You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
Tuesday February 16, 1904
From the Appeal to Reason: On Superior Skill, Wages, and Equitable Distribution
In the most recent issue of the Appeal, a reader asks how wages will be determined in the new Socialist society. The editor, J. A. Wayland, believes in equal compensation for all workers, regardless of skills, that is, "unless one family can live and develop on less than another." He further explains:
What sense would there be in giving one [family] more than it could consume and another less than it needs? This objection is raised on the hypothesis that there cannot be enough for all, and that some must do with less than is good for them. But this is not true. Enough for all who will perform the average number of hours of labor can be created and equitably distributed. If the Architect, working four hours a day, receives enough to satisfy all his mental and physical wants, why should he have more? Should not the man who goes down into the deep foundation excavation and works four hours a day receive as much as will supply all his mental and physical wants, too? Especially so, when both can be supplied.
And let us look at it in another light. Suppose the man cannot be found to go into the ditch-would not the architect have to go there himself, if there is to be any building? Surely. Now if the common laborer can and will go into the ditch, he takes the place of the architect-doing as much or far more than the office man could, and if he does the work and saves the architect, is he not then as valuable to society as the architect? And at the same pay, which job do you think the architect wold take? Not hard to guess, eh?
And from whom did the architect get his knowledge? From society that has slowly developed and preserved all the arts and sciences, and then took him from hard labor and gave him a schooling. Do you think society, that did all this for him, should have no consideration? His life has been more pleasantly surrounded than the one of the common laborer-and you still think that he should be paid greatly more because he has been so considerately treated all his life! That one of two men, each doing his best, should receive more than the other for the same time, is merely a matter of custom, without any reason in justice.
And more than that, you do not believe it or practice it, except in some places. When you hire men to make laws for you in the state you pay them all the same wages, regardless of their ability or their industry; you do the same in congress; you do the same in judges; you do the same employing doctors, sheriffs, clerks, recorders. You do not pretend that the men who succeed each other are equally able or honest, but you do not differentiate the pay of the men for the same place. You know there is no rule by which you could arrive at such real worth. Any rule that differentiates compensation in co-operative results has no basis in reason. You pay the same fee to the capable and the incapable doctor, and do not know which one has the real ability, for the quack often has the greater practice.
Further, what you term "superior skill," may not be skill, but cunning; may be bad instead of good; may be false teaching instead of true. Neither custom nor law can make right that which is wrong. When a machine will not run it is either built upon a wrong theory or else wrongly put together. The industrial system we have don't work-unless the turning out of murder, suicide, wretchedness and woe is right. Crime sits in high places and feasts on the fat of the land, while stupid, yet honest labor fasts and lives in wretchedness. Crime draws its greater income for its "superior skill." Justice will give each all they can consume. What more?
[paragraphs added]
SOURCE
"Yours for the Revolution"
The Appeal to Reason, 1895-1922
-ed by John Graham
U of NE Press, 1990
```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
Monday February 16, 1914
From El Paso Herald: Militia Refusing to Produce Mother Jones as Witness
MILITIAMEN CLASH WITH THE PROBERS
----------
Colorado Guardsmen Defy Congressional Strike Commission.
----------
"MOTHER" JONES MAY BE A WITNESS
----------
Trinidad, Colo., Feb. 16-A sharp clash over the right of the house coal mine strike investigating committee to summon "Mother" Mary Jones, now held incommunicado in San Rafael hospital here by the Colorado military authorities, came at the very opening of the first Trinidad session of the investigation today, with an open prospect of defiance of its powers by the commander of the Colorado national guard. The committed deferred its decision pending arguments of attorneys.
The conflict of military and congressional authority arose when E. P. Costigan for the strikers, asked the committee to issue a subpoena for "Mother" Jones, declaring that without the aid of the committee, counsel for the strikers would be unable to produce the prisoner as a witness. Instant protest was made by Maj. Edward Boughton, judge advocate of the national guard of Colorado. In the face of a hint that its authority might be resisted by the state military officers, the committee deferred its decision.
Asks Production of Mrs. Jones.
After the preliminaries were disposed of, E. P. Costigan of counsel for the strikers, addressed the committee, asking that "Mother" Mary Jones be produced at the hearing at the orders of the committee.
"Mrs. Jones is now a military prisoner, confined in San Rafael hospital without any charge having been lodged against her. We realize that we will not be able to secure her release without the aid of the committee."
Maj. Boughton was on his feet almost before Mr. Costigan had finished his plea.
Major Cites Objections.
"The military authorities would like to request that the committee defer action on this request until we have an opportunity to produce argument to show that this witness should not be produced," he said. "The legal questions involved in her incarceration are now before the supreme court of this state. Her case is not a proper matter for this committee to consider."
The chairman announced that arguments of counsel for and against the issuance of a subpoena for Mother Jones would be heard, briefly, after the luncheon recess.
SOURCE
El Paso Herald
(El Paso, Texas)
-of Feb 16, 1914
Photo: Mother Jones
http://theadvocateonline.com/...
See also:
Conditions in the Coal Mines of Colorado: Hearings before a subcommittee of the Committee on mines and mining, Hous of Representatives, Sixty-third Congress, second session, pursuant to H. res. 387, a resolution authorizing and directing the Committee on Mines and Mining to make an investigation of conditions in the coal mines of Colorado
-United States. Congress. House. Committee on Mines and Mining
U.S. Government Printing Office, 1914
Vol. 1, p.1-1477
http://books.google.com/...
-page 620, actual page number of investigation, not of scroll bar
```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
They'll Never Keep Us Down-Hazel Dickens
The power wheel is rolling, rolling right along
And the government helps keep it going, going strong
So working people get your help from your own kind
Cause your welfare ain't on the rich man’s mind
Your welfare ain't on the rich man’s mind
Your welfare ain't on the rich man’s mind
They want the power in their hands
Just to keep down the workers and
Your welfare aint' on the rich man’s mind
-Hazel Dickens