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Saturday January 22, 1916
Indianapolis, Indiana - Mother Jones Speaks at United Mine Workers Convention

Yesterdays Hellraisers featured reporting on the "storming" of the stage at the Mine Workers' Convention, now ongoing in Indianapolis, by the "Old Mother Jones" whereby she put an end to a bitter dispute between the international officers and Delegates McDonald and Germer of Illinois.

The acrimonious debate was over troubling financial matters which no doubt stem from the difficult struggles of the past four years, for example: long and hard fought strikes in West Virginia and Colorado. Expenses continue to mount in Colorado due to legal cases involving more than 400 union men (John R. Lawson included) who are yet entangled in the courts of that state.

Mother put an end to that debate and, in the end, handshakes were exchanged all around.

Today we are pleased to present the actual speech delivered on January 20th by Mother Jones at the convention. We begin with part one of the speech and will conclude tomorrow with part two.

Vice-President Hayes—The delegates will take their seats. Here is a delegate without credentials. I suppose she needs no introduction to this convention—Mother Jones. You can’t stop her from talking.

Mother Jones—I want to tell you, boys, you never saw a woman you could stop. When we had the convention in Colorado to call off the battle, there was a certain delegate there—the corporations had their tools there to prevent us from accepting the President's proposition, and I could see the game played, and I got up to nail some of them, because I can smell them four miles away—and this fellow says, “Mother Jones is not a delegate to this convention, and she cannot talk.” “I want to serve notice on you,” said I, “that I am a delegate to every labor convention in the United States.”

Now, you have had a lot of talk to and fro, accusing each other. There is no question but what mistakes have been made, and if you want to find the fellow in office that don’t make mistakes, go out to the graveyard, and you won't find him there either. You have nearly four hundred and fifty thousand men. You can’t expect all these men to take the same view or survey of things. We are not brought in contact with each other. Some of us are brought up in the mountains; some of us down in the hollows; some of us in the valleys; some of us in the canyons, and we cannot survey these things in the same way, and this thing of tearing each other up will have to stop. I want to say to you, Duncan McDonald, you haven't got one dollar in your treasury that belongs to Illinois. It belongs to the miners of this country; every dollar of it belongs to the working men, whether they are miners, steel workers or train men. That money belongs to us, the working class, and we are going to use it to clean hell out of the robbing class. Now, you were talking about expenditures yesterday—the terrible expenditures! God Almighty, you spend more money here blowing off hot air than would keep us for a year traveling around like Rockefeller. Boys, put a stop to it.

President White made some remark—I did not exactly catch it— about the attacks they made on me in Colorado. I want to tell you, President White, don’t ever lose any sleep about the attacks they make on me.

President White—I know it.

Mother Jones with miners' children in West Virginia.
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Mother Jones—I fought and I made the whole administration in West Virginia lay down. I put them up against the bar of the nation, on trial for their crookedness, and you did not hire any lawyer for me, and I would not hire one either, because a lawyer is the damndest crookedest thing outside of a strike-breaker that there is. They came down there to the bull-pen and they wanted to defend me. I said, “You can’t meddle with my affairs. I want to be here with the boys.” The same thing was tried in Colorado. I spent three months there and five weeks in the bull-pen of West Virginia. I was picked up on the streets, where I went to keep the peace. I brought a committee up to the Governor, paid their way myself, for the poor boys had no money, in order to keep peace; and the tools that had sold their honor and their manhood to the corporations threw me into an automobile, took me twenty-five miles away, and although the civil courts were open, handed me over to the military, and I was kept there three months. Every now and then the old sewer rats would come down and try to get me to go to Ohio. “Oh, no,” said I, “West Virginia suits me.” I want to show you something. I want to put you on to it. After our men were arrested, kept in the bull-pen, taken into the military court, my colleagues and myself, five days and five nights, we refused to recognize the right of that court to try us. We don’t know yet whether that pill-peddler of a Governor had us sentenced for life or not, and I don’t care.

Now, I will give you another history. I may not see you again. I am going out tonight, but I will be back again to watch you. The general who kept my brothers in the bull-pen, arrested them, held them there with their bayonets, wanted to go to Congress. One night when I sat at the dinner table in a restaurant in Washington the bellboy came in and he said: “There is a man in the office who wants to see you, Mother Jones.” I went in and I said: “Are you the person that wants to see me?” He said: “Yes, General Elliott sent me to see you.” That was the general of the militia—of the sewer rats in West Virginia—the uniformed sewer rats—and he said: “He wants to get a letter from you so he can read it; he wants to go to Congress.” I said: “The General is entitled to the letter. I will give it to him; certainly I will. There is no doubt but what he ought to have it, but I want you just to convey the knowledge to that gentleman that I have not forgotten the time he kept my brothers and myself in the bull-pen to accommodate the mine owners when we were fighting for liberty. I have not forgotten when that gentleman heard the babies crying to have their fathers kiss them before they went away, and they never saw them again. You tell the General for me he will get a letter from me, but I will remind him that he went to Charleston, and contrary to the constitution, kicked the labor measures to pieces. I will give him a letter to send him to hell,” said I.

Mother Jones in Military Bastile, Walsenburg Cellar Cell, Colorado, 1914
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I want to tell you something. We have had awful times, boys. Some of you that are here have no idea of what this administration has been up against. I know it is an impossibility for us not to have hard feelings sometimes. I have had it sometimes—no question about it; but you have got to understand that very often men are sent out that have no grasp of this thing. You are not dealing with the situation today you were ten years ago, and no organizer should be put on the staff that is not able to reach out and grasp the enemies of the other class. It is a pie-counter; each and everybody is reaching for the pie-counter without knowing how to digest it. That is the trouble with our administration today—a lot of you blowing off hot air today are a little jealous. You did not get a job, or another fellows wants the job you have got, and so it goes. I can tell you, you can have my job any time, but you cannot muzzle me. I will fight for my class until the last chain is broken. I do not ask any favors of Mr. Green, or Mr. White, or Mr. Hayes. I will hammer them just as quick as I will you—no question about it— if things don’t go right.

Boys, I want to tell you these past four years have been the most strenuous years that this organization has ever gone through. Now you can rent halls and come here to the convention. I remember the time when we had to send to the saloons to get you in to vote on some thing. We don’t do that now. You have traveled beyond that. You are here on the job, blowing off hot air. We don’t have to send for you to get you to vote on a thing; you are here to do it. I remember a time in the city of Chicago when we went out into the hills to meet, forty-five or fifty years ago. The boys came to me one night and they said, “Mother, the weather is getting cold and we have got a place to meet inside.” I said, “Where? We have no money.” They said, “No, we haven’t, but a saloonkeeper told us he would give us a room back of his saloon. Would you mind coming?” I said, “No, I would not. I will go back of a saloon any time to help you boys. Where is the saloon?” He told me. I said, “Let’s go,” and we met there every Thursday night. We had three meetings, when the saloonkeeper came into the hall and said, “You get to hell out of here! You don’t drink enough beer to pay for the gas!” Today you can pay for the gas and the beer both.

Now, boys, let Mother talk to you, and let's put a stop to this thing. Let's take a vote on the whole thing and squash it. Let Duncan McDonald and Adolph Germer come up here on the platform and shake hands and bury the hatchet with President White. The corporations have got their paid tools here. I don’t mean to say these newspaper men are the ones. I believe they are good fellows, these fellows; but I mean to say that right amongst you are the paid hirelings of the big interests. There is not a single move you make in this convention that is not registered to the big interests as soon as it is made. Now, then, put a stop to it and shake hands and say, “Here, there is no power of the high-class burglars will ever separate us, the miners of this country. We are linked together for the final fight, and we must and we will stand before the world and show that we have got common sense and judgment and no spite at each other.” Duncan McDonald, you come up here and shake hands with President White, and you, Adolph Germer.

Delegates McDonald and Germer complied with Mother Jones's request and came to the stage and shook hands with President White, Vice President Hayes and Secretary Green.

[Emphasis and photographs added.]

SOURCES

The Speeches and Writings of Mother Jones
-ed by ‎Edward M. Steel
University of Pittsburgh Press, 1988
https://books.google.com/books?id=vI-xAAAAIAAJ

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...
"THIRD DAY-MORNING SESSION Indianapolis, Indiana, January 20, 1916. The convention was called to order at 9 a. m., Thursday, January 20, President White in the chair."
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=MvREAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcove...
Speech of Mother Jones. When her speech ended, the vote was taken which ended the bitter debate and the morning session was thereafter adjourned.
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=MvREAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcove...
"At 12 o'clock the convention was adjourned to 1:30 p.m. of the same day."
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=MvREAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcove...

IMAGES
UMWJ Cover Detail, Mother Jones, Jan 21, 1915
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=PxZQAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcove...
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...
Mother Jones with Strikers Children, West Virginia
International Socialist Review, Cover, March 1913
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=qFNIAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcove...
Mother Jones, Military Bastile, Walsenburg Cellar Cell, Colorado, 1914
https://archive.org/stream/ludlowmassacrere00finkrich#page/84/mode/1up

See also:

"Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Storms Stage at United Mine Workers Convention, Ends Bitter Debate" by JayRaye
http://caucus99percent.com/content/hellraisers-journal-mother-jones-stor...

"ACM: The West Virginia Court-Martial of Mother Jones" by JayRaye
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/3/10/1188855/-ACM-The-West-Virginia-C...

"WE NEVER FORGET April 20, 1914 The Ludlow Massacre" by JayRaye
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/04/20/1083217/-WE-NEVER-FORGET-April-...

Duncan McDonald was the Secretary of District 12, Illinois,
White, Hayes and Green were the President, VP, & Sec-Trea, of the UMWA as a whole.
-per Jan 6, 1916 issue of United Mine Workers' Journal
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=NQpQAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcove...

Adolph Germer was a delegate from Mt Olive, Illinois, Local Union No. 728 of District 12.
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=MvREAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcove...
Germer was also on the payroll of the UMWA (still an organizer at this time, I believe.)
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=MvREAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcove...
Germer had 3 votes granted to him by the credentials committee.
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=MvREAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcove...

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The Spirit of Mother Jones - Andy Irvine