Hellraisers Journal: Ban on Mother Jones in Forsyth County Aimed at "Women Agitators For Anything!"

Submitted by JayRaye on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 12:56pm

You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones

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Thursday February 8, 1906
Winston-Salem, North Carolina: Forsyth County Puts the Ban on Mother Jones

The Charlotte Daily Observer of February 6th reported the news:

Forsyth Commissioners Put Ban on
"Mother Jones."

Special to The Observer.

Winston-Salem, Feb. 5.-The county commissioners, in session to-day, declined to grant an application for "Mother Jones" to speak in the court house Friday and Saturday, on the ground that the board is "opposed to the court house being used for continual agitation of socialism."

[Photograph added.]

Socialist Party of America Button.gif

The Charlotte News opined regarding
the Devil and Socialism:

"The Mask the Devil Uses"

It makes no difference to us whether the speaker is "Mother Jones" or "Father Time," so long as the theme is Socialism, you are welcome to our ticket, though we advise you not to use it. The lecture will not benefit you and the chances are it will hurt you. We were always suspicious of a lecture, entitled, "Let Reason Speak." That is the mask the devil uses and it usually acts as a blind to something behind the curtain which it wouldn't pay to advertise.

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The Daily Industrial News of Greensboro yesterday reported that the Forsyth County commissioners had landed upon another reason for putting the ban on Mother Jones. They no longer appeared to be trouble by her agitation on behalf of Socialism; rather they were troubled by the fact that she was a woman agitating on behalf of Socialism:

ORDER AIMED AT WOMEN ORATORS

Special to Daily Industrial News.

Winston-Salem, Feb. 6.-The order made by the county commissioners Monday refusing to allow the use of the court house for "Mother" Jones to speak on Thursday and Friday of this week was not intended as a thrust at the Socialist party, said the members of the board today.

Chairman Bailey added that he was opposed to women agitators for anything; that he would not be in favor of allowing the court room to be used by women preachers. The commissioners said further that they have no objection to representative male orators of any party speaking in the court house; that they freely gave the Socialists permission for Eugene V. Debbs [Debs] to make two addresses there.

[Photograph added.]