You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Saturday January 23, 1904
Denver, Colorado - Polly Pry Claims Mother Jones Could Be Former Madam
Leonel Ross Campbell, Denver journalist now turned scandal monger writing under the name of Polly Pry, has recently directed her prying gaze upon Mother Jones. In her new magazine, she is claiming to have evidence supplied by the Pinkertons that "proves" that Mother Jones once ran various houses of ill-repute in Denver, Omaha, Kansas City, Chicago, and San Francisco. The file, it is claimed, dates back to 1889.
According to the report, Mother Jones could be the madam who hired the "best looking girls on the row" for her house on Market Street in Denver where she went broke after her paramour, "Black-leg," supposedly ran off with one of her girls. She then began drinking and was arrested and jailed several times. The Prying Polly further reported that this woman was:
An inmate of Jennie Rogers' house on Market street, Denver, some twelve years ago. She got into trouble with the Rogers woman for bribing all of her girls to leave her and go to a house in Omaha-for which act she was paid a procuress fee of $5 to $10 apiece for the girls.
She was a confidential servant in Rose Lovejoy's private house on Market street, Denver, and with her several years.
...Lived in Eva Lewis' house on Market street at the time the Coxey Army passed through here, and took a prominent part in the Denver preparation for their care.
Is known to Harry Loss, a piano player at 1925 Market street, who says he knew her first in Omaha in 1894, when she lived in a house at tenth and Douglass. She was then selling clothes to the girls.
A sewing woman for the sporting class living on Lawrence street...says it was commonly reported that she was a procuress by trade.
The Pinkerton report goes on to claim that a Mary Harris (using her maiden name) was a "vulgar, heartless, vicious creature, with a fiery temper and a cold-blooded brutality rare even in the slums."
Now, in the slander sheet which bears her pen name, Miss Polly Pry is careful to maintain a distance from her lurid charges by reporting on a supposed report on Mother Jones. Very clever of her, and in keeping with her usually style of reporting on labor leaders who are the usual targets of her attacks.
She has previously defamed UMW District 15 President Howells, UMW National Organizer William Wardjon, and UMW National Executive Board Member John Gehr. Anti-union newspapers across the country see fit to pick up these sordid stories from the Polly Pry and reprint them.
For her part, Mother Jones, refuses to give dignity to the charges by suing for libel. And, in any case, UMW attorneys doubt that a suit would be successful since the charges made by the Polly Pry are implied rather made directly.
SOURCE
Mother Jones
The Most Dangerous Woman in America
-by Elliott J Gorn
NY, 2001
Photo: Polly Pry
http://www.trutv.com/...
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Friday January 23, 1914
San Francisco, California - Lucy Parsons Arrested For Speaking to the Unemployed
Lucy Parsons, widow of Haymarket Martyr Albert Parsons, is spending the winter in San Francisco where conditions among the unemployed in that city are growing increasingly desperate. Last Tuesday evening she gave a speech at Jefferson Hall which was attended by a large gathering of unemployed workers. The proprietor became alarmed and refused to allow entrance to the hall, claiming that the rent for the hall had not been paid. Lucy Parsons did not argue with him but instead moved the meeting across the street where she began to deliver a curb-side speech.
The police were summoned and placed her under arrest. The police roughly shoved the crowd aside as they ushered her into the paddy wagon. Shortly after her arrest, others were arrested including William Thorne, head of the Unemployment Committee of the Industrial Workers of the World. The angry crowd began to smash windows, for which Lucy Parsons was blamed, and charged with inciting to riot.
Police Court Judge Sullivan dismissed the charges against Parsons the next day when it was proved that she did indeed have receipts for the rental of the hall, and it was learned that her arrest had been manufactured by an agreement between the proprietor and the police. She was rearrested as she left the courtroom and charged with the more serious crime of rioting. She remains in jail at this time.
SOURCE
Lucy Parsons
American Revolutionary
-by Carolyn Ashbaugh
Charles H Kerr Pub, 1976
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Thursday January 23, 2014
For a more favorable take on Leonel Ross Campbell/Polly Pry:
"Polly Pry (1857-1938), Pugnacious Journalist"
http://books.google.com/...
From:
Remarkable Colorado Women
-by Gayle C Shirley
Globe Pequot, 2002
http://books.google.com/...
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Carry It On-Joan Baez
They will tell their lying stories
Send their dogs to bite our bodies
They will throw us into prison
But, Carry It On
Carry It On
-Gil Turner