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Monday January 31, 1916
Indianapolis, Indiana - Mother Jones Addresses Convention of United Mine Workers, Part I

Yesterday Hellraisers reported on the speech delivered by Mother Jones during Saturday's afternoon session of the United Mine Workers Convention, now in session in Indianapolis. Today we are pleased to present part one of her speech; we will offer part two in tomorrow's edition of Hellraisers.

ELEVENTH DAY-AFTERNOON SESSION The convention was called to order at 1:30 p.m., Saturday, January 29th, Secretary Green in the chair......

Secretary Green—.....President White will not be here for a little while and, with your permission, we will pause for just a few minutes in our regular order to hear from Mother Jones. She is planning to leave soon and wants to say something to the boys before she leaves.

Mother Jones—Boys, I have looked over this convention from the platform, and I want to give expression to the feeling that in this gathering are men of the most highly developed brains this country can produce. You have come from the picks, but you are developing, and I want to say to you to keep on.

Now I want to call your attention to a few things. Away back in the old Roman age, two hundred years after the world’s greatest agitator was murdered by the ruling class, there arose in Carthage a tremendous agitation among the oppressed, the exploited, those who had borne the burden for ages. The Romans began to be disturbed and thought they would go down to Carthage and capture those who were responsible for the agitation. They went down. All they captured in those days they retained as slaves or sold into slavery. Among the group that was captured was one youth. The Roman judge asked, “Who are you?” The youth said, “I am a member of the human family.” “Why do you agitate?” asked the judge. “Because I belong to that class that has been crushed, robbed, murdered and maligned in all the ages, and I want to break the chains of my class.”

I wish I could convey that spirit to everybody in this audience today. If I could we would have another story to tell when we come here for the next convention. That is the spirit that should possess us all—that we belong to the class that has borne the burdens of nations, that has been starved intellectually, physically and otherwise. But we are breaking the chains. Everywhere I go I see the sentiment growing.

I was in Youngstown, Ohio, two months ago. I spoke in Niles and other places. I am going back next week. They have asked me to come. When I saw the horrible condition of those slaves in the steel mills, when I saw the shacks they lived in, when I saw them up against those furnaces for twelve hours a day, when I saw them going home weary and broken, I thought, “Some day, not in the far distant future, there will come another John Brown and he will tear this nation from end to end if this thing does not stop.” Those men were worn and weary and tired. The first thing they did after coming out of the mills was to go to a saloon and get a drink to brace them up to go home.

But I am glad to say we are making progress. When those men struck I was not at all surprised. Here is what one of the officers says: “Just what caused it I have been unable to determine, but from what I have been told I fear it has been caused by the armed guards on the bridge. Had these guards been kept within the limit of the mill property I doubt if there would have been any trouble with the workers. Witnesses told me the guards on the bridge fired the first shots, that aroused the fury of the mob and there was no holding them in check. I do not look for any further outbreak unless an attempt is made to operate the mills with strikebreakers.”

It is the gunmen that start the trouble. They started the trouble in West Virginia, in Calumet, and they started it in Idaho, Colorado and everywhere. If this government does not take steps to protect the people then the people will have to protect themselves against gunmen. In Colorado the strike was not on a month when they began. I was in Aguilar and got a telephone call to go to Ludlow. Lawson happened to be there. I hunted him up and said: “There is some trouble in Ludlow; let us go there.” We got into an automobile and I told the driver to move as fast as the roads would allow. When we got to Ludlow we found the men were without weapons, they were bewildered, they were not able to defend themselves. The gunmen were there on the track shooting at the tents where the women were. There were about half a dozen guns in the camp and Lawson started to take them away. I said, “Lawson, you leave those guns with the boys so they can protect themselves. If the law does not protect us we must protect ourselves.”

There was a law and order crowd out there, there was a law and order crowd in West Virginia and in the Calumet region. Now let me make this statement to you newspaper men. Down all the pages of human history law and order has destroyed every nation that has gone down never to rise again, because law and order were in the hands of the fellows who violated every law of right and justice. I have been in strikes for many years, I was in strikes before many of you were born, and I know what they are. We are always the victims of the brutality of the other class.

In my experience Colorado was no worse than West Virginia. They did not make me wade the creek in Colorado, but in West Virginia the gunmen made me wade a creek up to my hips to keep me from going to a meeting. The corporation dogs were on the track. The representative of the Baltimore Sun was with me. He started to go on the track and the dogs said, “She cannot come with you.” The newspaper man said it was an outrage to make me wade the creek. Then one of them said, “I don’t care a damn! Only for her there wouldn’t be any trouble here.” I am going to tell you right here—and you newspaper man with the white head put it down—that as long as there is an industrial slave in America and I am alive I am going to raise a row.

They didn’t do half as bad in Colorado as they did in West Virginia, and I am here to prove it. In West Virginia they ran the “death special” up the creek, shot the men and women and the crowd on board said, “Run the train back until we give them another bout.” Yes, they roasted the babies in Calumet on Christmas eve, they roasted a few in Ludlow. They roasted seventy-five in Calumet on Christmas eve. They shot seven working men in the streets. They shot them in West Virginia. Now I am going to tell you that if you men had any blood in you, if you would have stopped fighting each other, mustered your forces and organized they would not have dared to shoot anybody. As long as you come here to the convention and blow off steam that has been gathering for two years, instead of coming here to do business for the future you will not gain much.

There is a fellow up in New York; I saw him one day and he said, “I am inventing something, a wonderful thing. I am sure you will take stock in it.” “Sure I will,” I said, “if it amounts to anything. What is it?” He said, “It is a skull scraping machine,” and I don’t know of anything more useful than that; if we could get our skulls scraped until they were clean we would come here and do business.

In West Virginia I went up Cabin Creek. There were thirty men on the track. We were going to a meeting. The gunmen were huddled together and the machine gun was turned on the boys. The boys did not have a pistol, they did not have a stick to defend themselves with. These gunmen were thirsting for the blood of men who had not injured them. I jumped out of the buggy I was in. The boys said, “For God's sake, Mother, don’t go up there! They will kill you!” I said, “I couldn’t die a more glorious death than defending your rights.” I went up and put my hand on the machine gun and said to those corporation bloodhounds, “You can’t shoot a bullet out of that,” and one fellow who was thirsting for human blood said, “Take your hand off that gun.” I said, “No sir. My class makes those guns and I have a right to put my hand on this one. You have got mothers, wives and daughters. I don’t want to hear their groans and see their tears. My boys, too, have mothers, wives and children; I don’t want to hear their groans or see their tears. They are not fighting you, they are fighting the class that is robbing them. Don't you want to give this nation a better citizenship, morally, physically and intellectually?”

One man stood behind a tree with a gun. I said, “You come out in the open.” I went down and took him from behind the tree. He had his finger on the trigger of the gun. I took him by the back of the neck and said, “You come here.” After that I went up and held my meeting. The supe came along and said, “Mother Jones, you cannot talk.” I said, “For God's sake, did you ever see a woman that couldn’t talk?” I talked for an hour. The supe didn’t want to stop me, but the fellow who owned him was on the track and he wanted it done. I didn't want to be too hard on the supe and I said, “I am here on the road and I have a share in it. I have been told I could walk on the road.” He said, “You are a little bit on the company's property.” For about an hour and a half I talked and fooled the poor supe. I don't know whether he lost his job or not.

Some of you who come here don't know what we have to do who are in the trenches. We are trying to fight our battle peacefully, but it is a question if we can. The past has never been peaceful, it is a question if the future is going to be; but we are moving on, we are using brains instead of weapons, we are organizing, we are getting together. The children in Calumet, the children in Colorado, the men in West Virginia, did not die in vain. When I was going to Washington to try to get Congress to make an investigation in Colorado I got a telegram from Dawson, N. M., saying, “Come down, Mother; we want to join the boys in Colorado.” Time and again I got that message, but I concluded it was best to bring peace if we could, but the very night I was leaving for Washington I was told that 285 men were blown into eternity in the Dawson mine. The mine belonged to the Philip Dodge crowd that are now fighting the miners in Morenci. Those boys in that mine and those babies in Colorado, Calumet and West Virginia did not die in vain; they gave up their lives on the altar of human freedom and in the future men will stop and ponder and wonder at these sad days of old when we roasted babies on the altar of God-cursed gold.

It was not the Rockefellers that did it, it was not the Shaws, it was the working men of the nation; they are responsible for the death of those children. If you were not cowards you would be organized, you would pay your dues, you would carry on the campaign of education that would bring peace to the nation. If an assessment is put on some of you say, “I don’t want to pay it; I pay my dues and I am not going to pay any more.” Why you poor, measly, half-starved wretch, do you know what the men and women did who tramped the highways and byways to make it possible for you to have the means to pay the assessment with? I know if you don’t.

Now some guy down the road will say, “What does Mother know about mining, anyway?” Don’t I know about mining? Don't I? I worked on the night shift and the day shift in Pennsylvania from Pittsburgh to Brownsville. There isn’t a mine that was open in those days that I didn’t go on the night shift and the day shift, and I know what you have to go through. Then some fellow says, “I don’t think we ought to have a woman on the pay roll.” What do you think of that, Secretary Green? The man who asked that never read a thing in his life, he never even did a bit of thinking. The most valuable person on the staff of President Lincoln was a woman. She gathered more correct information for him and delivered it than all the men he had, and I want to make the statement here that if you had twenty women in Europe they could stop that war. Twenty women with a consciousness of what war means to the children yet to come could stop that war. Don’t you think they have as much sense in Europe as you have? They are all grown fellows who are fighting each other, and if they think it is better to go out and fight for the king than for humanity, for civilization, why, let the guys do it and let us fight at home to preserve this country.

If I were President of the United States I would put a pipe line along the Atlantic seacoast; I would take one thousand trained men and put them there and say, “Now you do business.” And you don't need an army to pay from twelve to twenty thousand dollars a year to the fellow with straps on his shoulders who goes strutting along like a peacock. You are the fellows who pay all the bills. Why, you ought to see those fellows who were in Colorado and West Virginia. And then the President is talking about preparedness—with a gang of sewer rats like that! Why, they couldn’t prepare to clean the hall here, that gang couldn't!

One morning they took me off the train at Walsenburg. I had my fare paid to Trinidad, forty-five miles beyond. One fellow said, “You will have to get up.” “What is the matter,” said I, “are we in Trinidad?” “No, we are getting near Walsenburg.” “I have a ticket to Trinidad.” “It don’t make any difference, you have got to get off the train, we are the militia.” I got off the train and there were the guns. I asked where they were going to take me and they said to the basement of the court house. I asked if there was a chimney there. They said, “Why? Do you want a fireplace?” The fellow who said that had a strap on his shoulder and a belt of bullets around his stomach. I said I wasn't particular about a fire but I wanted a chimney. “What do you want a chimney for ?” “Because I have a trained pigeon and he goes to Washington every week and comes back and brings me all the news.” “Did he come every week you were in Trinidad?” “Yes, every night.” “And they never found it out?” “No,” said I.

Just imagine a nation putting a belt of bullets around the stomach of a thing like that! He had a gun hanging by his side, a couple of pistols and he was sent out to shoot working men. Now just imagine what you are up against when you meet a thing like that! Another fellow in Trinidad told me: “My mother is in the insane asylum in Pueblo, and they fined me thirty dollars because I slept ten minutes too long and did not get out here on duty to watch you.” “Why didn’t you sleep all night, you fool?” said I. That is the type of man that is in the army, the navy and the militia.

I have been arrested five times by the militia and you have never had to hire a lawyer to defend me; I defended myself every time and I made them turn me loose. Neither Secretary Green, Secretary Perry nor Secretary Wilson ever received a bill from me for my services. I have sent in expense accounts, but I have never yet sent a bill for services to the labor movement. The Secretary sends it to me, but I don't know yet what he pays, I am not financier enough. As I told Rockefeller, “If you gave me your institution, I would wreck it tomorrow; it would not last a month after I was in. All I want money for is to use to lick the other fellow.” I am not going to take any money to the grave; I didn’t bring any here, and I don’t want to go up to God Almighty as a high-class burglar.

There have been some tragic things taking place. Belk is acquitted in Colorado and Zancanelli is kept in jail. Ulich was in jail ten months. I was there three months. I presume I would still be in jail in West Virginia if Senator Kern had not taken the matter up. I want to say to you here that every working man in the nation owes a debt to Senator Kern. It was he who brought my case on the floor of the Senate when Goff—the corporation tool—said, “We had peace until they came in there, these foreigners.” Well, we are not foreigners when we are creating the wealth and allowing them to rob us, we are good American citizens then; but when we protest against their robbery we are foreigners immediately. Goff said the biggest agitator in the country, the grandmother of all agitators, was old Mother Jones. Thank God I have lived to be a grandmother in agitation! I hope I will live to be a great-grand mother in agitation!

[Photographs and emphasis added.]

SOURCE
Proceedings of 25th Consecutive & 2nd Biennial Convention
of the United Mine Workers of America, Vol I
Indianapolis, Indiana
January 18 to Feb 1, 1916, Inclusive
https://books.google.com/books?id=MvREAQAAMAAJ
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=MvREAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcove...
ELEVENTH DAY-AFTERNOON SESSION about 1:30 p.m., Saturday, January 29th,
Speech of Mother Jones, (Part I)
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=MvREAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcove...

IMAGES
Mother Jones on Cover of United Mine Workers Journal of Jan 21, 1915,
Repaired by JtC, Thank you, Johnny!
http://books.google.com/books/reader?id=PxZQAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover...
John Lawson & Mother Jones, Wichita Beacon, Kansas, Apr 22, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/image/76976991/
Dawson Mine Disaster of 1913, Coffins Arriving
http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/article_446074ce-ea6b-5...
Mother Jones, Military Bastile, Walsenburg Cellar Cell, Colorado, 1914
https://archive.org/stream/ludlowmassacrere00finkrich#page/84/mode/1up

See also:

William Green
http://www.aflcio.org/About/Our-History/Key-People-in-Labor-History/Will...

Spartacus
Note: I believe Mother is speaking of Spartacus as she mentions him repeatedly in many of her speeches.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartacus

Youngstown Massacre
http://caucus99percent.com/content/hellraisers-journal-youngstown-anothe...

Holly Grove Massacre,
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/14/1216160/-Hellraisers-Journal-Sh...

Ludlow Massacre
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/04/20/1083217/-WE-NEVER-FORGET-April-...

Italian Hall Massacre
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/24/1264853/-WE-NEVER-FORGET-Christ...

Dawson Mine Disaster of 1913
http://www.dailykos.com/news/DawsonMineDisasterof1913

Clifton-Morenci Strike
http://caucus99percent.com/content/hellraisers-journal-mine-owners-seek-...

Secretary-Treasurers of UMWA
https://www99.libraries.psu.edu/findingaids/1825.htm

Cold Cellar Cell
https://archive.org/stream/ludlowmassacrere00finkrich#page/84/mode/1up(edit)

Mother Jones & Militia
http://www.dailykos.com/search?story_type=&search_type=search_stories&te...

Gunthug Belk
http://www.dailykos.com/search?story_type=&search_type=search_stories&te...

Louis Zancanelli
http://www.dailykos.com/news/LouisZancanelli

Mother Jones, Senator Goff, and Senator Kern
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/10/1188855/-ACM-The-West-Virginia-...

Mother Jones, Senator Goff, and Senator Kern
https://www.marxists.org/subject/women/authors/jones/ch18.htm

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Coal Miners's Grave - Hazel Dickens
Note: Here the grave of Labor Martyr Francis Estep stands for the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of graves of labor martyrs which are spread across the nation, unknown and forgotten, from Roosevelt, New Jersey, to San Diego, California, and from the Masabi in Northern Minnesota, down to Grabow, Louisiana.

WE NEVER FORGET