Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones 1898, Part I: January-May; Found in St. Louis, Missouri

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Quote Mother Jones, Perish in Sight of Plenty, St L Rpb p14, May 12, 1898—–

Hellraisers Journal – Friday February 10, 1899
-Mother Jones News Round-Up for the Year 1898, Part I

Mother Jones, Factory Girls, St L Rpb p14, May 12, 1898
The St. Louis Republic
May 12, 1898

During February of 1898, Mother Jones was found in St. Louis, Missouri, preparing for a Conference of Labor and Labor Reform Organizations scheduled to be held in that city on May 2nd. She was also found advocating for Domestic Workers in that city who were seeking to establish “a home of their own.”

Mother departed St. Louis in early March and headed out on a tour of Eastern cities in order to “stir up sentiment among the several reform organizations in behalf of the reform convention” to be held in May. Mother was back in St. Louis in time to present at that convention which was, sadly, not well attended. Nevertheless, Mother was soon busy attempting to organize factory girls, of whom, she declared:

The factory girls should be organized because their condition should be improved. This can be effected by organization, and by no other means. The girls are, as rule, underpaid, kept in cramped, unhealthy quarters, and ground down till their young lives have been dwarfed and stunted. Through the children the world is made what it is. In the unions they could be educated how to better themselves.

I have been all through the factories of this and other cities, and find conditions in them such that the lives of these children will be shortened many years by having worked in them. We have war abroad and war at home. The conflict with Spain is not half so grinding upon humanity as the battle for bread. A few hundred go down in a naval battle; thousands perish beneath the grinding tread of greed every day. We have reconcentrados in our own country-they are the poor, without wealth or friends, who perish in sight of plenty.

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Appeal to Reason: “The Hazelton Massacre;” Report on Trial of Sheriff & Deputized Gunthugs

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There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday February 22, 1898
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania – Gunthugs with Badges on Trial

Lattimer Massacre of 1897, Locomotive Firemens Mag, Nov 1897

On September 10, 1897, striking coal miners were marching peacefully behind the American flag when they were shot down in cold blood at Lattimer, a mining village near Hazelton, by Sheriff Martin and his deputies. Many of the 19 miners who died in the massacre were shot in the back. That sheriff and his deputies are now on trial in the Luzerne County Courthouse.

From the Appeal to Reason of February 19, 1898:

THE HAZELTON MASSACRE.

There never was a case in which the evidence was more direct, explicit and full that men had committed unprovoked murder than that being given in the trial of the sheriff and his 67 pals for the murder of the miners. Not only is the guilt practically admitted, but the evidence shows that the deputies boasted before what they were going to do and boasted afterwards what they had done. One of the most significant things about it is that the bail was given by a Philadelphia trust company putting up $340,000 in cash! All the corporations are showing their interest in clearing the murderers. I [J. A. Wayland?] clip these bits of testimony from the trial report as a sample evidence:

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Hellraisers Journal: “The drudgery I would not do, O Lord, assign to others.”

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You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal, Friday February 11, 1898
Modern-Day Pharisee Prays to Save His Milk-White Hands

From the Appeal to Reason of February 5, 1898:

Pharisee's Prayer, AtR p3, Feb 5, 1898

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Hellraisers Journal: Eugene V. Debs: “The Martyred Apostles of Labor,” Judicially Murdered, Chicago, November 11, 1887

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The time will come when our silence
will be more powerful
than the voices you strangle today.
-August Spies

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Hellraisers Journal: Saturday February 5, 1898
Eugene V. Debs Remembers the Chicago Martyrs of 1887

From The New Time Magazine of February 1898:

EVD, New Time Magazine, Feb 1898

THE MARTYRED APOSTLES OF LABOR.

By EUGENE V. DEBS.

The century now closing is luminous with great achievements. In every department of human endeavor marvelous progress has been made. By the magic of the machine which sprang from the inventive genius of man, wealth has been created in fabulous abundance. But, alas, this wealth, instead of blessing the race, has been the means of enslaving it. The few have come in possession of all, and the many have been reduced to the extremity of living by permission. A few have had the courage to protest. To silence these so that the dead-level of slavery could be maintained has been the demand and command of capital-blown power. Press and pulpit responded with alacrity. All the forces of society were directed against these pioneers of industrial liberty, these brave defenders of oppressed humanity—and against them the crime of the century has been committed.

Albert R. Parsons, August Spies, George Engel, Adolph Fischer, Louis Lingg, Samuel Fielden, Michael Schwab and Oscar Neebe paid the cruel penalty in prison cell and on the gallows.

They were the first martyrs in the cause of industrial freedom, and one of the supreme duties of our civilization, if indeed we may boast of having been redeemed from savagery, is to rescue their names from calumny and do justice to their memory.

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