Hellraisers Journal: Part I: “Mother Jones & Her Methods -Personality & Power of This Aged Woman”-Boston Sunday Herald

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Quote Mother Jones, Speech WV 1897, Lives You Are Living, Bst Hld Sun Mag p1, Sept 11, 1904—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday September 13, 1904
Part I of III: “Mother Jones & Her Methods”-Her Power Proved

From the Boston Sunday Herald of September 11, 1904:

HdLn w Photos Mother Jones Methods, Speech WV 1897, Bstn Hld Sun Mag p1, Sept 11, 1904

(FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.)

NEW YORK, Sept. 9, 1904

Mother Jones Methods, Bstn Hld Sun Mag p1, Sept 11, 1904If there is a woman of these modern times worthy of being classed with the grand characters of history, the heroic women of the ages-Hypatia, Deborah, the Mother of the Gracchi, Veronica, Joan of Arc-that woman, in the minds of thousands of the common people of America, is the good, gray-haired woman affectionately known to them as “Mother” Jones. To the cultivated and conservative such an estimation of a woman whom they have commonly heard derided as a troublesome mischief-maker may seem an absurdity, yet history has a way of making fools of the critics.

Susan B. Anthony long ago rose above the clouds of derision and Mrs. Booth-Tucker has become a sainted memory. Frances Willard came to be called “America’s uncrowned queen” yet none of these noble and beautiful women ever possessed that large consciousness of the ebb and flow of human emotions, that sympathy with the sinful as well as the virtuous, with the drunkard as well as the ascetic, with man as with woman and with woman as with man, as does this woman labor agitator. The appeal of these other great women was limited, to sinners against faith, to drunkards and to helpless femininity. The appeal of “”Mother” Jones is avowedly to the soul of the race. She would have all men brothers, not under any especial creed or political system, but with the universal consciousness of one beating heart.

The world does not know this old woman of the people, and perhaps never will know her. Her personality may be obliterated on the pages of history. Even today she passes from place to place unheralded, makes a temporary sensation, and passes on. But her ideas quicken the ideas of others, what she makes her listeners feel is the truth which they knew before she came and which they unconsciously yearned to hear expressed. Through her lips brave notions of a higher life are set free in the thought void, and immediately become universal conceptions of humanity’s possible embodiment.

She does not force upon you the creed of “Mother” Jones, for certainly as an individual she has a creed. But she cries aloud to a careless, indifferent world, that humanity has one destiny, one goal to which it is struggling; that one nation cannot go there and leave behind another; that one sex cannot stand upon the other; that one class may not live by the other’s misery; that the elect may not find heaven alone; that sinners may not be damned and forgotten; that we may not escape by death from the earth life’s travail; but that all together must conceive the race born into freedom with the one pulsating consciousness of a divine organization.

And this vision of “Mother” Jones as one of the great souls of the world summoning men and women to the “grand roads of the universe” can only be had by seeing her under many aspects, at many times and places, watching her at the tables of the rich, in the homes of the poor, on the highway under sun or falling rain, or in those rare moments when the “intellectuals” corner her for a love feast and beg from her a crumb of wisdom.

—–

Power of “Mother” Jones Proved.

To be sure, this is extreme claim to make for any limited human life, for any individual however great its genius. And the mere thought of calling “Mother” Jones a genius will sound to the critical, fastidious, cultivated world as an absurdity or stupidity. But it is upon the testimony of events and incidents in a career that one may most safely rest a claim of this sort. One incident alone is sufficient to prove the power of “Mother” Jones to bring the sublime to the hearts of the lowliest, an incident which might thrill the comprehension of the most jeering of sceptics.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Part I: “Mother Jones & Her Methods -Personality & Power of This Aged Woman”-Boston Sunday Herald”

Hellraisers Journal: “Has any one ever told you, my children, about the lives you are living?”-Mother Jones, West Virginia, 1897

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Quote Mother Jones, Speech WV 1897, Lives You Are Living, Bst Hld Sun Mag p1, Sept 11, 1904—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday September 12, 1904
Traveling West Virginia with Mother Jones during the Great Coal Strike of 1897

From the Boston Sunday Herald of September 11, 1904:

In the Sunday Magazine Section of the Boston Herald, a reporter recalls traveling with Mother Jones into the hills of West Virginia during the “first great anthracite strike” [most likely the Bituminous Coal Strike of 1897]. The reporter describes how Mother beguiled a young mine owner into allowing her to speak to his employees “near the pit mouth on his own property.” As gleaned from the memory of the reporter, the result of the speech given by Mother Jones to those miners and their families was dramatic.

HdLn w Photos Mother Jones Methods, Speech WV 1897, Bstn Hld Sun Mag p1, Sept 11, 1904

…..In West Virginia, during the first great anthracite strike , the United Mine Workers of America had placed some of its organizers. Among these was “Mother” Jones, the only woman organizer employed by the trades unions. On the way she had traveled through the mountain roads by night and day, toiling in the passes, tramping the railroad tracks, riding in farm wagons, or push carts, or in whatever way seemed easiest to get from camp to camp to preach the doctrine that working men must unite, the slogan of the trades unions.

She had a good measure of success, and the fame of her power as a trouble maker had spread among the mine owners. She was detested and feared by half the state, wondered about and gaped over by the other half. She was sleeping under any sort of shelter, eating the coarsest of food, stripping herself of clothing to give away right and left. Though she was earning a fair salary, she could not use it to make life easier for herself in this environment.

Reaching a town one morning which was practically dominated by the influence of a rich young mine owner, she applied for permission to the authorities to hold a mass meeting. She was refused the permit unless she could gain the consent of the mine owner himself, who held a position of local political authority. Two reporters, who had been sent out to watch the progress of events in this part of the state, believed that no speechmaking would occur in this town. “Mother” Jones thought differently. She sought the mine owner in his home. She told him that she had come to make a request which she saw in his face he would grant. He smiled and asked who she was and what she desired. With the benignity of the most gentle kindliness and simple dignity the old lady replied demurely that she was “Mother” Jones, and wished to have a talk with his employees.

“You, ‘Mother’ Jones,” said the rich man, astonished; “you are surely not in earnest?”

“Yes, I am ‘Mother’ Jones, the wicked old woman,” replied the supplicant with her steadfastly radiant expression and her almost subtle smile; so quiet, so gentle, so intelligent it made the words she uttered so whimsically of herself, a patent libel and insult upon her character. It was an irony that disturbed the judgment of the rich young man.

The mine owner studied the fact, the attitude, the folded hands of the woman before him, and then inquired what she would like him to do. “Mother” Jones said she would like him to send word through his mines that she was there, and grant her permission to talk on Sunday in an open space near the pit mouth on his own property. Though it seems incredible, the young mine owner consented. The inscrutable smile had been too much for his resistance.

The word was accordingly sent out through the mines that “Mother” Jones was to speak by permission of the operator. The foreman and bosses could scarcely believe their ears, and the ignorant miners, the foreign element that could scarcely speak English, did not believe. They feared it was some trap to compass their economic ruin, or more simply, to cost them their jobs. On Sunday morning only a few persons gathered at the meeting place designated, and “Mother” Jones seated on a rock, watched and waited.

The Local Labor Leader Surprised.

“This is going to be a frost,” said the local labor leader, one John Walker.

“Wait a little,” said “Mother” Jones.

Gradually it was apparent what the old lady was watching with her smiling eyes. Men were climbing up through the mountain passes and hiding behind huge boulders; they were peeping over the tops and around the sides of their hiding places, and women were lurking in the thickets.

“Come nearer, comrades; don’t be afraid, brothers,” said “Mother” Jones, standing up, and then she began to talk. In a few minutes about 100 men and women gathered in front of the rocky platform. The mine owner himself sat on a rock some paces away.

Has any one ever told you, my children, about the lives you are living, more so that you may understand how it is you pass your days on earth? Have you told each other about it and thought it over among yourselves, so that you might imagine a brighter day and begin to bring it to pass? If no one has done so, I will do it for you today. I want you to see yourselves as you are, Mothers and children, and to think if it is not time you look on yourselves, and upon each other. Let us consider this together, for I am one of you, and I know what it is to suffer.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “Has any one ever told you, my children, about the lives you are living?”-Mother Jones, West Virginia, 1897”

Hellraisers Journal: West Virginia Miners and Families Are Destitute and Suffering; Committee Seeks Aid in New York

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Quote EVD, Starve Quietly, Phl GS Speech IA, Mar 19, 1910—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday February 13, 1922
West Virginia Miners and Their Families Are Destitute and Suffering

From The New York Times of February 12, 1922:

ASK AID FOR 35,000 STRIKING MINERS.
———-
West Virginia Labor Committee Here Seeks Food,
Clothes and Medicines for Idle Men.
———-

WV Battle by Shields, UE by M Becker, Lbtr p16, Oct 1921

Thirty-five thousand striking miners and their families are destitute and suffering in West Virginia, according to a statement yesterday by a committee of West Virginia labor officials who came to New York seeking food, clothing and medical aid for the unemployed workers and their dependents.

The committee said it also would appeal to the national Red Cross organization at Washington and to the convention of the United Mine Workers at Indianapolis next Tuesday for emergency help. The committee consisted of William T. Harris, President of the West Virginia State Federation of Labor; Fred Mooney, Secretary-Treasurer, District 17, United Mine Workers, and Frank W. Snyder, editor of The West Virginia Federationist.

The committee said a survey of conditions showed that more than 70,000 West Virginia miners were out of work, many of them since the signing of the armistice.

WV Battle by Shields, RR demand by M Becker, Lbtr p17, Oct 1921

High wages had nothing to do with the unemployment, the committee said, pointing out that coal was being sold in the unionized Kanawha fields at lower prices than in the non-union Guyan region. Kanawha coal, they said, was selling at $2.15 a ton f. o. b. mines last week, and in Guyan at $2.35.

In the face of the unemployment, the commutes said, the operators were attempting wholesale evictions. Many miners and their families had been forced out of their homes, but these evictions had been checked by the intervention of the Department of Labor at Washington.

“In the mining fields,” said Mr. Mooney, “there are 35,000 destitute families. They are without food and clothing. The bread winners in some of these families have not worked more than three months since the armistice. The families have been living from hand to mouth on charity furnished by their neighbors and friends.”

The committee arranged with the American Civil Liberties Union here to raise a relief fund here in New York.

[Emphasis and drawings by Maurice Becker added.]

—————

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones on Preachers and Miners; Arrives in Wise County, Virginia, to Death Threat

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Quote Mother Jones Mine Supe Bulldog of Capitalism—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday February 3, 1902
Mother Jones Describes Conditions for Coal Miners in Old Virginia

From The International Socialist Review of February 1902:

Coal Miners of The Old Dominion.
———-

[-by Mother Jones]

Mother Jones, Drawing, SDH p4, Mar 9, 1901

A FEW Sundays ago I attended church in a place called McDonald, on Loop Creek, in West Virginia. In the course of his sermon the preacher gave the following as a conversation that had recently taken place between him and a miner.

“I met a man last week,” said the preacher, “who used to be a very good church member. When I asked him what he was doing at the present time he said that he was organizing his fellow craftsmen of the mines.”

Then according to the preacher the following discussion took place:

“What is the object of such a union?” asked the preacher.
“To better our condition,” replied the miner.
“But the miners are in a prosperous condition now.”
“There is where we differ.”
“Do you think you will succeed?”
“I am going to try.”

Commenting on this conversation to his congregation the preacher said: “Now I question if such a man can meet with any success. If he were only a college graduate he might be able to teach these miners something and in this way give them light, but as the miners of this creek are in a prosperous condition at the present time I do not see what such a man can do for them.

Yet this man was professing to preach the doctrines of the Carpenter of Nazareth.

Let us compare his condition with that of the “prosperous” miners and perhaps we can see why he talked as he did.

At this same service he read his report for the previous six months. For his share of the wealth these miners had produced during that time he had received $847.67, of which $45 had been given for missionary purposes.

Besides receiving this money he had been frequently wined and dined by the mine operators and probably had a free pass on the railroad.

What had he done for the miners during this time. He had spoken to them twenty-six times, for which he received $32.41 a talk, and if they were all like the one I heard he was at no expense either in time, brains or money to prepare them.

During all this time the “prosperous” miners were working ten hours a day beneath the ground amid poisonous gases and crumbling rocks. If they were fortunate enough to be allowed to toil every working day throughout the year they would have received in return for 3,080 hours of most exhausting toil less than $400.

Jesus, whose doctrines this man claimed to be preaching, took twelve men from among the laborers of his time (no college graduates among them) and with them founded an organization that revolutionized the society amid which it rose. Just so in our day the organization of the workers must be the first step to the overthrow of capitalism.

    *     *     *     *     *     *     *

Then my mind turns to the thousands of “trap boys,” with no sunshine ever coming into their lives. These children of the miners put in 14 hours a day beneath the ground for sixty cents, keeping their lone watch in the tombs of the earth with never a human soul to speak to them. The only sign of life around them is when the mules come down with coal. Then as they open the trap doors to let the mules out a gush of cold air rushes in chilling their little bodies to the bone. Standing in the wet mud up to their knees there are times when they are almost frozen and when at last late at night they are permitted to come out into God’s fresh air they are sometimes so exhausted that they have to be carried to the corporation shack they call a home.

The parents of these boys have known no other life than that of endless toil. Now those who have robbed and plundered the parents are beginning the same story with the present generation. These boys are sometimes not more than 9 or 10 years of age. Yet in the interests of distant bond and stockholders these babes must be imprisoned through the long, beautiful daylight in the dark and dismal caverns of the earth.

Savage cannibals at least put their victim out of his misery before beginning their terrible meal, but the cannibals of to-day feast their poodle dogs at the seashore upon the life blood of these helpless children of the mines. A portion of this bloodstained plunder goes to the support of educational incubators called universities, that hatch out just such ministerial fowls as the one referred to.

The very miner with whom this minister had been talking had been blacklisted up and down the creek for daring to ask for a chance to let his boy go to school instead of into the mines. This miner could have told the minister more about the great industrial tragedy in the midst of which he was living, in five minutes than all his college training had taught him.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones on Preachers and Miners; Arrives in Wise County, Virginia, to Death Threat”

Hellraisers Journal: C. E. Lively, Baldwin-Felts Gunthug and Confessed Labor Spy, Held for the Murder of Sid Hatfield

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Quote Sallie Chambers re Murder of Sid Hatfield n Ed, Blt Sun p2, Aug 5, 1921—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday August 7, 1921
West Virginia Gunthug, C. E. Lively, Held for Murder of Sid Hatfield

From the Duluth Labor World of August 6, 1921:

HdLn Spy Lively Held for Murder of Sid Hatfield, LW p1, Aug 6, 1921

Matewan Defendants Sid Hatfield n Ed Chambers, WV Hx Center, see also UMWJ p14, June 15, 1921

Sid Hatfield, former chief-of police of Matewan, W. Va., who made such a heroic struggle in behalf of law and order when Baldwin-Felts private detectives attempted to evict striking miners from their homes 14 months ago, was assassinated in cold blood on the steps of the court house at Welch Tuesday morning last, where Hatfield was going to face trial on an alleged shooting charge. Ed. Chambers, Hatfield’s companion, was also killed. Neither was armed.

C. E. Lively, a private detective, and George “Buster” Penice, a deputy sheriff, are being held for the shooting. A coroner’s jury “could not” be obtained. The Baldwin-Felts men threatened to “get” Hatfield. They hold it was his gun that put five of their number out of business in the Matewan affair.

[…..]

The assassination of Hatfield and Chambers will bring to a head the charges union labor have made against the private police-ridden methods employed by the coal owners of West Virginia, such as surpass the most brazen of feudalism just before the French revolution. Every right guaranteed by the constitution has been ignored. King Coal rules with a rod of iron. His ukases supersede federal, state and local laws. The courts and state officials are his puppets, except in rare cases. Those who refuse to obey his edicts are removed from office, and the fearless, like Sid Hatfield, are put to death.

West Virginia is the shame of America. Its governor has boldly defended the reign of capitalistic lawlessness with which the state is festered. Its legislature has enacted laws against labor and justice that would make a czar tremble in his boots out of fear that they would hasten his downfall. Its courts have accepted the mandates of the coal barons, just as they did of old when they were the mere tools of kings and princes.

Innocent men, dangerous to the mine owners, have been wrongfully convicted, merely to be gotten out of the way. Lively “killed this man” in Colorado, where conditions were once equally as bad, but his employers were influential enough to save his neck, so he might continue his nefarious work. He has lived to kill another, a brave, young mountaineer whose independent spirit was a challenge to outlawry in West Virginia, the pocket state of “wealth gone mad.” It will be interesting to observe developments in the case. 

—————

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Comes to West Virginia, Will Organize Miners of Clarksburg and Fairmont Districts

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Quote John Mitchell, re Mother Jones, UMWC PM Session, Jan 25, 1901—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday May 30, 1901
Mother Jones Arrives in West Virginia to Organize Coal Miners

From the Bluefield Daily Telegraph of May 29, 1901:

Mother Jones, Drawing, SDH p4, Mar 9, 1901Mother Jones to Organize Miners

Wheeling, May 28-Mother Jones, who has been sent here by the United Mine Workers to try to organize the miners in the Clarksburg and Fairmont districts, held a big meeting at the opera house tonight. All previous efforts to organize the miners have failed.

———-

[Drawing and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for April 1901, Part I: Found Threatening Mill Owners with Arrest for Crime of Child Labor

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Quote Mother Jones, Stt Dly Tx p3or5, Feb 23, 1901———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday May 9, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for April 1901, Part I
Found Threatening Silk Mill Owners of Scranton with Arrest

From the Wilkes-Barre Daily News of April 1, 1901:

SILK OPERATORS TO BE ARRESTED
———-
“Mother” Jones Gives Out
Important Statement
———-

STRIKE NOT SETTLED
———-
Strikers Bluntly Refuse Ten Per Cent.
Increase Offered.

———-

HELD CONFERENCE YESTERDAY WITH SECRET BALLOT
-“MOTHER” JONES OFF FOR CLEVELAND
TO STUMP THE STATE.

Mother Jones, Drawing, SDH p4, Mar 9, 1901

SCRANTON, Pa., March 30-“I leave for Cleveland. Ohio, at once to seek financial aid for silk strikers.” was the statement given me to-night by “Mother” Jones, the noted labor leader.

I will stump the State and when I return I expect to arrest every mill owner who has in open defiance of the State law, employed children under 14 years of age in their factories. Warrants will be issued for parents also.

The strike has not yet ended. At the conference to-day of the leadership the silk workers it was decided by almost an unanimous vote to reject the offer of the operators of a 10 per cent, advance and the bitter struggle which last night seemed to be nearing a satisfactory settlement has been renewed under a new coupe which will carry the greatest battle of feminine labor into the courts…..

[Drawing added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for April 1901, Part I: Found Threatening Mill Owners with Arrest for Crime of Child Labor”

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for January 1921, Part I: Found Traveling from West Virginia to Mexico City with Fred Mooney

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Quote Mother Jones, Un-Christ-Like Greed, IN DlyT Ipls p1, July 15, 1920———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 27, 1921
Mother Jones News Round-Up for January 1921, Part I:
–Found Traveling from West Virginia to Mexico City with Fred Mooney 

From The Sacramento Bee of January 4, 1921:

LEAVES FOR MEXICO.

CHARLESTON (W. Va.), January 4.-Fred Mooney, Secretary of District No. 17, United Mine workers of America, left to-day for Mexico City to attend the Pan-American Labor Conference next week. Mooney was accompanied by “Mother Jones.”

———-

Mother Jones, ed WDC Tx p2, Aug 29, 1920

[Photograph added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for January 1921, Part I: Found Traveling from West Virginia to Mexico City with Fred Mooney”

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for February 1919-Found in West Virginia

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Quote Mother Jones, Contract w God Almighty, MJ Spks p165, Charleston, Aug 1, 1912———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday March 14, 1919
Mother Jones News for February 1919
-Found in Speaking to the Miners of District 17 in West Virginia

From The West Virginian of February 4, 1919:

MOTHER JONES COMING BACK
TO THIS COAL FIELD
—–
Will Address a Mass Meeting
at Phillippi Sunday.
—–

[…..]

Mother Jones, Kalamazoo Gz p9 gen, Dec 27, 1918

“Mother” Jones, the miners’ friend, will soon be back in the Fairmont region according to the information received today by C. F. Keeney, president of District 17, United Mine Workers, who is now at the local office in Fairmont. “Mother” Jones will arrive in Charleston on Friday from California, where she interceded for Mooney before Governor Stephens, in the case that has attracted wide attention in labor circles. “Mother” Jones was sent to the Coast by the Illinois Federation of Labor.

While in the Fairmont region she will address three or four meetings in the interest of the miners in the Belington section, including a meeting at Junior mine. She will address a mass meeting of miners at Philippi on Sunday.

[…..]

Three Mass Meetings.

Three mass meetings are scheduled by the United Mine Workers for Sunday. In the afternoon “Mother” Jones will speak at Philippi.

At 1 o’clock in the afternoon President C. F. Keeney will address a mass meeting at Roaring Creek Junction.

A mass meeting at Junior mine will be addressed by Sam Ballantyne, an international organizer……

———-

[Photograph added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for February 1919-Found in West Virginia”

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for August 1918, Part II: Found Organizing in West Virginia

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Mother Jones Quote, 2x4 kaiser union recognition hell freeze over.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Friday September 20, 1918
Mother Jones News for August 1918, Part II
-Mother Found Organizing in West Virginia

From the Fairmont West Virginian of August 19, 1918:

MOTHER JONES AND FOWLER
AT OWINGS PICNIC
—–
Talk To Miners About Their Attitude
Toward the Union.
—–

AND TOWARD THE CO.
—–
Men Are Urged To Dig Coal
Because Uncle Sam
Needs It.
—–

Mother Jones Fire Eater, St L Str, Small Crpd, Aug 23, 1917

“Mother” Jones is back in West Virginia and will remain here until after Labor Day when she is scheduled to make addresses at both Monongah and Enterprise. She returned to Fairmont Saturday afternoon in order to make a speech at the picnic held at Owings Sunday. “Mother Jones has been away since the scale convention of the miners, going to Illinois where she addressed two important Mooney meetings, out to Colorado for some addresses and back to Chicago for some important conferences with government and labor officials.

“Mother” Jones gets around the country without difficulty even though she is in her eighty-eighth year. She boarded the Baltimore and Ohio sleeper at Chicago at nine o’clock Friday night, changed to the accommodation shortly afternoon Saturday at Benwood and was in Fairmont shortly after five o’clock Saturday afternoon. “Mother” Jones does not carry any excess baggage, getting along with two bags which are smaller than the women folks generally carry.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for August 1918, Part II: Found Organizing in West Virginia”