Tag: William B Wilson

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for August 1900, Part I: Found Visiting Jailed Strikers of Georges Creek Coal District

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Shoulder to Shoulder, Blt Sun p10, July 26, 1900———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday September 9, 1900
Mother Jones News Round-Up for August 1900, Part I
Found Visiting Jailed Strikers of Georges Creek Coal District

From The Philadelphia Inquirer of August 5, 1900:

STRIKE LEADER GOES TO PRISON
FOR SIX MONTHS
——-
Woman Sympathizer Creates a Sensation
in a Maryland Jail

Special to The Inquirer.

Mother Jones, Kenosha Ns WI p7, June 26, 1900

CUMBERLAND, Md., Aug. 4.-William Warner, the strike leader, was sentenced this afternoon to six months in the House of Correction, having been convicted of unlawful assembly during trouble which arose at an anti-strike meeting. Seventeen miners were also sentenced. They were visited at the jail this afternoon by Mother Jones, the woman labor organizer, who created a sensation by proposing three cheers in the jail for the strikers and three hisses “for the blacklegs.” She led the cheering, as well as the hissing. Warner, who is from Pittsburg, took an appeal.

—————

[Photograph added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for June 1910, Part III: “Friend of Labor” Interviewed in Washington, D. C., by Selene Armstrong

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Husband Children, WDC Tx p5, June 18, 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday July 19, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for June 1910, Part III:
-Interviewed by Selene Armstrong in Washington, D. C.

From The Washington Times of June 18, 1910:

Mother Jones, Home ed, WDC Tx p5, June 18, 1910

Mother Jones, WDC Tx p5, June 18, 1910Thus spoke Mother Jones, the plucky little white-haired woman, whose home, to use her own words, is “wherever there’s a labor war, and the President of the United States, when she had journeyed across half a continent to lay before him for the first time the cases of a number of political refugees in prison in Arizona, Kansas, and other Western States.

Today and on other days this week, Mother Jones has been busy at the Capitol, where it said that members of certain committees before which she has appeared have gasped for breath and begged for mercy before she had finished outlining to them their duties in regard to the Mexicans whose freedom she seeks from the Government.

Meets Old Friends.

She has hobnobbed with her old friends Representatives Wilson and Nicholls of Pennsylvania, and has made new friends of many other statesmen, who, however little they sympathize with her decided views on this or that public question, cannot harden their hearts against the cheery good humor and keen wit which radiate from her.

When asked by Chairman Dalzell of the Rules Committee of the House, before which she has appeared this week, to state her place of residence, Mother Jones replied:

My home is wherever there a labor war, sir.

The life story of this little woman with the snow white hair, the childlike blue eyes, and the look of perennial youthfulness on her face, would, if it were written, be the history of the of cause of organized labor. For thirty years she has traveled throughout the length and breath of the land in order to stand by the workers in time of stress. In the roughest mining camps of the West, and in the crowded tenement districts of eastern cities, she has brought to the women of the working class a woman’s gentle counsel, and to the men sagacity and keen judgement the equal of a man’s.

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for June 1910, Part II: Found Testifying Before House Rules Committe on Behalf of Mexican Refugees

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, No Abiding Place, WDC Hse Com Testimony, June 14, 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday July 18, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for June 1910, Part II:
-Found in Washington, D. C., Testifying Before House Committee

From the San Francisco Call of June 15, 1910:

“MOTHER” JONES DENOUNCES DIAZ
—–
Mexican Refugees Persecuted by American Officers,
She Tells House Committee
—–
Writer Declares Los Angeles Detectives Open
Private Letters in Postoffice
—

Mother Jones, WDC Tx p5, June 18, 1910

WASHINGTON, June 14.—”Mother” Jones addressed the rules committee of the house today in behalf of the Mexican refugees, who, it is alleged, are being persecuted in the United States through the agencies of American officers and Mexican government “spies.”

Mrs. Jones related that while she was in Douglas, Ariz., addressing a meeting, of “the unorganized slaves who work in the smelters,” she witnessed the kidnaping of a Mexican refugee, who, she said, was seized, strangled, thrown into an automobile and carried across the line into Mexico.

“Mother” Jones” denounced President Diaz of Mexico for sending “his hirelings across the border to crush the constitution of our country.”

John Kenneth Turner, a magazine writer, and John Murray, a newspaper writer, continued their testimony. The offering of evidence was finished today and the committee will decide within a few days whether an investigation by congress shall be recommended.

Murray testified to the opening of his own mail and that of a large number of other persons by the American authorities.

Turner said he had discovered city detectives in the Los Angeles postoffice examining the mail of Mexican residents there. He also told of the suppression by the authorities of many small newspapers published by Mexican refugees in various cities in Texas, California and Arizona.

———-

[Photograph added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: From United Mine Workers Journal: Organizing Campaign Continues in Southern West Virginia

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Mother Jones, Doomed, Wmsn WV, June 20, 1920, Speeches Steel, p213———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday July 16, 1920
Southern West Virginia – Union Organizing Campaign Continues Despite Gunthugs

From United Mine Workers Journal of July 15, 1920:

Mother Jones w Sid Hatfield n Organizers in Matewan, UMWJ p11, July 15, 1920

Organization Campaign in West Virginia Continues
to Spread in Spite of Gunmen and Other Obstacles

(Special to the Journal)

Charleston, W. Va., July 8—The situation in Mingo county is firm. The county is tied up tight. Before Fred L. Feick, of Indiana, and L. R. Thomas, of Pittsburgh, mediators for the Department of Labor, came to Williamson a letter arrived from Joseph P. Tumulty, secretary to President Wilson, conveying news of a conference between the President and Secretary Wilson and conveying the hope of the President for a peaceful and harmonious settlement of the differences.

The operators of the Williamson coalfields refused to recognize the union or have anything to do with the United Mine Workers of America. The strike is continuing peacefully.

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for April & May, 1900: Found Speaking at Meeting of Coal Miners in Windber, Pennsylvania

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote JA Wayland, Mother Jones, AtR p1, Mar 17, 1900———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday July 9, 1900
Mother Jones News Round-Up for April and May of 1900
Found Speaking to Coal Miners at Windber, Pennsylvania

From The Tyrone Herald of April 12, 1900:

Miners Would Not Strike.

Mother Jones, Kenosha Ns WI p7, June 26, 1900An effort was made yesterday to get the 10,000 miners in the employ of the Berwind-White Coal Mining company at Windber [Pennsylvania] to strike out of sympathy for their fellow-employes at Horatio and Anita, but their effort ended in failure, as the men have steady employment at good wages and are not in a humor to give up a certainty for an uncertainty. A meeting was called for yesterday at Windber for the purpose of organizing the employes of the company into a branch of the United Mine Workers. The district officials who were present were: District President W. B. Wilson, of Blossburg; District Vice President Barney Rice, of DuBois; Secretary-treasurer Richard Gilbert, of South Fork, and “Mother” Mary Jones, the female agitator, of Chicago.

There was but a small turnout of miners at the meeting and an organization was not effected, The object was to strengthen the cause of the striking niners at Horatio and Punxsutawney. The miners at these two places have felt for the past week or more that their fight was a losing one and that, unless they could secure help from other sources, they would be compelled to call the strike off. At the DuBois shaft of the company the strike has been called off and the men are at work. A large number of Horatio and Anita men have also returned to work and it is entirely likely that the end of this week will see the end of the strike at these two points.

[Photograph added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Testimony of Mother Jones before House Committee on Behalf of Persecuted Mexican Refugees, Part II

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, No Abiding Place, WDC Hse Com Testimony, June 14, 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 18, 1910
Washington D. C. – Mother Jones Before House Rules Committee, Part II

Washington D. C., June 14, 1910-During the morning session of the Hearings before the House Rules Committee on H.J. Res. 201, “Providing for a Joint Committee To Investigate Alleged Persecutions of Mexican Citizens by the Government of Mexico,” Mother Jones continued her testimony as follow:

STATEMENT OF MRS. MARY JONES

[Part II of II.]

Mother Jones re Mex Rev, Lebanon PA Dly Ns p7, June 15, 1910
Lebanon Daily News
June 15, 1910

I left there [Arizona] then, but in 1908, immediately after the campaign. I learned from those men in jail at Los Angeles their condition [Ricardo Flores Magon, Librado Rivera, and Antonio I. Villareal]. They were without money, without aid, and I felt that they were just like Kosciuszko, Carl Schurz, Kossuth, and Garibaldi, and men of that kind, who received protection in our country from the tyrannical governments which they fled from, and I felt they were entitled to some protection, and that if they were without money, but were in the fight for liberty, a fight against the most bloody tyrant that has been produced, I would protect them; and so, although I was not in very good health, I went out and raised $4,000. I sent it West to get stenographers, hire attorneys, and bring witnesses to Tombstone, Arizona, where they were to be tried. I did not expect any great amount of mercy from the court at Tombstone, because Judge Doan is not very humane man. People who are feasting and eating and drinking with those who own the fleshpots of Egypt are not generally very humane characters. But I still felt that probably through the efforts we were making, and the publicity we were giving it, they would not be turned over to be murdered, and if they could be saved from being murdered that would satisfy me, knowing that some day we would get them out of the clutches of the tyrant. And so they were tried and sentenced to eighteen days in Yuma. From there they were moved to the new prison.

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Hellraisers Journal: Testimony of Mother Jones before House Committee on Behalf of Persecuted Mexican Refugees, Part I

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, No Abiding Place, WDC Hse Com Testimony, June 14, 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday June 17, 1910
Washington D. C. – Mother Jones Before House Rules Committee, Part I

Washington D. C., June 14, 1910-During the morning session of the Hearings before the House Rules Committee on H.J. Res. 201, “Providing for a Joint Committee To Investigate Alleged Persecutions of Mexican Citizens by the Government of Mexico,” Mother Jones was called to the stand by Congressman William B. Wilson of Pennsylvania. Mother testified as follow:

Mr. Wilson: Mr. Chairman, I would like to have Mother Jones speak.
The Chairman [Representative John Dalzell of Pennsylvania]:
Mother Jones, please give the stenographer your name and residence.

STATEMENT OF MRS. MARY JONES

[Part I of II.]

Mother Jones re Mex Rev, Lebanon PA Dly Ns p7, June 15, 1910
Lebanon Daily News
June 15, 1910

[Questioned by Chairman Dalzell:]

My name is Mary Jones. I live in the United States, but I do not know exactly in what place, because I am always in the fight against oppression, and wherever a fight is going on I have to jump there, and sometimes I am in Washington, sometimes in Pennsylvania, sometimes in Arizona, sometimes in Texas, and sometimes up in Minnesota, so that really I have no particular residence…No abiding place, but wherever a fight is on against wrong, I am always there. It is my pleasure to be in the fray.

[Mr. Wilson questions Mother about the kidnapping of Manual Sarabia from Douglas, Arizona, during summer of 1907:]

I was in Arizona at that time. We had a strike on there with the Philip Dodge copper interest. The smelters, the men, or the slaves, rather, working in the smelters, had not been organized, and I went down there in Douglas to help organize those workers.

[Wilson asks Mother if she would rather sit down] I am so accustomed to standing when I am talking that I am uncomfortable when sitting down. That is too easy. [Laughter.]

Well, I was holding a meeting on the streets of Douglas on Sunday night for the workers that were in the smelters. An automobile was run out from the jail, from what I learned afterwards and this young Sarabia was thrown into it.

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Hellraisers Journal: Slaughter of Miners Leads to Bill Establishing U. S. Bureau of Mines; Needs Presidents Signature

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Mother Jones Quote, Life Cheaper Than Props, Trinidad CO, Sept 16, 1913, Hse Com p2630———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday May 22, 1910
Washington, D. C. – Congressman Wilson on Plan to Establish Bureau of Mines

From the Duluth Labor World of May 21, 1910:

MnDs, UMW Urges Bill f Mine Bureau, LW p1, May 21, 1910———-

State to Establish Bureau of Mines Regarded
as Means of Checking Fearful Death Toll
of Those Who Work Beneath the Ground.
Signature of President Only Lacking.
—–

WASHINGTON, D. C., May. 20.—A death toll of over twenty thousand of human lives, lives of miners sacrificed in the United States in the last ten years, has at last forced congress to take the first tardy and hesitating step towards checking the senseless slaughter by establishing a national bureau of mines. The bill now only lacks the president’s signature to become law.

Monongah MnDs, Women at Mouth of Mine, Ptt Prs, Dec 10, 1907
The Monongah W. V. Mine Disaster of December 6, 1907, 362 killed.
—–
Darr MnDs, Stricken relatives, Ptt Prs p1, Dec 21, 1907
The Darr (Pa.) Mine Disaster of December 19, 1907, 239 killed.
—–

Asked as to the immediate effect which a bureau of mines would have upon the everyday life of the miner, Representative [Wiliam B.] Wilson, former secretary-treasurer of the United Mine Workers of America, himself a practical coal miner, first drew attention to the terrible loss of life in the American mines as compared with abroad. He said:

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for March 1900: “For many years she has devoted her life to the downtrodden.” -J. A. Wayland

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote JA Wayland, Mother Jones, AtR p1, Mar 17, 1900———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday April 10, 1900
Mother Jones News Round-Up for March 1900
Found Receiving Tributes from J. A. Wayland and Arnot Miners

From Appeal to Reason from March 17, 1900:

AtR p1, JA Wayland, Mar 17, 1900

Mother Jones, Title, AtR p1, Mar 17, 1900

[by J. A. Wayland]

WHEN the history of these times, shall be written by people living under a state of industrial harmony and peace, in the years to come, the name of “Mother” Mary Jones will occupy a prominent place. For many years she has devoted her life to the downtrodden, and is known to every railroad man and miner who is intelligent enough to be called a man. She was my guest during the winter and early spring of 1898-9, and I learned to love her great heart and gray hairs. For many months she has been working among the striking miners of Pennsylvania, encouraging the men and advising them not only absent the tactics necessary to win the industrial battle, but teaching them the lessons of brotherhood and the rights of the working people to have the full results of their labor. Writing to “Grit,” a correspondent recites the tribute paid Mother Jones at the ending of the long struggle as follows:

Blossburg, Feb. 23.–A most appropriate finale to the long struggle between operaters and miners in this section, and a just tribute of love, honor, and respect to one of the most active participants in the whole affair, was the immense parade of men, women, and children, which marched from Arnot to Blossburg, a distance of five miles, on Saturday night, Feb. 17, one of the roughest and coldest nights of this winter, to pay their last heartfelt tribute to one, who, while her labors in this county are ended, and she may never return to this locality again, bears away with her the most sincere gratitude of the mining portion of Tioga county-Mrs. Mary Jones. As they had marched to Blossburg at critical times during the strike to hear words of encouragement from her, and to feel strengthened by her presence, so they marched on that last night of her stay, through a gale of wind and snow, to proclaim their fealty to her, and their true appreciation of her labor.

On Saturday night Mrs. Jones made her last speech and the “striking” portion of Arnot, together with the citizens of Blossburg, turned out in full farce to do honor to the old lady who is generally credited with having won the strike.

Both Mr. Wilson and Mrs. Jones addressed the people, but interest was mainly centered on “Mother” that night, and her bright beaming face told how happy she was at the miner’s success. She spoke at length on the strike and its results, and cited it as a repetition of the Civil war on a small scale. She addressed the women feelingly, and ended by advising the men to be always peaceful, and to bury the hatchet, to forget all little animosities, to be careful in the future at the polls, and to be sure and pay those men who had stood by them, if only a dollar a month. The speaking ended about 11 o’clock and the procession quickly formed and started homeward. The settlement includes the restoration to their houses of the evicted miners, but as Mr. Lincoln is away none have been able to move back as yet. The men of Arnot and Landrus are to be provided with work first, and the mine foremen are offering to put on three shifts of eight hours each in order to more speedily open the north drift headings and to employ as many men as possible.

———-

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for January and February 1900, Found Receiving Fervent Ovation from Arnot Strikers

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote re Mother Jones at Arnot, Wellsboro PA Agitator p1, Jan 17, 1900———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 9, 1900
Mother Jones News Round-Up for January and February 1900
Found in Pennsylvania Receiving “Fervent Ovation” from Arnot Miners

From The Wellsboro Agitator of February 28, 1900:

Mother Jones, Arnot Strike ed, Elmira NY Dly Gz p5, Oct 7, 1899

LOCAL FACTS AND COMMENTS.
—–
Recent Haps and Mishaps in this County and Its Vicinity.

[…..]

–Arnot miners, who sought work elsewhere after the strike began, are now coming home.

[…..]

–Mrs. Mary Jones, of Pittsburg, the striking miners’ champion, left this county on the 19th instant to go to Toby valley whither she had been summoned. The night before her departure there was a fervent ovation in her honor at the opera-house in Blossburg. Mr. W. B. Wilson, of Blossburg, President of the 5th District United Mine Workers of America, presided and paid Mrs. Jones a glowing tribute. Mrs. Jones’s remarks were very affecting.

[…..]

———-

[Inset added from Elmira Gazette of October 7, 1899.]

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