You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
Saturday February 25, 1905
Springfield, Illinois - Illinois U. M. W. to Send Five Miners to Chicago Labor Convention
John H. Walker
Socialist Miner of Illinois
Despite the disapproval of Socialism voiced by the Illinois miners, according to the Decatur
Daily Review, the U. M. W. of that state will be sending five representatives to the Chicago Convention on industrial organization in June.
The Review notes that the name of Eugene Debs is now attached to the convention call. His name was missing when the Manifesto and Convention Call were published by the Appeal to Reason and the Labor World at the end of January. The Review claims that the name of Debs attached to the call provoked a "violent attack by the miners themselves."
If indeed this reaction was as violent as described, it would then seem strange that these same miners have now elected a Socialist, namely John H. Walker, as a member of the Illinois U. M. W. executive board.
The Review further reports:
The call of the Chicago meeting is signed by Mother Jones and other strong supporters of the Socialist party, and the resolution to recognize the meeting was supported by Socialists among the miners.
From the Decatur Daily Review of February 24, 1905:
MINERS SEE SCHEME OF THE SOCIALISTS
----------
In Proposition to Organize a New National Labor Federation.
----------
Springfield. Ills., Feb 24.-The United Mine Workers of Illinois today, in state convention, showed disapproval of a venture into socialism by opposition to a resolution favoring the sending of five representatives from this convention to the meeting which has been called by labor men to convene in Chicago on June 17 for the purpose of forming one grand central labor organization, completely affiliating all labor organizations under one head. The committee reported the resolution unfavorably, but a motion was made to adopt it. The call of the Chicago meeting is signed by Mother Jones and other strong supporters of the Socialist party, and the resolution to recognize the meeting was supported by Socialists among the miners.
`
NAME DELEGATES ANYWAY.
The name of Eugene Debs attached to the call also came in for suspicion, and was responsible for a violent attack by the miners themselves.
It was finally decided to send five representatives of the miners' organization. These delegates will go without specific instructions, other than to determine what the intent and purpose of the convention is.
Secretary-Treasurer W. D. Ryan said the mine workers were affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, which covered practically the ground proposed by the new organization, and that he did not believe in miners placing themselves in the ridiculous position of belonging to two central organizations.
A resolution was adopted favoring the employment of convict labor in the penitentiary for furnishing materials for hard roads, and thus keeping them from competing with free labor.
[photograph added]
MOTHER JONES TRAVELS AND SPEAKS IN ILLINOIS
Mother Jones attended the the Chicago Conference of Industrial Unionist in early January and, as noted above, she is one of the signers of the Manifesto and Convention Call which was issued from that conference. Since then she has been touring throughout the state of Illinois and giving well-received speeches on unionism and socialism. She has also given several interviews. On January 12th, the Rock Island Argus published this interview in which we learn how Mrs. Mary Jones became known as Mother Jones:
IS STRIKE HEROINE
----------
"Mother" Jones comes to Rock Island
to Spread Socialistic Doctrine.
----------
TO SPEAK AT Y. M. C. A. HALL
----------
Relates Her Experiences in Mining Regions
of Colorado During Labor Troubles.
----------
Mrs. Mary Jones, who is known throughout the United States as "Mother" Jones, is in the city to deliver her lecture this evening at the Y. M. C. . on economic questions. She comes under the auspices of the socialist party.
Mrs. Jones first became known as "Mother" Jones when working in the factories. The children began to call her by that name, and it soon spread, until now very few people know her by any other name than "Mother" Jones. Her home is in Chicago, where she has resided for 37 years.
A great part of her life has been spent in working among laboring men, and she has been a prominent figure in a number of the biggest strikes in the country. During the recent labor troubles in Colorado "Mother" Jones was one of the first to be deported from the state by the militia. She had been addressing the miners, near Trinidad, and was ordered from the state by Gov. Peabody. With an escort of militia she was taken to the borders of the state. She went to Helper, Utah. There the authorities were expecting her, and when she made known her intention to hold meetings and address the miners she was told by the authorities that she could not do so, for fear of exposing the citizens of the town to infectious diseases. She then arranged to hold the meeting two miles from the city.
Placed Under Quarantine.
When she returned to her room she was visited by the sheriff, the town marshal and the health commissioner, and was informed that she was placed under quarantine for 16 days, charged with having been exposed to small pox. She was placed under guard, but in the 16 days managed to break away twice and evade her jailers. She says that this was a scheme devised to arrest her, and was resorted to because the authorities were unable to bring any other charge against her.
Before being deported she gave the members of the militia escort a heated lecture as to her opinion of them, and when one of the miners, an old soldier, who had heard her, asked to shake hands with her, he was arrested by the captain of the militia.
"Mother" Jones was seen by an Argus reporter this morning at the Rock Island house, and told a number of her experiences in labor strikes. She told of her experience in the Fairmount coal strike, in West Virginia, in 1892, when she was arrested and brought before the federal court for contempt. An injunction had been issued restraining agitators from addressing the miners. "Mother" Jones and several others had arranged meeting, and she addressed 600 of the men. She was arrested, as were the men, and was brought before the court. The marshal who arrested her offered her accommodations at hotel, but she refused them, preferring to be taken to jail, the same as the other prisoners.
Once when traveling in the southwest she stopped at a hotel in Pueblo. She had engaged a room, and intended to remain over night. A young miner came to her and warned her that that room was to be dynamited if she remained. She left that evening.
An Enthusiastic Agitator.
"Mother Jones," for one of her age, is very active. She is a pleasing conversationalist, though she can not for long refrain from the subject of socialism and economics. When she tells of her experiences, it is with a certain pardonable pride, for her career has been a most remarkable one.
----------
[photograph added]
---------------
SOURCES
The Inter Ocean
(Chicago, Illinois)
-Feb 22, 1905
http://www.newspapers.com/...
The Daily Review
(Decatur, Illinois)
-Feb 24, 1905
http://www.newspapers.com/...
Rock Island Argus
(Rock Island, Illinois)
-Jan 12, 1905
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/...
IMAGES
John H Walker
http://www.illinoislaborhistory.org/...
Eugene Debs
http://books.google.com/...
Mother Jones
http://theadvocateonline.com/...
`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
One Big Union by Matthew Grimm
When the nickeled and the dimed have had enough of being screwed
When they walk out of the sweatshops and the cops refuse to shoot
When the puppet regimes fall, when the World Bank gets the boot
That is one big union.
-Matthew Grimm
`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````