You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Sunday November 15, 1914
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - Mother Jones Addresses A. F. of L. Convention
From yesterday's Philadelphia Press:
She came unannounced from the coal fields of Colorado. When Gompers said she was in the rear of the hall, every one turned and as "Mother" came up the center aisle on the arm of Frank Hayes, vice-president of the United Mine Workers of America, each row of delegates she passed stood upon its feet until the entire convention was standing and as she reached the platform a thunder of applause broke.
Report from
Frank Morrison, Secretary of the American Federation of Labor:
Vice-President Duncan: Anticipating that you are agreeable, I have just instructed Delegate Hayes, of the Mine Workers, to escort Mother Jones to the platform, as I see she is in the hall.
President Gompers in the chair.
Mother Jones was escorted to the platform by Delegated Hayes, vice-president of the United Mine Workers. President Gompers introduced Mother Jones to the convention.
In an extended speech Mother Jones referred to strikes in various parts or the country that had been conducted by the United Mine Workers and the Western Federation of Miners in the past two years. She described in detail the conditions that had existed in West Virginia prior to the strike, the benefit that had come to the miners through that strike and the subsequent investigation by the Government.
Mother Jones at Ludlow before the Massacre
Mother Jones spoke at length of the strike in Colorado, of the conditions under which the miners lived and worked, of the brutality of state militia and mine guards after the calling of the strike, the murder of striking miners and the shooting and burning of women and children in the camps. She spoke in bitter condemnation of the action of the Rockefeller interests in their treatment of organized labor and their defiance of law and government.
Mother Jones made an eloquent plea for harmony and co-operation on the part of the workers. She deplored internal strife, jurisdiction disputes and secession in the ranks of the organizations. She urged all the organizations to remain loyal to the American Federation of Labor, and regretted that dual organizations had sprung up in any part of the country.
In closing Mother Jones urged that the convention assist the Western Federation of Miners financially to help defend men who were in prison in Calumet, Mich., awaiting trial on conspiracy charges, and stated that there were other men belonging, to the coal miners' organization in Colorado who were in need of similar help. She asked that the convention take action urging President Wilson to hasten the work of mediation in the Colorado strike.
President Gompers, for himself and in behalf of the convention, thanked Mother Jones for her address and for her presence in the convention.
[photograph added]
Women march in Trinidad in support of Mother Jones,
held captive in Colorado's Military Bastille.
From Friday's Lincoln Evening Journal of Kansas:
Vitriolic Talk by Mother Jones Livens Meeting
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PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 13.-A stirring address by "Mother" Jones against John D. Rockefeller, who, she charged, "works for Jesus but sends gunmen against miners when they go out on strike" thrilled today's session of the American Federation of Labor. During her fiery discourse on the Colorado coal strike she said that if President Wilson "were a man he would give Rockefeller just five days to settle the present disagreement."
The eighty year old leader of the mine workers, who has spent most of her life working to better the laboring man's condition, was presented by Samuel Gompers.
[Began Mother Jones:]
The fight in Colorado..is not for wages. It is a fight that constitutional rights may be enjoyed by the workers. Colorado has the finest labor laws of the country. But they are cast aside by high class burglars.
The fight in Colorado, West Virginia, and Michigan is a fight for bread.
The rights of the miners in Colorado have been disregarded entirely by the Colorado Fuel & Iron company and by the state authorities.
Men of America, you will never guess the atrocities of Colorado unless another Victor Hugo comes to portray it. Children were burned and wasted to death. Upon the mangle hearts of these little children is built the wealth of John D. Rockefeller.
When I heard the screams of these dying children, I said: "O, my god. I wish I could send these screams to Washington. Perhaps they would move the president to action." Men and women of the labor movement-get together, and if John D. Rockefeller is president of the United States let us once more fight for our liberties.
If Woodrow Wilson were a man he would give Rockefeller just five days to settle the present strike, and if Rockefeller refused the president would say to him, "the flag of the United States goes up over those mines."
"Mother" Jones reviewed the mine explosion in New Mexico and denounced the lack of safety devices there. She told of meeting with General Villa shortly after the disaster, to whom she said:
It would be a good thing if you came over to see us. We could use you to fine advantage.
[Mother continues:]
No nation in the world had ever advanced with the working class crushed. It is not bankers, merchants or manufacturers that move the world [but] the working class. All nations who have crushed the working class have gone down into dust never to rise again.
John M. Eshelman, lieutenant governor of California, invited the federation to meet in San Francisco next year. He also stated that the time has come when child labor must be abolished.
The insurgent wing of the garment workers lost its fight in a final effort to gain seats in the session of the federation today.
Tonight the biggest spectacle of the convention will occur when 50,000 trades unionists parade down Broad street.
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[emphasis added]
Mother Jones leads strikers' parade in Trinidad.
From yesterdays Philadelphia Press:
Horticultural Hall yesterday was the scene of the most remarkable demonstration of a convention which has been replete with demonstrations. "Mother" Jones, "the angel of the miners," who has been the storm center of every strike into which her "boys" have been precipitated for the last two decades made a blood and thunder speech that moved the delegates to tears and inspired an almost continuous acclamation.
Eight-three years old, this small white-haired woman with a bit of a brogue, threw a power, an eloquence and a stirring appeal into her speech unequaled by any of the men who have addressed the convention.
She came unannounced from the coal fields of Colorado. When Gompers said she was in the rear of the hall, every one turned and as "Mother" came up the center aisle on the arm of Frank Hayes, vice-president of the United Mine Workers of America, each row of delegates she passed stood upon its feet until the entire convention was standing and as she reached the platform a thunder of applause broke.
She reviewed the history of the Colorado, West Virginia and Michigan strikes and "the burning of the children and women at Ludlow."
She said:
I could mediate in five days; the investigation has already taken a committee seven months.
I would tell Rockefeller that he had insulted every citizen in the United States by his treatment of the President's proposal to settle the Colorado strike. I would give him five days to settle and then the United States flag would fly over the mines and the people would own them.
[She screamed:]
I would say to Rockefeller..."if you are President of the United States we are ready to make war with you. Come on."
If I could send the screams of the burning children to Washington and let the President hear them I wonder if that would make him move.
"Are you building palaces on the quivering heap of their bodies? Don't you hear the voices of the children crying who were shot in the trenches by the 'uniformed murderers' and then the oil of John Rockefeller thrown over them to burn them to a crisp?"
Demand Aid.
"Mother" Jones demanded aid for the men who were indicted in connection with the strike in Michigan and in Colorado.
[She said:]
Those men in jail...are the foremost fighters of labor. We cannot permit the Shaws, of Boston, to put our men behind the bars. We will win in Colorado and when I have cleaned the State up I am going out to organize the steel workers.
I have heard that women are taking a part in the affairs of the nation. What did they do about this? I tell you there is no brutal act committed by a man, but there is a woman more or less responsible for it. If women would put in more time planting the human spirit in the breasts of the young we should not have so many savages as we have to-day.
Mother Jones in Cold Cellar Cell
in Walsenburg
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The speaker said that when she refused to leave Colorado on the order of General Chase, she was thrown into a cellar and spent twenty-six days and nights fighting rats with a beer bottle that had nothing in it.
She charged that Rockefeller had an army of gunmen who were shipped from one part of the country to another as the necessity arose.
Mother Jones told of her interview with Villa.
[She said:]
I had a talk with him...He's a fine boy. I had $65 that some one gave me for a present and I offered it to him.
"Villa," I said to him, "I want you to come over into our country to kill off some of those people who have crucified women and children--you're needed."
"I'll come," said Villa, "as soon as I am through with these murderers and crucifiers here."
[photograph, emphasis and paragraph breaks added]
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SOURCES
Philadelphia Press
(Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
-Nov 14, 1914
http://www.gompers.umd.edu/...
Report of Proceedings of the
Thirty-Fourth Annual Convention
of the American Federation of Labor
Held at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
November 9 to 21, Inclusive 1914
Washington D. C., 1914
https://archive.org/...
Lincoln Evening Journal
(Lincoln, Nebraska)
-Nov 13, 1914
http://www.newspapers.com/...
Mother Jones Speaks
-ed by Philip S Foner
NY, 1983
IMAGES
Mother Jones in 1914
http://www.loc.gov/...
Mother Jones at Ludlow
http://www.socialwelfarehistory.com/...
Colorado Women Support Mother Jones
http://www.du.edu/...
Mother Jones Leads Strikers Parade in Trinidad
http://zinnedproject.org/...
Mother Jones in Cold Cellar Cell in Walsenburg
https://archive.org/...
Crucified
http://john-adcock.blogspot.com/...
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The Spirit of Mother Jones - Andy Irvine
I see her marching down the street with her umbrella in her hand
I can hear her still at Ludlow where the miners made a stand
And she says: "John D. will you kindly tell to me
How could you let your troopers lay them thirteen children down?"
In the horrors of West Virginia and in Colorado too
Mother Jones and her miners they never could subdue
And the men they fought and died in their tents and shanty towns
And the women stood like a wall of steel that nothing could batter down
-Andy Irvine
See Also:
Spirit of Mother Jones Festival July 2014
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