THEN:
The fight to get children out of the mine and the mill and into the classroom was a long one, and hard fought. And always tied in with union organizing and labor struggles. The idea of universal public education, was once considered radical and socialistic.
Although, known a the "Miner's Angel," Mother Jones considered the issue of child labor to be the one issue closest to her heart. She campaigned always to get the child out of the workplace and into the schoolroom. She was a former school teacher and also a mother. She lost her four children and her husband to yellow fever.
MOTHER JONES, June 20, 1920
Williamson, West Virginia
Speech at Public Meeting
We cleaned up in Kanawha, didn't we?...Now, then, the children were in the mines; they saw no school; they never entered the school. They came out, threw themselves behind the stoves and there they lay until their mother picked them up to wash them.
Now we have changed that. We have taken the children out of the mines, out of the Hell holes; we have put them in the school rooms; we have made better citizens...
We did the same in Pennsylvania. We went in:
"Do you go to school?"
"No, I never saw the school."
"How old are you?"
"I am just ten."
"How long have you been working here?"
"Oh, I have been here two years."
"Never went to school?"
"No, I never went to school."
""How long has Mikey been here?"
Oh, Mikey, he is just seven. He came here eight months ago, I believe."
"Never went to school?"
"No, never went to school at all. And Joey fell down the chute and got killed."
"How old was Joey?"
"He was just eight."
AND NOW
MOTHER JONES, Jan 25, 1901
Indianapolis, Indiana
Speech at UMWA Convention
When I look into the faces of the little toiling children and see their appealing eyes, it touches the tender chord of a mother's heart. Think of these helpless little things with no one to fight their battles but labor's hosts! No church, no charity organization, no society, no club takes up the war in their behalf; it is only labor and labor's force that come to their rescue. I stand here today to appeal to you i behalf of the helpless children.
I want all of you to go to your homes and act as missionaries in their behalf. Get your brothers into your organization, bring them up under the banner of a coming civilization where we can take the little children and put them in the school room and educate them for the benefit of the nation.
AND OVER THERE
MOTHER JONES, 1925
The Autobiography
The funds for foreign missions, for home missions, for welfare and charity workers, for social settlement workers come in part, at least, from the dividends on the cotton mills. and the little mill child is crucified between the two thieves of its childhood; capital and ignorance.
"Of such is the kingdom of Heaven," said the great teacher. Well, if Heaven is full of undersized, round shouldered, hollow-eyed, listless, sleepy little angel children, I want to go to the other place with the bad little boys and girls.