents and secretaries of the unions affiliated with the Mexican Federation of Labor. They asked her to bear this greeting to organized labor of the United States :
We send greetings to our brother workers in America and we want you, Mother Jones, to carry the message to them that the world is in the birth throes of a new civilization and that we in Mexico are coming to her aid to relieve her pain. We also wish you would ask our brothers in the United States to join us and we will stand shoulder to shoulder with them to usher in the new day and the civilization.
Now is Time to Help
If the workers of the United States are to stand shoulder to shoulder with the workers of Mexico, the job has got to begin with making impossible a war by our oil kings against the Mexican people.
Mother Jones reports that labor is making great strides in Mexico. She says that the newspaper reports that President Obregon is giving in to American demands that article 27 of the Mexican constitution be repealed are false. Article 27 vests ownership of the underground wealth of Mexico in the Mexican people.
She says that recently the Mexican government provided 300 striking miners with agricultural implements and placed them on farm lands so they could support themselves during their struggle and that in another case when the workers of a factory were locked out, the employer was compelled to reinstate them and pay their back wages.
[Said Mother Jones:]
Mothers who are employed are now retired on full pay for three months before childbirth and three months thereafter. Then for another three they bring their babies to work and have them cared for during working hours in nurseries provided by the employers. Whereas Mexican workers heretofore never knew when starvation and death would overtake them, their condition has improved so that now their children are going to school and are assured of their breakfast every morning before they go.
-New Majority.
[Photograph added.]
From North Carolina’s Wilson Times of August 5, 1921:
UNION MINERS GO TO COAL
FIELDS N MINGO COUNTY
———-
MOTHER JONES IS GOING ———- Union Official Sates if the Organizers Were Arrested
He Would Send More Until the Jails Were Full.
Coal Fields in Mingo County Are Under Martial Law ———-
Charleston, W. V., July 29.-100 members of the United Mine workers of America from Cabin Creek and Paint Creek fields will start for Mingo county according to C. F. Keeney, president of district No. 17.
Mother Jones, organizer, is expected to arrive here tonight and also will go to the coal fields.
The decision to send the union men into the district which is under martial law was made the miners president said after C. F. Workman an organizer was reported arrested. Keeney claimed Workman had permission from the state authorities to return to the fields to wind up his personal business.
Keeney stated if organizers were arrested he would send more until every jail was filled, and if they were not arrested it would prove “organizers can go into a strike zone unmolested.”
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday December 27, 1921 Atlanta Penitentiary – Debs Weeps as 2,300 Convicts Cheer His Release
From The Indianapolis Star of December 26, 1921:
—————
(Special to The Indianapolis Star.)
ATLANTA, Ga. Dec. 26.-Eugene V, Debs left prison today. His going was the occasion of the most unique demonstration in American prison history.
Twenty-three hundred men, convicted of crimes unnumbered, their faces pressed against the bars of the windows on three floors of the big Federal penitentiary, shouted and cheered him and before them all, in the great foreground, he broke down and cried like a child.
Recovering himself, he stepped into an automobile and was driven off, the voices of the 2,300 following him for half a mile.As this is written, on a train bound for Washington, with Debs as a passenger in a day coach, the mystery surrounding the celebrated convict deepens. Why is he going to the capital? He refuses to say, but he has admitted he has a mission there. Whether or not the trip is a condition of his release he declines to say, but the fact that he was driven to the station in the automobile of the warden, four of whose deputies are aboard this train, would indicate that while Debt is out of prison he is not yet free.
“Citizen of the World.”
So far as he himself is concerned, however, he construes himself a liberated “citizen of the world,” the phrase having to do with President Harding’s refusal to grant a pardon which would have restored the prisoner’s civil rights.
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