You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Saturday June 6, 1914
British Columbia, Canada - Mother Jones Invades Canada; Will Speak to Striking Miners
Mother Jones is in Canada and will speak to the striking miners Ladysmith and Nanaimo tonight and tomorrow.
The Daily Capital Journal of Salem, Oregon, reports that Labor Secretary William B. Wilson intervened on behalf of Mother Jones:
"MOTHER" JONES TO BE ADMITTED INTO CANADA
Seattle, Wash., June 5.,-Word was received here today by "Mother" Jones, the noted mine workers' organizer that the immigration department at Ottawa has ordered the local Canadian immigration officials to pass her if she applies for admission into Canada.
"Mother " Jones also received a telegram to the effect that Secretary of Labor Wilson has taken up with the state department at Washington the refusal of the Canadian government to let her take ship to Victoria yesterday.
The Ottawa officials permit her to enter the country if she goes as "a tourist or lecturer."
"They evidently think I wanted to stay in the king's country forever," she declared laughingly , this morning, "and by declaring myself a tourist or lecturer they undoubtedly must feel that I will stay only as long as I have to."
"Mother" Jones will leave tonight. She plans to speak to the coal mine strikers at Nanaimo, B. C., near Victoria.
Today's edition of the
Vancouver Daily World reports that Mother Jones arrived in Victoria this morning and will be on her way today to assist the striking miners of Ladysmith and Nanaimo.
Mother Jones to Lecture-On Monday night at Labor Hall, Mother Jones, organizer of the U. M. W., is expected to deliver an address under the auspices of the Vancouver Trades and Labor council. Tonight and tomorrow the lady is speaking to the miners at Ladysmith and Nanaimo. She reached Victoria this morning from Seattle, the ban of the immigration department having been lifted.
SOURCES
Daily Capital Journal
(Salem, Oregon)
-of June 6, 1914
Vancouver Daily World
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
-of June 6, 1914
Saturday June 6, 1914
More on the Invasion of Canada by Mother Jones:
In her
Autobiography Mother Jones described her interaction with the Canadian immigration officials who attempted to bar her from Canada. She also gave a brief description of her trip to the strike zone:
The miners of British Columbia were on strike. They sent for me to come and address them. I went with J. G. Brown. As I was about to go on the boat, the Canadian Immigration officers asked me where I was going.
"To Victoria,," I told them.
"No you're not," said an officer, "you're going to the strike zone."
"I might travel a bit," said I.
"You can't go," said he, like he was Cornwallis.
"Why?"
"I don't have to give reasons," said he as proudly as if the American Revolution had never been fought.
"You'll have to state your reasons to my uncle," said I, "and I'll be crossing before morning."
"Who is your uncle?"
"Uncle Sam's my uncle," said I. "He cleaned Hell out of you once and he'll do it again. You let down those bars. I'm going to Canada."
"You'll not put a boot in Canada," said he.
"You'll find out before night who's boss on this side the water," said I.
I returned to Labor Headquarters with Brown and we telegraphed the Emigration Department, the Labor Department and the Secretary of State at Washington. They got in touch with the Canadian Government at Ottawa. That very afternoon I got a telegram from the Emigration Department that I might go anywhere I wanted in Canada.
The next morning when I went to get on the boat, the Canadian official with whom I had spoken the day before ran and hid. He had found out who my uncle was!
I addressed meetings in Victoria. Then I went up to the strike zone. A regiment of Canadian Kilties met the train, squeaking on their bagpipes. Down the street came a delegation of miners but they did not wear crocheted petticoats. They wore the badge of the working class-the overalls. I held a tremendous meeting that night and the poor boys who had come up from the subterranean holes of the earth to fight for a few hours of sunlight, took courage. I brought them the sympathy of the Colorado strikers, a sympathy and understanding that reaches across borders and frontiers.
Men's hearts are cold. They are indifferent. Not all the coal that is dug warms the world. It remains indifferent to the lives of those who risk their life and health down in the blackness of the earth; who crawl through dark, choking crevices with only a bit of lamp on their caps to light their silent way; whose backs are bent with toil, whose very bones ache, whose happiness is sleep, and whose peace is death.
SOURCES
The Autobiography of Mother Jones
-by Mother Jones
-ed by Mary Field Parton
-introduction by Clarence Darrow
Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Company, 1925
From chapter 22: "You Don't Need a Vote to Raise Hell"
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/...
IMAGES
1). Strike Poster, Vancouver Island Coal Strike of 1913-14
http://www.waughfamily.ca/...
(Scroll about 1/3 of way down, there is a great deal of info available here
on the strike of the Nanaimo and Ladysmith miners.)
2). Mother Jones
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/...
See also:
"Fighting for Dignity: The Ginger Goodwin Story - Chapter 3. The Big Strike 1912-1914"
pdf! http://www.waughfamily.ca/...
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Dan Campbell Killed Ginger Goodwin - Grant Olsen
Original song by Grant Olsen
https://www.youtube.com/...
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