Tag: William Wardjon

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones to Governor Peabody: “You don’t own this state-I am right here in the capital-what in Hell are you going to do about it?

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, CFI Owns Colorado, re 1903 Strikes UMW WFM, Ab Chp 13, 1925—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday March 30, 1904
Denver, Colorado – Mother Jones to Governor Peabody: “You Don’t Own This State”

Mother Jones Deported, DP P10, Mar 28, 1904Mother Jones was deported by the military on orders of Governor Peabody on Saturday March 26th. With other organizers of the United Mine Workers of America, she was put aboard a Santa Fe train bound for La Junta, Colorado, some 65 miles north and east of Trinidad. They were all given deportation papers which warned them never to return. Mother sat all night in the station at La Junta, and the next morning, with the assistance of a sympathetic railroad conductor, she was able to board a train to Denver. From her hotel room, near the Governors office, she wrote the following letter:

Mr. Governor,
You notified your dogs of war to put me out of the state. They complied with your instructions. I hold in my hand a letter that was handed to me by one of them, which says “under no circumstances return to this state.” I wish to notify you, governor, that you don’t own the state. When it was admitted to the sisterhood of states, my fathers gave me a share of stock in it; and that is all they gave you. The civil courts are open. If I break a law of state or nation it is the duty of the civil courts to deal with me. That is why my forefathers established those courts to keep dictators and tyrants such as you from interfering with civilians. I am right here in the capital, after being out nine or ten hours, four or five blocks from your office. I want to ask you, governor, what in Hell are you going to do about it?

Mother Jones

[Emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: UMW Strike Leaders Mother Jones, William Wardjon, Joseph Poggiani and Adolph Bartolli Deported from Trinidad on Orders of the Governor

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Quote Mother Jones, CFI Owns Colorado, re 1903 Strikes UMW WFM, Ab Chp 13, 1925—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday March 29, 1904
Trinidad, Colorado – Coal Strike Leaders Deported on Orders of Governor Peabody

From The Scranton Republican of March 28, 1904

MOTHER” JONES AND OTHERS DEPORTED
———-
Major Hill Commanding State Militia at Trinidad
Causes Her Arrest on Saturday.

Mother Jones Deported, DP P10, Mar 28, 1904

DENVER, Colo., March 27.-Having received authority from the governor to act upon his judgment, Major Hill, commanding the state militia at Trinidad last night arrested “Mother” Jones, William Wardjon of Iowa, Joseph Pagini [Poggiani] and Adolph Bartolli, placed them on an eastbound train, and ordered them never to return to Trinidad or Las Animas county.

“Mother” Jones has been in Trinidad several months encouraging the strikers and counseling the driving out of non-union workers. Wardjon is an officer of the Iowa United Mine Workers who has been in Las Animas county for some time. He recently addressed a gathering of strikers advising that the non-union miners in the southern district be sent out in coffins. He further said that had such measures been taken here the strike would have been settled long ago. He called the Trinidad miners cowards, and said that if they had not shown cowardice and had done as he advised, the strike would not have lasted three weeks let alone three months.

A stenographic report of the speech was furnished Gov. Peabody before deporting Wardjon and others. Finding it was lawful and had been done in other states under similar circumstances, the government answered Major Hill’s request for authority to deport by placing the matter in the officer’s hands.

Pagini and Bartolli, who were deported with Wardjon and Mother Jones, are editors of the Italian Weekly at Trinidad, which was suppressed yesterday because of its rabid anarchistic editorials. President Moyer of the Western Federation of Miners, arrested yesterday for desecration of the flag, spent last night in jail at Telluride, being unable to secure bail.

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

As can be seen from the above article, the kept press is always quick to accuse leaders of the United Mine Workers of America of inciting violence, yet violence committed against those same leaders by deputized private gun thugs draws no such criticism.

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Hellraisers Journal: Colorado Officials Plot More Deportations Including Mother Jones; W. F. M. President Charles Moyer Arrested for “Desecration” of the American Flag

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Quote Mother Jones, CFI Owns Colorado, re 1903 Strikes UMW WFM, Ab Chp 13, 1925—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday March 28, 1904
Colorado Governor Peabody Plots Further Deportations from Strike Zones

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

From the strike zones of Colorado comes news of further actions being taken against strike leaders by Governor Peabody. In Trinidad, where the United Mine Workers are conducting a strike against the coal operators, the military is planning to deport Mother Jones and other leaders from the strike zone.

In the strike zones of Telluride and Cripple Creek, posters and flyers (see below) printed by the Western Federation of Miners and authorized by Charles Moyer, President, and Big Bill Haywood, Secretary-Treasurer, were distributed. As a result, Moyer has been taken into custody for “desecration” of the flag.

WFM Flag Poster CO America, BBH Moyer, Flag 1 n 2, Wiki n World Today p973, Aug 1904

From The New York Times of March 27, 1904:

TO RUN LABOR LEADERS OUT OF COLORADO
———-
“Mother” Jones and Mine Agitators
Among Those to Go.
———-

MINERS’ PRESIDENT ARRESTED
———-
Charged with Desecrating the American Flag
-Italian Paper Seized by Militia and Censorship Established.
———

Special to the New York Times.

DENVER. March 26.-Gov. Peabody and Attorney General Miller held a conference this afternoon at the Capitol, at which a programme of deportation was decided upon for Trinidad. After the meeting the Governor wired Major Hill to prepare to deport all non-resident labor leaders from the district.

A special train will be secured and the leaders referred to will be taken outside the State and left there. The names on the deportation slate include those of Mother Jones of Pennsylvania, W. R. Fairley of Alabama, William Wardjon of Iowa, Chris Evans of Indiana, and Edward [Charles] Demolli of Utah.

The local companies assert that if the miner agitators are taken out of the district two-thirds of the strikers will return to work. The fact that they are non-residents will prevent them from securing injunctions or habeas corpus writs, the privilege granted a citizens of the State.

At Trinidad to-day the office of the Anarchistic weekly paper, Il Trovotore Italiano [Il Lavoratore Italiano], was seized by a squad of soldiers and this week’s issue, which was ready for distribution, was confiscated. It is charge that the paper had incited strikers to violence. Major Hill has established a press censorship.

[Note: Il Lavoratore Italiano is an Italian-language newspaper published since 1902 in Trinidad, Colorado, which serves as the official organ of the United Mines Workers’ District 15.]

———-

OURAY, Col, March 26.-Charles Moyer, President of the Western Federation of Miners, was arrested here to-day on charge of desecrating the American flag, and started overland for Telluride.

President Moyer was arrested on warrant which charge that he used pictures of the flag with inscriptions painted between the bars as poster.

—————

[Emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Chris Evans Assaulted Near Trinidad; Letter Received Threatening Mother Jones and U. M. W. A. Officials

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, CFI Owns Colorado, re 1903 Strikes UMW WFM, Ab Chp 13, 1925—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday March 20, 1904
Near Trinidad, Colorado – Chris Evans, U. M. W Official Assaulted, Seriously Injured 

From The Topeka Daily Capital of March 16, 1904:

THE EVANS ASSAULT.
———-
Officials of Mine Workers Express Great Indignation.

Chris Evans 1890, Secretary of AFL
Chris Evans, 1890

Indianapolis, Ind., March 15.-At the national headquarters of the United Mine Workers indignation was expressed over the assault in Colorado of Chris Evans. Evans is nearly 60 years of age and despite his long service in various official capacities with the miners, he has never been before assaulted. He was editor of the United Mine Workers Journal in this city for several years and served as national statistician of the organization. Prior to being sent to Colorado last November by the executive board he had charge of the disbursement of funds in West Virginia to the strikers. He is the third official of the United Mine Workers who recently has been assaulted in Colorado. The other two men who were assaulted and seriously injured were W. R. Fairley, member of the national executive board from Alabama, and James Mooney, member of the national executive board from Missouri.

Pueblo, Col., March 15-Chris Evans, financial agent of the United Mine Workers, who was assaulted yesterday near Trinidad, today gave the authorities a clue which they are investigating in the form of an anonymous letter sent to Wm. Wardon [Wardjon], national organizer, Mr. Evans and others, warning him and the other officials to leave the camp within two days. The letter also referred to “Mother” Jones and was signed “33.”

No attention was paid to it at the time, but Mr. Evans now thinks it a part of a well-formed plot to kill the officials

—————

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Scandal Monger, Polly Pry, Claims Mother Jones Could be Former Madam Who Once Ran Houses of Ill-Repute

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Quote Dorothy Adams re Mother Jones asleep moonlight, Tammany Tx p10, Aug 12, 1901—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday January 22, 1904
Denver, Colorado – The Polly Pry Claims Mother Jones Could Be Former Madam

Mother Jones per Polly Pry, Florence CO Dly Tb p1, Jan 5, 1904

Leonel Ross Campbell, Denver journalist now turned scandal monger, writing under the name of Polly Pry, has recently directed her prying gaze upon Mother Jones. In her magazine, The Polly Pry, Campbell claims to have evidence, supplied by the Pinkertons, that “proves” that Mother Jones once ran various houses of ill-repute in Denver, Omaha, Kansas City, Chicago, and San Francisco. The file, it is claimed, dates back to 1889.

According to the report, Mother Jones could be the madam who hired the “best looking girls on the row” for her house on Market Street in Denver where she went broke after her paramour, “Black-leg,” supposedly ran off with one of her girls. She then began drinking and was arrested and jailed several times. The Prying Polly further reported that this woman was:

…an inmate of Jennie Rogers’ house on Market street, Denver, some twelve years ago. She got into trouble with the Rogers woman for bribing all of her girls to leave her and go to a house in Omaha-for which act she was paid a procuress fee of $5 to $10 apiece for the girls.

She was a confidential servant in Rose Lovejoy’s private house on Market street, Denver, and with her several years. …

Lived in Eva Lewis’ house on Market street at the time the Coxey Army passed through here, and took a prominent part in the Denver preparation for their care.

Is known to Harry Loss, a piano player at 1925 Market street, who says he knew her first in Omaha in 1894, when she lived in a house at tenth and Douglass.

She was then selling clothes to the girls. A sewing woman for the sporting class living on Lawrence street…says it was commonly reported that she was a procuress by trade.

[Emphasis added.]

The Pinkerton report goes on to claim that a Mary Harris (using her maiden name) was a “vulgar, heartless, vicious creature, with a fiery temper and a cold-blooded brutality rare even in the slums.”

Now, in the slander sheet which bears her pen name, Miss Polly Pry is careful to maintain a distance from her lurid charges by reporting on a supposed report on Mother Jones. Very clever of her, and also in keeping with her usual style of reporting on labor leaders who are the often made the targets of her attacks. She has previously defamed U. M. W. District 15 President Howells, U. M. W. National Organizer William Wardjon, and U. M. W. National Executive Board Member John Gehr. Anti-union newspapers across the country see fit to pick up these sordid stories from The Polly Pry and reprint them.

For her part, Mother Jones refuses to give dignity to the charges by responding to them in any way. U. M. W. attorneys doubt that a law suit would be successful since the charges made by The Polly Pry are implied rather than made directly.

—————

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks to Reporter in Denver, Describes Conditions in the Coal Camps of Southern Colorado

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Quote Mother Jones, CFI Owns Colorado, re 1903 Strikes UMW WFM, Ab Chp 13, 1925—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday November 16, 1903
Denver, Colorado – Mother Jones Describes Conditions in Southern Coalfields

From The Denver Post of November 13, 1903:

Mother Jones, Dnv Pst p1, Nov 13, 1903Mother Jones Interview re CO Coal Strike, Dnv Pst p1n3, Nov 13, 1903 Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks to Reporter in Denver, Describes Conditions in the Coal Camps of Southern Colorado” →