Hellraisers Journal – Friday December 19, 1902
Mother Jones News Round-Up for November 1902, Part II Found in Baltimore, Maryland, and in New River Strike Zone of West Virginia
From the Baltimore Sun of November 21, 1902:
MOTHER JONES IN TOWN ———- Miners’ Friend Calls On Officials
To Stop Immigration.
Mother Jones, the friend of the coal miners, arrived in Baltimore yesterday unannounced. She proceeded at once to hunt up Mr. Thomas A. Smith, chief of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, introduced herself and started to make known the object of her visit.
[She said:]
I have come here for the purpose of putting a stop to immigrants being brought into this country and employed by coal operators to take the places of the regular miners in the New River district of West Virginia.
Chief Smith laid aside his eyeglasses and took a quiet survey of Mother Jones, who had seated herself in a chair and was tapping the floor impatiently with her foot. Before Mr. Smith could make any statement Mother Jones began to give him and his assistant, Mr. Jacob Schoufarber, a full detailed account of the alleged indignities suffered by the miners at the hands of the operators. After she had finished he statement Mother Jones was referred to the office of the United States Immigration Bureau at the Custom House.
Mother Jones reached the Custom House in due time and was met by Assistant Commissioner Stump. To Mr. Stump she repeated her complaint, and Mr. Stump told her that if she could furnish the bureau with the names of immigrants who had been employed on the other side by the coal miners he would be very glad to look into the case.
“The proper course for you to pursue, madam,” he said, “is to write to Commissioner General F. P. Sargent, giving him all the data you can obtain in the matter.”
“Yes,” said Mother Jones with a long sigh, “that is just what I was told to do with Mr. Powderly when he was in office, and Powderly is a pretty good chap and I believe he kept his seat warm while he was in office.”
“But Mr. Powderly is not there now,” said Mr. Stump, “Mr. Sargent Is in charge.”
[Said Mother Jones:]
Oh, yes, I know him too; he is a jolly old chap, but he has let more immigrants into this country than even Powderly did. These mine owners are a sharp crowd to deal with. They have their agents on the other side and they coach the immigrants what to say when they come here. They are not shipped direct to the coal mines, but are sent in through Wheeling and other points, and when they get there they are herded in stockades with guards all around them and we cannot get anywhere near them.
Mr. Stump reminded his visitor that the proper person to receive her complaint would be Commissioner-General Sargent. She then left the office.
Mother Jones is a little woman, short, but stockily built, with iron gray hair, and speaks very forcibly. She has been called “Mother Jones” by reason of her interest in the welfare of the miners.
[Photograph added.]
From The Chattanooga News of November 27, 1902:
STRIKERS BRACE UP ———- “Mother” Jones Puts New Heart and Life Into West Virginia Coal Miners. ———-
Charleston, W. Va., Nov. 27.-The strikers in the New River mining field are making their last stand, encouraged by the magnetism of Mother Jones, who arrived there from Scranton, Pa., where she had expected to testify before the anthracite strike commission.
The West Virginia strike began June 7. It fizzled in the Fairmont field because of the federal injunctions issued by Judge Jackson. A few months ago settlements were reached in the Pocahontas and Kanawha regions, where the men gained notable concessions.
It would be hard to find a more determined band of men than the New River strikers. It was to this field Gov. White sent state troops during the summer and there followed the evictions of thousands of families. The cold weather has been a severe test, but the men are determined to win.
New River has a larger output than any other in West Virginia field and at least 5,000 men are involved in the strike. The United Mine Workers’ Union is caring for them and President Mitchell may soon assume direct charge.
John Richards, president of district No. 17, United Mine Workers, has tendered his resignation, it is understood, under pressure from his conferees, who represented to him that he was the only man who had stood between the miners and operators. The operators absolutely refused to treat with Richards, but intimated that a settlement could be reached if he were out of the way.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday December 18, 1902 Mother Jones News Round-Up for November 1902, Part I Found Speaking in New York City and Standing with Striking Miners of West Virginia
From TheComrade of November 1902:
Mother Jones at Cooper Union, New York City, October 18, 1902 by Ryan Walker
———-
Frank Sieverman and Mother Jones
From The Brooklyn Daily Eagle of November 1, 1902:
MOTHER JONES’S LECTURE. ———- Discussed Social and Political Topics at the Criterion Theater. ———-
“Mother” Jones lectured before a good sized audience last evening in the Criterion Theater on social and political topics. The audience was evidently in sympathy wiih her views, for she was frequently interrupted with applause and her introduction was the signal for an ovation that must have been flattering to the venerable organizer.
“Mother” Jones is a well preserved woman of perhaps 60 years, with bright blue eyes and clear complexion, and she speaks with great force and earnestness.
Dr. Charles Furman presided at the meeting and introduced “Mother” Jones. Some enthusiastic socialist leaped up on his seat and called for three cheers for the speaker and they were given with a will.
“Mother” Jones began her address by saying the movement of the present day was along lines of progression laid down by the sages years ago, and everywhere along the line of battle the cry was forward. “To move forward is the object of socialism, and to help you in this movement is why I am here to-night.”
In referring to the recent coal miners’ strike in Pennsylvania “Mother” Jones said John Mitchell was one of God’s own noblemen and she flayed the operators in no uncertain tone. Referring to her arrest and incarceration in West Virginia, “Mother” Jones said she had been blamed by a great many people because she shook hands with the judge who sentenced her to jail. “Why shouldn’t I do so?” she cried. “The judge was not to blame. He was a victim of environment and had to perform his sworn duty to carry out the laws as he found them.” Continuing, the speaker said neither of the old parties could be trusted because both were capitalistic.
In many respects her address was disappointing. She presented no new arguments and her discourse did not differ mainly from the usual pronouncements of socialists-that is, condemnation of capital. J. P. Morgan came in for a good share of the speaker’s attention and many of her witty sallies in reference to him evoked hearty applause.
From the Appeal to Reason of November 1, 1902:
All newspaper reports to the contrary notwithstanding, the miners’ strike in West Virginia is by no means over, and a hard fight is being made in a number of districts where the operators refuse to make any concessions. “Mother” Jones writes from Montgomery, W. Va, that the utmost suffering prevails there, in consequence of the harsh measures taken by the “Christian men to whom God in His infinite wisdom has given the control of the property interests of this country.” She says: “We have fifteen hundred families of coal miners thrown out of their homes by the capitalist cannibals, and now camping on the highway. We should not talk so much about evictions in Ireland. Free America eclipses Ireland.”
—————
From Mother Jones. Montgomery, West Va., Oct 5, 1902.
Dear Wayland: Here I am in the midst of industrial warfare with all its horrors. The wind blows cold this morning, but these cruel coal barons do not feel the winter blast; their babes, nay even their poodles dogs, are warm and have a comfortable breakfast, while these slaves of the caves, who in the past have moved the commerce of the world, are out on the highways without clothes or shelter. Nearly 3,000 families have been thrown out of the corporation shacks to face the cold blasts of winter weather.Children look into your face and their looks ask, is this what we are here for?
Is this the doctrine Jesus taught? Is this what he agonized for that frightful night in the Garden of Gethsemane 2.000 years ago? When you look at this picture of suffering, and then look into the homes of the Barons, with their joy and pleasures that these helpless people have given, then I ask Bishop Potter how he can howl “all for Jesus” on Sunday and on Monday morning drink wine at $35.00 a bottle, and sing all for Baer and Morgan.
In Pennsylvania its “shoot to kill,” in Virginia, it’s injunction them to death: Everywhere you go, you step on an injunction. Step on the Monstrous injunction. There yells a corporation lap dog, if you step on the R. R. T. the R. R. Detective yells, “Get off here, on injunction company property.” If you go into the river some one yells out “I own half that River.” Well, said I, for God’s sake give me a chance to make a deal with Peter, perhaps he might lend a rope down and swing me in the air. They will have an injunction on that soon. If you go on the public highways, to say “all for Jesus,” with a crowd of strikers, it is an unlawful assemblage-no one can do that but Potter and Morgan-you must be a sky pilot, an looking for Morgan.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday December 4, 1902 Montgomery, West Virginia – Mother Jones Saved from Hotel Fire
From The Richmond Dispatch (Virginia) of December 3, 1902:
TO BURN “MOTHER” JONES. ———- This Seemed the Object of Incendiaries at Montgomery, W. Va.
PARKERSBURG, VA., December 3.-(Special.)—”Mother” Jones, the friend of the miners, narrowly escaped with her life from a burning hotel at Montgomery, early this morning.
Mrs. A. R. Wagoner, the wife of the proprietor of the Montgomery Hotel, was aroused from her slumbers and gave the alarm. The room occupied by “Mother” Jones was full of smoke when she wakened, and in a short time she would have been suffocated.
The fire was of incendiary origin, starting in a room that had not been occupied for three days. The hotel has been on fire three times within the past few weeks, and it is supposed that it was because “Mother” Jones was stopping there.
John C. Todd, one of the guests, had a hip fractured by jumping from the third story window. All the guests lost most of their valuables and clothing.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday November 16, 1902 Mother Jones News Round-Up for October 1902, Part II Found Describing Miner’s Sorrow; Assist Efforts to Settle Anthracite Strike
From the Duluth Labor World of October 11, 1902:
[Mother Jones stated:]
If Christ came to America, took advantage of the best university education the country affords, then went into the anthracite and West Virginia mining regions he never would be able to write a book which could properly convey to the minds of its readers the horrors that surround the lives of miners. The human tongue cannot tell of the miseries that blast the lives of those who earn a living in the bowels of the earth, nor of the sufferings of their unfortunate wives and children. My hair is white and I am burdened with the weight of many years, but while I have strength enough left to use my voice it will be lifted in behalf of those miners whose lives have been ruined and who have been made slaves through the avarice of those who not only believe but declare boldly they have a divine right to the earth and the fullness thereof.
A woman of small stature, credited with having spent three-score years and ten on earth, spoke as above. Her hair is white, but her form is erect. Fire flashed from her eyes and her voice trembled with emotion as she told of her experiences with the miners. “
[She further said:]
I have spent years with them. I have lived in their homes, have partaken of their scant, coarse fare, have wept with them by the deathbeds of their loved ones, have shared their sorrows, but alas, I cannot say that I ever rejoiced with them. Joy is unknown in the mining regions of West Virginia, as far as the miners and their unfortunate families are concerned.
The speaker was “Mother” Jones, the idol of the miners, who have spent the greater part of her life in an effort to organize them and improve their conditions. She is lecturing in several towns on the conditions of the miners in the anthracite regions of Pennsylvania and in West Virginia.
Any reference to West Virginia roused the champion of the miners.
When asked “How do the miners get along in West Virginia? She answered:
How do they live? they don’t live-they exist. Harriet Beecher Stowe never drew a picture of slavery that compares with the conditions of the miners in West Virginia. The wage slavery of that state is the blackest page in American history. I tell you, you people in the north can’t realize the amount of human misery that exists among the unfortunates with whom I have made my home for years.
“How are the miners housed?” she was asked. “
[She cried:]
Housed? Housed, did you say? Why, cattle may have decent roofs over them, but the shacks they call homes among the mines of West Virginia would not be tolerated in the worst sections of your city. They are are not houses—they consist of six boards, a bundle of shingles and half a pound of nails. Such are the homes the West Virginia miners when they are working, but many of them at present have only heaven for a roof and the ground for a pillow.
The coal operators do not propose to let the strikers indulge in the luxury of a board roof, and men, woman and children have been driven out to die on the mountain sides. At Piney Ridge three weeks ago I saw a mother with her babe, 6 months old thrown out of the shack called home by the officers of the law. An old, gray headed grandmother was thrown out with them.
The feeble old grandmother took the babe on her lap and with tears streaming down her cheeks said: “My poor babe, how soon they have begun to persecute you!”
Three hours later the babe died under God’s sunlight. I could recite hundreds of cases just as bad as this. They thought they would break their spirits when they threw them out of the shacks, but the woman and children in many cases have been given shelter in barns and the men can live on the mountain sides until the fight is won.
[She continued:]
The children are the worst sufferers, and their sufferings prompt some of the strikers to seek employment elsewhere. Just as I started for Iowa one of the strikers came to me and said: “Mother, I would like to stay and fight, but I’ve got twins 4 months old and I’m afraid I’ll have to go and get work some other place so can buy malted milk for them or they’ll die.” I said: “You stay here, Jack, and fight and when I get to Iowa I’ll sell books and get the money which I will send to you and you can buy malted milk for the babes.” Tears ran down the cheeks of the poor fellow as he grasped my hand and said: “If you’ll do that mother, I’ll stay and fight to the end. T’hey can’t lick us.”
The miners will win. They have come to the conclusion that they might as well starve striking as working and they will stick to the last.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday November 15, 1902 Mother Jones News Round-Up for October 1902, Part I Found in Colfax, Iowa, and at New York Anthracite Strike Conference
From the Des Moines Registrar and Leader of October 1, 1902:
Colfax, Ia., Sept. 30.-(Special.)-Mother Jones, the famous organizer of the miners in the anthracite region, gave an address, tonight at the Methodist church, and urged the miners of the Sixth district to work for John P. Reese of Albia for congress.Mother Jones denounced the capitalists of the country in severe terms, and was bitter against the use of the injunction by the courts.Her address was listened to by a large audience, composed for the most part of miners. Immediately after her speech, Mother Jones started across the country to Prairie City and caught a night train for Albia, where she will speak. She will also deliver an address at Ottumwa and then return east.
Mother Jones is now over sixty years of age, her hair being white as snow. Yet she is vigorous and energetic, and speaks with wonderful feeling and eloquence when describing the sufferings of the miners in the anthracite regions. She urged the miners and workingmen to wake up and work for their rights.
[She said:]
You don’t need a gun. Let us bury the bullet and resurrect the ballot.
Wants Iowa to Act.
I want Iowa to be the first state to carry the banner of organized labor into congress and elect a workingman to that body. I want a worker to make laws for me and not a henchman. If ever an awakening comes in this country it must come now. The injunction must be stopped. I plead with you young men; shall you all be slaves or shall you be men? You have got to take hold of this government and run it for all the people. It is your duty to see that the next congressman from this district is a miner so that the next congress shall have a miner in it.When the last injunction bill was up before congress there was no one there to press it, because no one there had felt the sting of the injunction injustice.
I say down with the government that upholds injunctions. I repeat I want to see the next congress have a miner in it. When the corporations see the workingmen waking up and electing workingmen to office they will tremble. You have got to break up this corporate power. The only way to break it up is by legislation. If you men feel that you are too big cowards to do it, stand aside and let us women do it and we’ll show you how. Woman is the greater sufferer from the power of corporate wealth.
Mother Jones, at the outset of her address, spoke of the progress of the human race and the various inventions that have been made.
[She said:]
Yet the workers have not the benefit of these inventions. A few men who have never done anything in their lives have taken advantage of them all and the human race stands aghast and asks “What shall we do?” If these inventions have been produced by society, why should one band of thieves and robbers, and assassins, and plunderers possess them to the detriment of all the rest? That is the great question before the human race. There is no other question before you. You have the labor question to settle, and it will be settled in this century. The men who produce the wealth will have the wealth.
Who has built your magnificent homes and public buildings? Who have gone down into the depths of the earth and toiled sixteen hours a day? The workers. Who live in your palaces? The parasite. Why? Because he has plundered other men of what they produce. When he boasts of prosperity, what is it to 30,000 breaker boys in the anthracite region? That you can make money by scheming doesn’t make a nation prosperous. You can’t have a prosperous nation until the workers prosper. If you give to your nation an illiterate broken down body of workers, ruin will overtake your country.
Mother Jones paid her respects to Morgan for saying he had nothing to arbitrate, and to Baer, who says he owns the earth and is the “steward of the Almighty.”
[She said:]
I wish he would take care of these men and women down in West Virginia, if he is the Almighty’s steward, as he claims.
[And again:]
Every page of every book of every Carnegie library in the country is written with the blood of Homestead.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday October 15, 1912 “This Is War and War Is Hell” by John W. Brown, Socialist and U. M. W. Organizer
From The Coming Nation of October 12, 1912:
[Part I of III]
—–
“COD walks on sea and land, but the devil reigns in the coal fields of West Virginia.” This was uttered by Gen. C. D. Elliott and the reference was to the civil war now going on in the Kanawha valley where the coal miners and the coal barons have grappled in a life and death struggle which can only end in the surrender of either one of the contending forces. “And the devil is greed,” says General Elliott. Greed personified in a handful of mercenary plutocrats who know no more, care no more for the rights of humanity than do the lean dogs who lick their grimy hands.
The details of this terrible struggle do not differ from that which could be written of all the other coal fields, and forms but another page in the development of American capitalism.
A Long Story of Stealing
First comes the usual questionable and fraudulent land titles, then corrupt legislation, then the usurpation of the courts and finally the general debauchery and degradation of the whole body politic. The Moloch of capitalism is never satisfied. It has no heart, no soul, no conscience. It has but one object, one purpose, and that is to make profit. It stands with open mouth crying, “give, give,” and the people of West Virginia have given, given and given again, first their lands, then their labor, and now the insatiable beast demands the half starved babes. The present strike in the Paint Creek and Cabin Creek districts has a shadowy background reaching back some ten years or more.
In 1902 the coal miners of West Virginia organized under the auspices of the United Mine Workers of America. Immediately following, the coal barons began their present fight against the union and a general strike followed. During this strike of 1902, Judge Jackson and Judge Keller issued their nefarious injunctions which if obeyed by the miners would have been nothing short of wholesale suicide. Naturally, the miners refused to bow to these injunctions and there followed a reign of rapine and legalized murder such as is seldom found in the pages of human history. Among which is recorded what is now known as the Stanford city massacre [Stanaford Massacre.].
An American Pogrom
Dan Cunningham, at that time a United States deputy marshall armed with injunction and eviction papers and preceded by an army of professional murderers went to Stanford city in the night and at daylight made a murderous attack upon the helpless and defenseless miners, murdering them as they slept. Unarmed, old age, fathers and mothers, youths and even suckling babes were shot down like wild beasts and not even the prayers of pregnant mothers could prevail against this thirst for human blood.
There is always a point beyond which lies desperation and revolt. This point was reached during the strike of 1902 and for the time being both the federal authorities and the coal barons were baffled. But not for long. The Baldwin-Felts detective agency, an organization composed of ex-convicts and professional strike-breakers entered the field and agreed by contract to break the strike and from that day until this there has existed in West Virginia, a state of guerrilla warfare that beggars either pen or tongue to portray.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday October 12, 1902 Mother Jones News Round-Up for September 1902, Part III Found in Hiteman, Iowa, Supporting John P. Reese for Congress
From the Ottumwa Semi-Weekly Courier of September 30, 1902:
SHE ASKS FOR REESE VOTES ———- ”Mother” Jones Tells Miners to Elect One of Their Number to Congress. ———-
HER IMPASSIONED SPEECH AT HITEMAN ———-
SHE APPEALS TO THE TOILERS TO AWAKEN AND SHOW THE WORLD THAT THEY ARE ABOUT TO “ASSERT THEIR RIGHTS TO A FAIR SHARE OF EARTH’S RICHES.” ———-
In an impassioned address in which she sought to show the evils of the injunction, Mother Jones, the woman trades unionist and socialist, appealed to the miners and citizens of Hiteman Saturday afternoon to elect John P. Reese to congress, in order that he might introduce a bill taking from the federal courts the right to issue the injunction.She cited the effect the “one-man instrument,” as she called it, has had upon the strikers in the West Virginia coal fields, and stated that the strike would not have lasted more than two weeks if it had not been for the injunction. A short address was made by John P. Reese, who was chairman of the meeting, prior to Mother Jones’ speech.
In introducing Mother Jones to the audience Mr. Reese took occasion to thank the people of Hiteman and the members of the local miners’ union especially for the support they have given him during his term as president of the district miners’ organization, from which he is about to retire in order to commence his fight against Hon. John F. Lacey for the election to congress to represent the sixth district of Iowa.
Mother Jones is an avowed socialist. She points to the great day which she says is surely approaching, when the laboring millions shall rise in their might and claim a just share of the riches which they have produced and turned over to their employers. She says that conditions are leading up to a great climax. Her speech, which had much to do with the evils which she claimed were caused by the injunction, ended with a long appeal for support for Mr. Reese in his candidacy.
Mr. Reese Talks.
The meeting was to have been a part of the picnic planned by the people of Hiteman, to take the place of a Labor Day celebration, but owing to the inclement weather the big event was declared off. However, the people were not to be cheated out of an address by Mother Jones, and consequently they held a meeting at the opera house in Hiteman in the afternoon. The first address was by John P. White, of Oskaloosa, secretary-treasurer of the district organization of the United Mine Workers. During his speech Mr. Reese and Mother Jones arrived.
James Baxter, of Hiteman, was temporary chairman of the meeting, and at the completion of Mr. White’s speech he introduced John P. Reese as the permanent chairman. Mr. Reese took charge of the meeting, [and addressed] his former associates, the residents of the town where he resided as a coal miner a few years ago; and from which he went to take his position as president of the district miners’ union…..
[Mr. Reese said, in part:]
I will say that whatever the future may hold in store for me, I assure the miners of Hiteman and the citizens of this town that you will find that I will continue to be one of you in reality, and that I will continue to hold my membership in your union as long as I am eligible.
Now I want to introduce to you the only miner who wears skirts; the only miner who is allowed to belong to every local in the country at one time; the only miner who does not wear a pit cap; a woman who has the respect and love of every miner in America; a woman who, before she has finished her speech, will convince you that the mission of labor is a holy one; that the labor organizations have accomplished more progress during their existence than has any other similar organization during the same length of time during the history of the world. Ladies and gentlemen, I take great pleasure in introducing to you “Our” Mother Jones.
Mother Jones’ Address.
A round of enthusiastic applause greeted Mother Jones as Mr. Reese closed his speech, and she bowed in acknowledgement. After a selection by the band, she advanced to the front of the stage. Her hearers were interested because of her statements, although the speech in itself is not connected throughout. She said:
Mr. Chairman and Fellow-Toilers: —This is my first visit among you. It is not my first nor my last visit among workers. Away back among the ages we find that from the time the human race left the cradle and began to learn to talk there was planted in the bosom of mankind a desire to advance, to march forward; a desire for greater, nobler things. That desire has followed us down the stairway of time and has each day pressed on until the toilers are awaking now in such a way as the world never knew. Today we are confronted with conditions never known before.
Class Separation.
The people are being separated. Events are bringing to the mind the deep thinker of today the realization that there is a great evolution, a great revolution, going on in the world. Society is divided. The lines are closely drawn. On one side is a handful of human beings with all the wealth the human race has created in ages in their hands. On the other side is a multitude of people, robbed, oppressed, downcast, but pleading for the time when the human race shall possess its own. We look back into history and as we realize what the conditions were, and we thank Providence for the light that is beginning to dawn upon civilization…..
[Mother Jones on Trial in West Virginia]
As soon as I entered the court room I told my comrades [fellow U. M. W. organizers] that we were all convicted and that we might as well stand up and be sentenced…
The judge [John J. Jackson] asked me what right I had to come among the miners of West Virginia and disturb them. I answered him that I was a citizen of the United States and as such that I had a right to go anywhere in the country that I pleased. That judge was cornered and he asked me nothing more. But in the closing argument of the prosecuting attorney the most dangerous statement was made. It meant more than he, or anyone else but myself, probably, realized.
Points Out Danger.
He said in his argument to the court: “Owing to the fact that this is the most dangerous woman in the United States today, and owing to the fact that she can go among the miners and commence a disturbance at any time, if she will consent to leave the state of West Virginia and stay away, I would suggest that the court should have mercy on her.” Leave the state never to return! Mind you what that meant. Think of a public official making a statement of that kind…..
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday October 11, 1902 Mother Jones News Round-Up for September 1902, Part II Found in Chicago, Illinois, Depicts the Misery of the Eastern Coal Region
From the Evansville Sunday Journal-News of September 28, 1902:
MISERY IS DEPICTED IN EASTERN COAL REGION “Mother” Jones Relates Woes of Miners and Declares a System of Slavery is Being Practiced by the Operators. ———-
CHICAGO, Sept. 27.-“Mother” Jones, friend and organizer of the eastern miners, arrived in Chicago yesterday direct from the fields of action where the seeds of independence she has been sowing for years are bearing fruit as they never bore before. Confident that the miners will win the great strike in Pennsylvania and West Virginia because the operators cannot afford to win, “Mother” Jones, fearless and determined as ever, discussed the problems and conditions of the present grave situation in the East. In spite of her snowy hair and sixty summers “Mother” Jones declared that she was as young to-day as she ever was.
[She said:]
The miners can now see the dawning of a brighter day and a new civilization. They are as hopeful of success as we are. John Mitchell was never so hopeful. The bituminous miners of West Virginia will win and the anthracite miners in the Pennsylvania fields will win. But no one can prophesy how long the strike will last.
“Mother” Jones said that the system of slavery that America’s blood poured out to abolish was never worse than a slave system conducted by the mine operators of West Virginia. She declared that miners are bought and sold for money, that bloodhounds are kept to trail fugitive slave miners and to avenge assaults on the “blackleg” agents of the operator.
She said that the immigration laws were being broken by the operators, whose agents go to Europe and import released convicts to work in American mines.
She proposed a congress of American labor to be held in Washington next winter when Congress is in session to investigate the rights of workingmen and get an expression from the government concerning the injunction cases of West Virginia and to seek legislation against injunction.
Concerning Commissioner of Labor Carroll D. Wright, who spoke at Minneapolis the other day, “Mother” Jones said:
Mr. Wright does not know the conditions concerning which he speaks. In the first place, I want to ask why he delayed making his report from the anthracite region until a week or two ago. I think it would pay the people to demand an investigation of the agents Mr. Wright sends out to gather his statistics. I found that one of them in the New River District has been dead for forty years and does not know it. He is incapable absolutely for the work he is assigned to do.
[Mother Jones continued:]
Herman Justi said at the Minneapolis convention, that arbitration is a failure. Arbitration is not a failure. The miners believe in arbitration and are willing to arbitrate. If the operators would ask for arbitration or would submit to arbitration of the present troubles the miners would abide by the decision. The whole trouble in this strike is because the operators do not want their schemes of robbery exposed.
[She continued:]
The operators buy their powder for 90 cents a keg and they sell it to the miners for $2.50 a keg. Is that robbery? The operators, against the laws of Pennsylvania, do not weigh the coal at the mines at all. The law says they should have scales and check weighmen. The miners demand these provisions. The miners want a nine-hour workday and they refuse to submit to discrimination against their organization.
The miners demand a semimonthly payday, which five of the operators have already agreed to. As it is now they are paid every sixty days. If a miner goes to work now he must wait sixty days before he can get any money. Then at the end of that time he finds that $1 a week has been deducted from his wages for doctor bills whether he has had the services of a doctor or not. He can go to the “pluck me” stores and get food, the price of which is deducted from his earnings, and in many of the districts the miners are forced to pay for the water they drink.
The wretchedness and misery “Mother” Jones described in detail.
[She said:]
I tell you that there are no words capable of portraying the misery and woe. If Christ himself should come to earth and investigate the mining camps he could not find words to tell adequately what he saw. Along the mines of Loop Creek, West Virginia, “man-catchers” are regularly sent out by the operators to bring in mountaineers on some false pretense. These men are actually sold off at so much a head to the various mine operators. The “man catchers” are called “blacklegs” and are protected by trained bloodhounds. These bloodhounds are set on the trail of escaped slave miner.
“Mother” Jones declared that the miners and their families are living on the highways, forbidden to step onto mining grounds by injunction. Two thousand families have been driven into the streets in West Virginia.
[Mrs. Jones said:]
I saw one poor woman, her mother and her babe driven from their corporation shack into the street, and within four hours the starved, sickly babe died in its grandmother’s arms on the roadside.Such misery is apparent on every hand.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday October 10, 1902 Mother Jones News Round-Up for September 1902, Part I Predicts Victory for Striking Coal Miners of Pennsylvania and West Virginia
From the Wilkes-Barre Daily News of September 3, 1902:
MITCHELL RETURNS ———-
MOTHER MARY JONES A VISITOR TO THIS CITY.
President John Mitchell, of the United Mine Workers, arrived in this city yesterday afternoon, from Philadelphia, and immediately repaired to strike headquarters. He was accompanied by Louis Hammerling, of this city…..
Mother Jones, the labor advocate also arrived in town yesterday afternoon. She talked very interestingly to a News reporter about the prospects of the miners. She believes that no matter how long the struggle continues, there can be but one thing, and that is success for the miners.
[She continues:]
I hope the struggle will soon be over because there is no reason why the people of the anthracite regions should not be enjoying peace and prosperity, like the other workmen throughout the country. The operators if they have the proper conception of the exact conditions will end the disastrous strike, because no matter how long it continues, it will mean defeat for them in the end.
I do not not know when I shall return to West Virginia, but there is a probability that I may depart for those fields in a few days.
She also believes that the West Virginia miners will be successful in their efforts for better conditions.
[Photograph added.]
From The Philadelphia Inquirer of September 4, 1902:
“Mother” Mary Jones arrived here yesterday afternoon, confident that the mine workers would be victorious in their struggle.
[She said:]
There are 16,000 soft coal miners who are out on strike in the New River, Kanawha and Loop Creek districts of West Virginia. They are out to a man. The conditions in that region are appalling. It is far worse than the situation in the Pennsylvania coal fields.
“What do you think of the recent injunctions issued in West Virginia?” she was asked.
We are approaching a very dangerous crisis in the American nation. The American people are patient, but there will come a time when they will not tolerate such rule.
Disregarded the Injunction
Only last Saturday I was served with an injunction to prevent my speaking in Ohio. But it didn’t work. I have been served with enough injunctions to make a comfortable shroud to bury me in. In West Virginia they issue injunctions against everything. Injunctions are not laws. They are the work of one man. He makes it, issues it, serves it on us, tries us and then he sentences us. We disregard all of them because we know that none of them will stand the test.
“What is your idea of the termination of the strike?”
The miners are not weakening in the slightest degree. We are sure of victory and will accept no compromise. We are determined to right it out to the finish. There will probably be a settlement made before long. I cannot say when that will be. Public sentiment is growing. If it is necesary, I am sure that the American people will support the miners for another year, just as well as the operators have done. The public has never before realized what a big factor the miner is in civilization.
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Frank Sieverman and Mother Jones
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