Tag: West Virginia Coalfield Strike of 1902-1903

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

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Plea for Justice, Not Charity, Quote Mother Jones—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday September 15, 1904
Part III of III: “Mother Jones & Her Methods”-Shines Among Workers

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’ CONDUCT WITH FRIENDS AND ENEMIES
—————

She Shines Among the Workers.
—

Mother Jones Methods, Listening, Bstn Hld Sun Mag p1, Sept 11, 1904The mother nature which is so strong in this remarkable woman as to have given her her beautiful soubriquet is not revealed among the ordinary surroundings which come to her during her brief sojourns in Chicago, New York or Washington, but is at once ready to shine forth when she is among the workers whom she calls her children-the girls of the silk mills, the men in the coal fields, or in the humble homes among the mothers and children.

In the strike of 1900 in Pennsylvania she started out one evening from Hazleton to go to Macadoo [McAdoo], to address a local union of miners. On the electric car she sat by the writer quietly observant of the other passengers. No one was as yet aware of her personality. Looking across at a young man and young woman who were sitting closely together, comparing two much thumbed note books with their heads quite close together, Mrs. Jones said: “Look at the dear children; they are comparing their savings. They are lovers, wondering how long it may be before they will be able to marry.”

There was a smile of tenderness on her face which did not wane when at transfer station some noisy youngsters outside discovered her and set up a cry of “Mother Jones! Mother Jones!”

“That’s so, children,” she said, standing up and leaning out of the window to them. “This is old ‘Mother’ Jones going to talk to your fathers and mothers. Are you union boys and girls?”

“You bet we are; hurrah for Mother Jones! Hurrah for Mother Jones!”

The youngsters kept pace with the car, and when the old lady stepped off they made her an escort as she walked to the hall, crowding and pushing to get close to her, to touch her dress, to hold her hand, to look up into her face and to shout the tidings that she was coming. When she reached the hall it was filled with men, who respectfully made way for her, and she passed among them to the platform.

After talking to them for a short time about the progress of the strike, and about a particularly obstinate body of workers at the Coleraine colliery, she told them that she had a plan, and asked them to clear the hall and send the women of their families to her. The men immediately yielded to her suggestion without understanding her intention, for she had worked so long among them as an organizer that they had faith in her judgment.

In about half an hour a strange audience had assembled. there were old, bent women of 70 and young, fresh-faced girls of 16. There were young matrons with babes in their arms, and women faded before their time. The faces that looked up from the rude benches of the strikers’ hall were at first only curious, or somewhat shy and embarrassed.

Walking to the edge of the platform “Mother” Jones stretched out her arms to them, and in her thrillingly sweet voice said, “Sisters!” A perceptible wave of emotion like the breath of wind sweeping the long grasses of downs and meadows passed over her audience. Still the women waited, wondered, watched.

“In the old revolutionary days,” said “Mother” Jones, “your mothers were heroes, as well as your fathers.”

The faces awoke; the souls back of them kindled. For an hour the speaker walked to and fro telling the deeds of mothers of the past, of sisters and wives. The listeners drew nearer. They leaned their elbows on the platform and lifted their faces to drink in her words. Their bosoms heaved and the tears rolled unheeded down their cheeks, but quickly the smiles flashed out again at the will of the speaker. She was explaining to them a plan to march by night through the mountains to surprise at dawn the body of workmen who had refused to strike, and by soft words and cajoleries to woo them to make common cause with their fellows. For who would stop a body of women carrying flags and singing.

“To Colerain-ah!” they whispered among themselves, and then broke out tumultuously: “We’ll go; yes, tonight; to win the boys of Colerain.” Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Part III: “Mother Jones & Her Methods -Personality & Power of This Aged Woman”-Boston Sunday Herald” →

Hellraisers Journal: Goodwin’s Weekly: Polly Pry, in Recent Issue, Pays Her Respects to Mother Jones, “Hideous Hag”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote re Mother Jones Lioness Angel, LW p4, Dec 5, 1903—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday December 7, 1903
Polly Pry Pays Her Respects to Mother Jones, “The Hideous Hag”

From Goodwin’s Weekly of December 5, 1903:

Polly Pry re Mother Jones Hideous Hag, Gdwn Wkly p7, Dec 5, 1903

From the Duluth Labor World of December 5, 1903
-Mother Jones, Lioness, Miner’s Angel and Patron Saint:

Mother Jones Angel, LW p4, Dec 5, 1903 Mother Jones Opposes Mt, DP p1, Nov 22, 1903

[Photo from Denver Post of November 22, 1903]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Goodwin’s Weekly: Polly Pry, in Recent Issue, Pays Her Respects to Mother Jones, “Hideous Hag”” →

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Stops Over in Cincinnati, States Optimistically: “The laboring man is advancing every day.”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Mother Jones, Live f Justice n Love, Carbondale Dly Ns p2, Nov 24, 1900—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday October 20, 1903
Mother Jones Stands with Working Men and Women

Saturday October 17, 1903
Cincinnati, Ohio – Mother Jones, “The laboring man is advancing every day.”

Mother Jones was in Cincinnati for a few hours yesterday on her way to Chicago. This famous old labor agitator travels alone. While in Cincinnati she made this statement:

Mother Jones on Workingman, Cnc Eq p16, Oct 17, 1903
The Cincinnati Enquirer
October 17, 1903

To advance the cause of labor and laboring people is my only object. I have for years studied carefully the labor question, and in all my speeches to the miners and others I advocated peace and efficient work as the sure road to success. My idea is that every laborer, man or woman, should be worthy of their hire. They should, out of each week or month’s salary, save a few pennies, dimes or dollars. I am in hearty sympathy with the workingman, and in times of strikes or lockouts I make it my duty to go to the scene of trouble and lend my aid to the laborer and his family. They are my personal charges.

I think the day will come when capital will learn to respect laborers enough to pay them in proportion to the services they render. I am at all times an advocate of peace when disagreements arise between employer and employees, for that is the laborer’s stronghold. If he can only hold out and remain peaceable the victory is won. It is a rare occurrence that anything is accomplished by the working men who cause strife and bloodshed. They lose the respect sympathy of those who would otherwise be with them in time of need.

I think the laboring man is advancing every day, and it will be my life work to aid in this advancement.

From The Denver Post of October 18, 1903
-Mother Jones, Joan of Arc, Expected Soon in Denver:

Mother Jones Joan of Arc, Dnv Pst p25, Oct 18, 1903

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Stops Over in Cincinnati, States Optimistically: “The laboring man is advancing every day.”” →

Hellraisers Journal: From the Duluth Labor World: Gatling Guns for West Virginia Miners-Peonage, Bullets and Bloodshed

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Mother Jones to Wayland fr WV Wind Blows Cold, AtR p4, Nov 1, 1902—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday May 27, 1903
West Virginia Miners Face Gatling Guns, Company Guards & Peonage

From the Duluth Labor World of May 23, 1903:

GATLING GUN FOR THE MINERS
———-

RIDDLES GREAT TREES IN FOREST
IT IS TRAINED UPON.
———-

WORKMEN HELP PRISONERS
———-
Will Resort to More Bloodshed If It Becomes
Necessary to Coerce the Miners.
———-

HdLn Strikers Murdered, Evans Reports re Stanaford, Raleigh Co WV, NY Worker p1, Mar 15, 1903

Labor conditions in West Virginia mines are not enviable. Besides reports of Gatling guns mounted on fortifications to command approaches to the mines, comes the further news that the mining camps are surrounded by armed guards ready to shoot down any of the workers who try to reach the outside world. So, between the guns and the guards, the wage workers of one of the naturally rich states of the Union cannot be said to pass very happy lives.

Though so rich in natural resources-for there are coal and iron mines and virgin forests that have never yet been touched-West Virginia is cursed by monopoly. As a result, the wage workers are not free to employ themselves, but must accept the conditions of those who control the source from which all must draw their subsistence-the land.

For no other reason do the inhabitants of that state submit. Those who are enticed into its boundaries under false pretences, as evidenced by the affidavits of the miners published in the organ of the Mine Workers’ Union; have hard work to get away. They are subdued by their poverty and fear of the armed guards.

The necessity for organizing West Virginia is so apparent that it is a wonder the American Federation of Labor does not flood the state with “agitators” for human freedom and human rights. What the wage workers there need is the knowledge that their own efforts to improve their own condition will be supplemented by the good will and financial assistance of organized labor everywhere. It is a hard proposition, to be sure, to go into territory dominated by such powerful social and political interests, but greater tasks have been accomplished, and it only needs the united power of an aroused commonwealth to bring about great and good industrial changes in that section of the country.

[Newsclip and emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the Duluth Labor World: Gatling Guns for West Virginia Miners-Peonage, Bullets and Bloodshed” →

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks in Toledo at Memorial Hall: This Commercial Cannibalism Reaches into the Cradle and Pulls Little Children into the Factory

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Mother Jones, Blood of Children n Christian Society Women, Toledo Mar 24, 1903—————

Hellraisers Journal -Saturday March 28, 1903
Toledo, Ohio – Mother Jones Speaks at Memorial Hall, Part II

From The Toledo Bee of March 25, 1903:

[Mother Jones Speaks at Memorial Hall, Part II]
———-

Mother Jones , Phl Inq p24, June 22, 1902

A Challenge.

[Mother Jones continued:]

I hate your political parties, you Republicans and Democrats. I want you to deny if you can what I am going to say. You want an office and must necessarily get into the ring. You must do what that ring says and if you don’t you won’t be elected. There you are. Each time you do that you are voting for a capitalistic bullet and you get it. I want you to know that this man Jones who is running for mayor of your beautiful city is no relative of mine; no, sir. He belongs to that school of reformers who say capital and labor must join hands. He may be all right. He prays a good deal. But, I wonder if you would shake hands with me if I robbed you. He builds parks to make his workmen contented. But a contented workman is no good. All progress stops in the contented man. I’m for agitation. It’s the greater factor for progress.

[Society Women.]

Here the speaker changed her attention to the society woman.

I see a lot of society women in this audience, attracted here out of a mere curiosity to see “that old Mother Jones.” I know you better than you do yourselves. I can walk down the aisle and pick every one of you out. You probably think I am crazy but I know you. And you society dudes—poor creatures. You wear high collars to support your jaw and keep your befuddled brains from oozing out of your mouths. While this commercial cannibalism is reaching into the cradle; pulling girls into the factory to be ruined; pulling children into the factory to be destroyed; you, who are doing all in the name of Christianity, you are at home nursing your poodle dogs. It’s high time you got out and worked for humanity. Christianity will take care of itself. I started in a factory. I have traveled through miles and miles of factories and there is not an inch of ground under that flag that is not stained with the blood of children.

Mother Jones then returned to the subject of the miners. She said they were not drunkards. They had neither enough food or enough clothing and the amount they spent for drink would not clothe them. It was no wonder they drank. Their misery was such as to cause them to drown their sorrows for an hour or so. In conclusion, she said:

You may think, as people sometimes do, that my pictures are overdrawn. But if you would come with me I could show you that I have not the power to describe in words the awful conditions existing in some districts and especially in West Virginia. I have not told the half. And until you labor fellows wake up those conditions will grow from bad to worse.

[Photograph and emphasis added]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks in Toledo at Memorial Hall: This Commercial Cannibalism Reaches into the Cradle and Pulls Little Children into the Factory” →

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks in Toledo at Memorial Hall: Organizing for United Mine Workers in West Virginia

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote John Mitchell to Mother Jones re WV Fairmont Field, May 10, 1902—————

Hellraisers Journal -Friday March 27, 1903
Toledo, Ohio – Mother Jones Speaks at Memorial Hall, Part I

From The Toledo Bee of March 25, 1903:

[Mother Jones Speaks at Memorial Hall, Part I]
———-

Mother Jones , Phl Inq p24, June 22, 1902

“Mother” Jones, known throughout the country and in fact throughout the world as “The Miners’ Angel,” addressed a motley gathering of about 1,200 persons in Memorial hall last night. The lower hall was packed. The gallery was full to overflowing and some even crowded the steps leading to the building.

It was truly a motley gathering. The society woman, attracted by mere curiosity to see and hear the woman who has won such fame as the guardian spirit of the miners; the factory girl, the wealthy man and his less fortunate brothers, the black man and the white man, old and young, sat side by side and each came in for a share of criticism.

“Mother” Jones is an eloquent speaker. There is just enough of the down-east accent to her words to make it attractive and she has the faculty of framing pathetic and beautiful word pictures. Despite her sixty years and her gray hairs, she is hale and hearty; has a voice that reaches to the furthermost corner of almost any hall but it is nevertheless anything but harsh.

Her force of character was displayed with her every word spoken. She spared none. She condemned the trades unionist for casting his ballot as he does each year for that system.

Mother Jones was introduced by Chairman Charles Martin. She began deliberately and her address of an hour and a half, interrupted with frequent bursts of applause, was some of the most remarkable heard by local trades unionists in many months.

Wage Slavery.

[She began:]

Fellow workers, ’tis well for us to be here. Over a hundred years ago men gathered to discuss the vital questions and later fought together for a principle that won for us our civil liberty. Forty years ago men gathered to discuss a growing evil under the old flag and later fought side by side until chattel slavery was abolished. But, by the wiping out of this black stain upon our country another great crime—wage slavery—was fastened upon our people. I stand on this platform ashamed of the conditions existing in this country. I refused to go to England and lecture only a few days ago because I was ashamed, first of all, to make the conditions existing here known to the world and second, because my services were needed here. I have just come from a God-cursed country, known as West Virginia; from a state which has produced some of our best and brightest statesmen; a state where conditions are too awful for your imagination.

I shall tell you some things tonight that are awful to contemplate; but, perhaps, it is best that you know of them. They may arouse you from your lethargy if there is any manhood, womanhood or love of country left in you. I have just come from a state which has an injunction on every other foot of ground. Some months ago the president of the United Mine Workers asked me to take a look into the condition of the men in the mines of West Virginia. I went. I would get a gathering of miners in the darkness of the night up on the mountain side. Here I would listen to their tale of woe; here I would try to encourage them. I did not dare to sleep in one of those miner’s houses. If I did the poor man would be called to the office in the morning and would be discharged for sheltering old Mother Jones.

Oppression.

I did my best to drive into the down-trodden men a little spirit, but it was a task. They had been driven so long that they were afraid. I used to sit through the night by a stream of water. I could not go to the miners’ hovels so in the morning I would call the ferryman and he would take me across the river to a hotel not owned by the mine operators.

The men in the anthracite district finally asked for more wages. They were refused. A strike was called. I stayed in West Virginia, held meetings and one day as I stood talking to some break-boys two injunctions were served upon me. I asked the deputy if he had more. We were arrested but we were freed in the morning. I objected to the food in the jail and to my arrest. When I was called up before the judge I called him a czar and he let me go. The other fellows were afraid and they went to jail. I violated injunction after injunction but I wasn’t re-arrested. Why? The courts themselves force you to have no respect for that court.

A few days later that awful wholesale murdering in the quiet little mining camp of Stamford [Stanaford] took place. I know those people were law-abiding citizens. I had been there. And their shooting by United States deputy marshals was an atrocious and cold-blooded murder. After the crimes had been committed the marshals— the murderers—were banqueted by the operators in the swellest hotel in Pennsylvania. You have no idea of the awfulness of that wholesale murder. Before daylight broke in the morning in that quiet little mining camp deputies and special officers went into the homes, shot the men down in their beds, and all because the miners wanted to try to induce “black-legs” to leave the mines.

How It Started.

I’ll tell you how the trouble started. The deputies were bringing these strikebreakers to the mines. The men wanted to talk with them and at last stepped on ground loaded down with an injunction. There were thirty-six or seven in the party of miners. They resisted arrest. They went home finally without being arrested. One of the officials of the miners’ unions [Chris Evans] telegraphed to the men. “Don’t resist. Go to jail. We will bail you out.” A United States marshal stood in the [telegraph office?] that message was received [by the operators’ deputized gunthugs?] [Evans?] sent back word that the operators would not let them [the organizers] use the telephone to send the message to the little mining camp and that he [Chris Evans] could not get there before hours had passed. The miners’ officials secured the names of the men and gave their representatives authority to bail them out of jail the next morning. But when the next morning arrived they were murdered in cold blood.

These federal judges, who continue granting injunctions, are appointed by men who have their political standing through the votes of you labor union fellows! You get down on your knees like a lot of Yahoos when you want something. At the same time you haven’t sense enough to take peaceably what belongs to you through the ballot. You are chasing a will-o-the-wisp, you measly things, and the bullets which should be sent into your own measly, miserable, dirty carcasses, shoot down innocent men. Women are not responsible because they have no vote. You’d all better put on petticoats. If you like those bullets vote to put them into your own bodies. Don’t you think it’s about time you began to shoot ballots instead of voting for capitalistic bullets.

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks in Toledo at Memorial Hall: Organizing for United Mine Workers in West Virginia” →

Hellraisers Journal: Chris Evans Reports from West Virginia on Massacre of Striking Miners Near Stanaford in Raleigh County

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Mother Jones, Powers of Privilege ed, Ab Chp III—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday March 10, 1903
Indianapolis, Indiana – United Mine Workers Receives Report from Chris Evans

From the Baltimore Sun of March 9, 1903:

WERE MINERS KILLED IN BED?

Evans Describes Atkinsville Affair
As A Massacre By Officers.

Chris Evans 1890, Secretary of AFL
Chris Evans, 1890

INDIANAPOLIS, March 8.-The official report of Chris. E. Evans, who was sent to the West Virginia coalfields to investigate the killing of the colored miners at Atkinsville [near Stanaford City, Raleigh County] has been received at the headquarters of the United Mine Workers.

The report states that General St. Clair, attorney for the coal companies, created an agitation to have the men arrested and taken to Charleston, and that immediately afterward arrangements were made with the United States Marshal by the Mine Workers’ officials to give bond for all who were arrested. Later, on account of the agitation created by Deputy Marshal Cunningham, he says, the agreement with the Marshal was broken and Cunningham was sent to arrest the men. 

According to the report, there was a great feeling against Cunningham, and the men decided not to allow him to arrest them and he was driven away. Mr. Evans says that he, as a miners’ official, sent a telegram to the men to submit quietly, but the local coal companies, who own all the telegraph and telephone lines into the town, refused to deliver it. Before he could get any message to the men Cunningham and his deputies. Evans alleges, went to the town a second time and killed the miners in their beds at night.

Mr. Evans says that he went to the scene of the trouble the next morning and that 48 men had been arrested for conspiracy to kill Cunningham. He found in a house occupied by a colored man named “Stonewall” Jackson the dead bodies of William Dodson, William Clark and Richard Clayton, all negroes.

The report continues:

We found that the wife of Jackson and her four children, with eight negroes, were in the house, and that about daybreak all were awakened by shots, fired into the house from the outside. This shooting took place without warning, and the three colored men were found dead on the floor. Two were in their night clothes and the other one was partly dressed.

We visited another house, where Joseph Hizer lay in bed mortally wounded, having been shot as he was dressing. Hizer lived with his sister, and she made the statement at the inquest that she pleaded with those shooting not to kill her children, and in reply Cunningham said: “Women and children must take care of themselves.” In no instance could we find where these people had been asked to surrender until after the deputies had commenced shooting at the occupants of the house.

We next went to the house of Lucian Lawson, who was considered mortally wounded. I understand that after the shooting referred to this man, with others, returned the fire of the posse, and this is the only instance where any attempt of resistance was made by the miners.

During the shooting in many instances the men and women pleaded with the men outside to have mercy on them, but their cries were met with derision and curses. Our investigation proves conclusively that no effort was made to shoot or resist except in the one case mentioned, but that all would have been glad to surrender if they had been allowed the opportunity.

Mr. Evans says that the coroner’s jury has returned a verdict of felonious killing against Cunningham for the killing of William Dodson.

[Photograph, emphasis and paragraph breaks added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Chris Evans Reports from West Virginia on Massacre of Striking Miners Near Stanaford in Raleigh County” →

Hellraisers Journal: Three West Virginia Strikers Killed by Deputized Gunthugs at Stanaford, Raleigh County, West Virginia

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Mother Jones, Powers of Privilege ed, Ab Chp III—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday March 5, 1903
Stanaford, Raleigh County, West Virginia – Deputies Gun Down Striking Miners

From The San Francisco Call of February 26, 1903:

Stanaford Mt Massacre, SF Call p3, Feb 26, 1903

CHARLESTON, W. Va., Feb. 25.-At Stanniford [Stanaford] City, in Raleigh County, at dawn this morning, a battle took place between the joint posses of Deputy United States Marshal Cunningham and Sheriff Cook on one side and rioting miners on the other, as a result of which three miners were killed, two others mortally wounded and a number of others on both sides more or less seriously hurt…..

Miners murdered by deputized gunthugs at Stanaford, Raleigh County, West Virginia, at dawn, Wednesday February 25, 1903:

William Dodson
William Clark
Richard Clayton

Miners mortally wounded:

Lucien Lawson
Joe Hizer

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Three West Virginia Strikers Killed by Deputized Gunthugs at Stanaford, Raleigh County, West Virginia” →

WE NEVER FORGET: February 25, 1903-Mother Jones and the Massacre of Raleigh Co. Miners at Stanaford Mountain, WV

Janet RayeMother Mary Harris Jones
Share

Has anyone ever told you, my children,
about the lives you are living…?
-Mother Jones
———-

MOTHER JONES, MINERS’ ANGEL

“I am one of you, and I know what it is to suffer.”

Mother Jones by Bertha Howell (Mrs Mailly), ab 1902

Let us stop and consider, for a moment, what would cause thousands of miners to lay down their tools and go out on strike, when striking meant homelessness and hunger for themselves and their families. Striking also brought down upon them the terror of the company guards, heavily armed deputies (often one and the same), state militia, bullpens, raids, court injunctions, and the wrath of the capitalistic press. In 1897, Mother Jones was in West Virginia traveling and speaking to miners and their families. John Walker of the United Mine Workers of America was traveling with her. In 1904, a reporter who had accompanied her wrote this account of one of her speeches:

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.

So the old lady, standing very quietly in her deep, far-reaching voice, painted a picture of the life of a miner from his young boyhood to his old age. It was a vivid picture. She talked of the first introduction a boy had to those dismal caves under the earth, dripping with moisture often so low that he must crawl into the coal veins; must lie on his back to work. She told how miners stood bent over until the back ached too much to straighten, or in sulpher water that ate through the shoes and made sores on the flesh; how their hands became cracked and the nails broken off in the quick; how the bit of bacon and beans in the dinner pail failed to stop the craving of their empty stomachs, and the thought of the barefoot children, at home and the sick mother was all too dreary to make the homegoing a cheerful one….

And so, while he smoked, the miner thought how he could never own a home, were it ever so humble; how he could not make his wife happy, or his children any better than himself, and how he must get up in the morning and go through it all again; how that some day the fall of rock would come or the rheumatism cripple him; that Mary herself might die and leave him, and some day there would be no longer for him even the job that was so hard and old age and hunger and pain would be his lot. And why, because some other human beings, no more the sons of God than the coal diggers, broke the commandment of God which says, “Thou shalt not steal,” and took from the toiler all the wealth which he created, all but enough to keep him alive for a period of years through which he might toil for their advantage.

[Said Mother Jones:]

You pity yourselves, but you do not pity your brothers, or you would stand together to help on another.

Continue reading “WE NEVER FORGET: February 25, 1903-Mother Jones and the Massacre of Raleigh Co. Miners at Stanaford Mountain, WV” →

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for January 1903, Part I: Arrives in Indianapolis for Convention of United Mine Workers

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Mother Jones, God s Cause, Scranton Tb p1, Aug 7, 1902—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday February 14, 1903
Mother Jones News Round-Up for January 1903, Part I
-Arrives in Indianapolis for Convention of United Mine Workers

From The Clarksburg Telegram (West Virginia) of January 2, 1903:

Mother Jones, Socialist Spirit p19, Aug 1902

“MOTHER” JONES VISITS CLARKSBURG

“Mother” Jones was in her usual splendid health and was quite talkative and courteous.

While in the city she was the guest of Mr. and Mrs. D. W. McGeorge in Glen Elk.

[Photograph added.]

From the Appeal to Reason of January 3, 1903:

From the Kingwood West Virginia Argus of January 8, 1903:

The election of Samuel B. Montgomery to the office of Mayor of Tunnelton for another term, is quite a compliment to this rising young orator who is called the “Patrick Henry of West Virginia,” by Mother Jones. Mayor Montgomery has a good strong ticket with him composed of the leading men of the Coal Center.

From the Bisbee Daily Review of January 9, 1903:

LABOR IS CAPITAL; CAPITAL IS LABOR

By “Mother” JONES. Friend of Striking Miners

WE are in a battle of class against class. Pierpont Morgan can go abroad-to Germany, to Russia, to England-and when he arrives he is entertained by his class, his own class, though you sometimes forget it in America-the class that oppressed you in Europe and that is growing more and more powerful and oppressive here. CAPITAL AND LABOR ARE THE SAME THING. LABOR IS CAPITAL, AND CAPITAL IS LABOR. WHAT WE’RE FIGHTING IS NOT CAPITAL, BUT CAPITALISTS. When the fight is won, this third element will be missing, and capital and labor will be joined without separation.

In the last 160 years there has been an economic revolution. What would you have thought years ago if some one had told you that all these coalfields would be held and operated by one combination. That sort of thing is what you must defend yourself against.

THERE IS A TREMENDOUS CHANGE GOING ON; AND YOU MUST CHANGE TO MEET IT.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for January 1903, Part I: Arrives in Indianapolis for Convention of United Mine Workers” →