Hellraisers Journal: Monument at Grave of Martin Irons Unveiled During Convention of Texas State Federation of Labor

19th May 202119th May 2021 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Mother Jones re Martin Irons Sleeps, AtR p4, May 11 1907 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday May 19, 1911
Bruceville, Texas – Monument Unveiled at Grave of Martin Irons

From the Fort Worth Star-Telegram of May 17, 1911:

LABOR FEDERATION UNVEILS MONUMENT
———-
Memory of Late Martin Irons Honored
at Bruceville-Missouri Editor Speaks.

WACO, May 17.-Addresses were heard at morning session of the [Texas] State Federation of Labor convention today, delivered by D. J. Bell of Bells, Grayson county: Secretary-Treasurer J. T. Smith of the Missouri State Federation of Labor, and others. Most of the delegates went to Bruceville today at noon, where a monument to the memory of the late Martin Irons was unveiled the address being delivered by E. T. Behrens, editor of the Liberator at Sedalia, Mo…..

———-

[Photograph and emphases added.]

Note: The monument was erected at the grave of Martin Irons on Labor Day, September 5, 1910. The dedication inscribed thereon reads:

Martin Irons, Oct 7, 1827-Nov 17, 1900
Leader Gould Southwest Railroad Strike 1886
Fearless Champion of Industrial Freedom
Erected by the Missouri State Federation of Labor
and Affiliated Unions
Labor Day Sept 5, 1910

1910 Labor Day Ceremony at Graveside Monument to Martin Irons
-photograph taken by Fred Gildersleeve:

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks at Convention of United Mine Workers: “You have traveled over stormy paths.”

28th January 202128th January 2021 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Mother Jones, Stormy Paths, UMWC Ipl IN, Jan 25, 1901 ———–

Hellraisers Journal – Monday January 28, 1901
Indianapolis, Indiana – Mother Jones Speaks to Miners, Part I

January 25, 1901-Convention of United Mine Workers of America:

Mother Jones, at Her Lecture Stand, Detail, Phl Iq p1, Sept 24, 1900

President Mitchell: Ladies and gentlemen: There are few persons in the Industrial movement who have impressed themselves upon the toilers as has the one who will address you this afternoon. During the long years of struggle in which the miners engaged they have had no more staunch supporter, no more able defender than the one we all love to call Mother. I don’t believe there is a Mine Worker from one end of the country to the other who does not know her name. It gives me great pleasure to pre- sent to you this afternoon Mother Jones.

Mrs. Mary Jones: Fellow toilers, it seems strange that you should have selected the month of January for your conventions. It has a lesson by which you may well proﬁt, and no craft needs more to proﬁt by that lesson than the miners. The month of January represents two seasons, a part of the dead winter and a part of the beautiful coming spring. I realize as well as you do that you have traveled over stormy paths, that you have rubbed up against the conflict of the age, but I am here to say that you have come out victorious, and in the future you will stand as the grand banner organization. My brothers, we are entering on a new age. We are confronted by conditions such as the world perhaps has never met before in her history.

We have in the last century solved one great problem that has confronted the ages in the mighty past. It had ever been the riddle of the people of the world. The problem of production has been solved for the human race; the problem of this country will lie with the workers to solve, that great and mighty and important problem, the problem of possession. You have in your wisdom, in your quiet way, with a little uprising here and a little uprising there solved the problem of the age. You have done your work magnificently and well; but we have before us yet the grandest and greatest work of civilization.

We have before us the emancipation of the children of this nation. In the days gone by we found the parents filled with love and affection. As the mother looked upon her new-born boy, as she pressed him to her bosom, she thought, “Some day, he will be the man of this nation; some day I shall sacrifice myself for the education, the developing of his brain, the bringing out of his grander, nobler qualities. But, oh, my brothers, that is past, that has been killed! Today, my friends, we look into the eyes of the child of the Proletariat as it enters into the conflict of this life, and we see the eyes of the poor, helpless little creature appealing to those who have inhabited the world before it. Now when the father comes home the first question he asks is “Mary, is it a boy or a girl?” When she answers, “It is a boy, John,” he says, “Well, thank God! he will soon be able to go to the breakers and help earn a living with me.” If it is a girl there is no loving kiss, no caress for her for she cannot be put to the breakers to satisfy capitalistic greed.

But my friends, the capitalistic class has met you face to face today to take the girls as well as the boys out of the cradle. Wherever you are in mighty numbers they have brought their factories to take your daughters and slaughter them on the altar of capitalistic greed. They have built their mines and breakers to take your boys out of the cradle; they have built their factories to take your girls; they have built on the bleeding, quivering hearts of yourselves and your children their palaces. They have built their magniﬁcent yachts and palaces; they have brought the sea from mid-ocean up to their homes where they can take their baths—and they don’t give you a chance to go to the muddy Missouri and take a bath in it.

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Hellraisers Journal: Social Democratic Herald: “Tribute to Martin Irons” by Comrade Eugene Victor Debs

16th December 202016th December 2020 Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs

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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday December 16, 1900
“Tribute to Martin Irons” by Comrade Eugene V. Debs

From the Social Democratic Herald of December 15, 1900:

Martin Irons

It was in 1886 that Martin Irons, as chairman of the executive board of the Knights of Labor of the Gould southwest railway system, defied capitalist tyranny, and from that hour he was doomed. All the powers of capitalism combined to crush him, and when at last he succumbed to overwhelming odds, he was hounded from place to place until he was ragged and foot-sore and the pangs of hunger gnawed at his vitals.

For fourteen long years he fought single-handed the battle against persecution. He tramped far, and among strangers, under an assumed name, sought to earn enough to get bread. But he was tracked like a beast and driven from shelter. For this “poor wanderer of a stormy day” there was no pity. He had stood between his class and their oppressors-he was brave, and would not flinch; he was honest, and he would not sell; this was his crime, and he must die.

Martin Irons came to this country from Scotland a child. He was friendless, penniless, alone. At an early age he became a machinist. For years he worked at his trade. He had a clear head and a warm heart. He saw and felt the injustice suffered by his class. Three reductions in wages in rapid succession fired his blood. He resolved to resist. He appealed to his fellow-workers. When the great strike came, Martin Irons was its central figure. The men felt they could trust him. They were not mistaken.

When at the darkest hour Jay Gould sent word to Martin Irons that he wished to see him, the answer came, “I am in Kansas City.” Gould did not have gold enough to buy Irons. This was the greatest crime of labor’s honest leader. The press united in fiercest denunciation. Every lie that malignity could conceive was circulated. In the popular mind Martin Irons was the blackest-hearted villain that ever went unhung. Pinkerton blood-hounds tracked him night and day. But thru it all this loyal, fearless, high-minded working-man stood immovable.

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Hellraisers Journal: Martin Irons Passes Away in Bruceville, Texas; Led Great Southwestern Railway Strike of 1886

25th November 202025th November 2020 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday November 25, 1900
Bruceville, Texas – Martin Irons Passes Away; Led Railway Strike of 1886

From Alabama’s Brewton Laborer’s Banner of November 24, 1900:

IRONS PASSES AWAY.
 ——-
Years Ago He Was the Leader
in a Great Strike.
——-

Martin Irons

Houston, Tex,, Nov. 18.-Martin. Irons, who was once leader of the union labor organizations and was director of the great Missouri Pacific strike in the eighties [Great Southwestern Railway Strike of 1886], with headquarters in St. Louis, died yesterday at Bruceville, twenty miles south of Waco, on the Missouri, Kansas and Texas railroad.

Irons came to the country three years ago, and, stopping with Dr. G. B. Harris, the then populist county chairman at Bruceville; he found congenial company and began organizing social democratic clubs. Anti-money rent was the slogan used to arouse the tenant farmers and in the course of a few months the entire south border of McLellan, east port of Bell and northwest portion of Falls counties were organized into clubs. The agitation extended in the east side of the Brazos river.

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for July 1910, Part II: Found Honored for Her Work on Behalf of the Mexican Political Refugees

14th August 202025th July 2020 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Mother Jones Save Our Mexican Comrades, AtR p3, Feb 20, 1909 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday August 14, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for July 1910, Part II:
-Found Praised for Her Work on Behalf of Mexican Comrades

From the Appeal to Reason of July 2, 1910:

Mother Jones in Washington.

Mother Jones has for two weeks been in Washington where she went to testify in behalf of the Mexican politician refugees. She has been courteously received even by members of congress who have no special leaning to labor’s cause, and was admitted to an audience with Taft. She said this was a courtesy which was denied her by Roosevelt. After she had laid the case of the Mexican prisoners before the president, Taft remarked:

“Mother, I am afraid if I were to put the pardoning power in your hands, there wouldn’t be any men left in the penitentiaries.”

To this Mother Jones replied:

And, indeed, Mr. President, if this nation spent half as much money keeping men out as she does keeping them in, we wouldn’t need so many penitentiaries.

Mother described her residence to Washington reporters as “wherever there is a labor war,” which is literally true.

———-

[Photograph added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for June 1910, Part III: “Friend of Labor” Interviewed in Washington, D. C., by Selene Armstrong

19th July 202012th July 2020 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Mother Jones, Husband Children, WDC Tx p5, June 18, 1910 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday July 19, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for June 1910, Part III:
-Interviewed by Selene Armstrong in Washington, D. C.

From The Washington Times of June 18, 1910:

Thus spoke Mother Jones, the plucky little white-haired woman, whose home, to use her own words, is “wherever there’s a labor war, and the President of the United States, when she had journeyed across half a continent to lay before him for the first time the cases of a number of political refugees in prison in Arizona, Kansas, and other Western States.

Today and on other days this week, Mother Jones has been busy at the Capitol, where it said that members of certain committees before which she has appeared have gasped for breath and begged for mercy before she had finished outlining to them their duties in regard to the Mexicans whose freedom she seeks from the Government.

Meets Old Friends.

She has hobnobbed with her old friends Representatives Wilson and Nicholls of Pennsylvania, and has made new friends of many other statesmen, who, however little they sympathize with her decided views on this or that public question, cannot harden their hearts against the cheery good humor and keen wit which radiate from her.

When asked by Chairman Dalzell of the Rules Committee of the House, before which she has appeared this week, to state her place of residence, Mother Jones replied:

My home is wherever there a labor war, sir.

The life story of this little woman with the snow white hair, the childlike blue eyes, and the look of perennial youthfulness on her face, would, if it were written, be the history of the of cause of organized labor. For thirty years she has traveled throughout the length and breath of the land in order to stand by the workers in time of stress. In the roughest mining camps of the West, and in the crowded tenement districts of eastern cities, she has brought to the women of the working class a woman’s gentle counsel, and to the men sagacity and keen judgement the equal of a man’s.

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones, the Stormy Petrel, Interviewed in Washington D.C., Remembers Martin Irons

25th June 202025th June 2020 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Mother Jones re Martin Irons Sleeps, AtR p4, May 11 1907 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 25, 1910
Washington, District of Columbia – Mother Jones Remembers Martin Irons

From The Labor Argus of June 23, 1910:

Labor Progressing, Says Mother Jones
—–

Workers of Today Do Their Own Thinking Declares
“Stormy Petrel” In Special Interview
—–

Washington, D. C., June 22.-“The workingmen of this country are at last beginning to think for themselves.”

These significant words came from the lips of Mother Jones, the gray-haired labor agitator, who for the last thirty years has participated in every labor struggle of any prominence, whose presence on the field of action inspires courage and hope among the workers, and strikes terror in the hearts of the masters.

[Said Mother, as she is fondly called by the millions of her boys:]

In the years gone by, the workers were absolutely helpless and dependent on the ability and loyalty of the leaders. Today the leaders are absolutely helpless and dependent on the strength and intelligence of the rank and file.

The work of the old warriors of the labor movement, who have blazed the way with sacrifices for a cause that burned their souls, is bearing fruit. The workers are at last fired with the spirit of revolt and religiously and industrially they are working out their own salvation.

With the force and strength characteristic of the “Stormy Petrel,” and with a sudden brightening of her kindly face, she transmitted to her interviewer the thoughts that were stirring her soul when she uttered, “They are working out their own salvation.”

[Continued Mother Jones:]

There are any number of plain workingmen, who for clearness and logic in analyzing and understanding economic questions can give cards and spades to any Senator and Representative in Washington.

Workingmen of today exchange ideas and discuss important problems in the workshops, at their union meetings, and in their ever growing labor press. These are the most promising signs of the times.

Mother Jones has spent the last ten days in Washington, doing her utmost to secure a congressional investigation of the persecution of the Mexican political refugees in this country. When she was called upon to testify at the hearing on Representative Wilson’s resolution for an investigation of these outrages before the House committee on rules, Chairman Dalzell asked her to state the place of her residence.

“I live wherever the workers are fighting the robbers,” she replied to the surprise and embarrassment of a number of corporation men who are members of the committee.

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks in Cleveland to Delegates of Convention of United Mine Workers of America, Part III

19th September 201910th September 2019 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Mother Jones, UMWA Until We Win, Clv UMWC p618, Sept 17, 1919 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday September 19, 1919
Cleveland, Ohio – Mother Jones Speaks at U. M. W. A. Convention, Part III

Mother Jones addressed the convention once again during the afternoon of Wednesday September 17th, the seventh day of the convention. She urged the miners to unite behind the steel workers in their upcoming battle against the Steel Trust:

I beg of you for the sake of the heroes that are going to break into the war Monday [September 22nd] for a better civilization, to bury the hatchet and come together, regardless of what may happen. Let the enemy see that we are a solidified army and ready for the war if they want it.

From Stenographic Report by Mary Burke East:

ADDRESS OF MOTHER JONES.

Now, boys, I have got to go; I am called away. I don’t know whether it will ever be my privilege to attend another of your conventions. The battle of ages is on; we have got to fight it and it has got to be won. In an hour or so I will leave for the steel strike in Pittsburgh. I have no doubt the bonds of those poor steel workers will be broken before we end. It has been a long struggle, but it is going to come to an end.

Now, I am going to say a few words to you, and I want you to pay attention to what I say. Don’t forget the men and women who gave up their lives for this movement in Utah, Colorado, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. This movement was founded on the blood of men who tramped the weary pathway at night, often hungry and cold, to carry the message of a better day to you. Some of you remember the awful day at McCray’s School House, when you walked forty miles, hungry and worn out, to attend that meeting. The fact of your meeting here today is due to the work of those men who are in their graves.

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for May 1907: Found in Texas and Arizona

13th June 201713th June 2017 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Martin Irons sleeps and in
God’s good time his name will be revived,
the contumely will be effaced
and his memory will shine resplendent
in the galaxy of agitators, pioneers and warriors
who died to make man free.
-Mother Jones

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Thursday June 13, 1907
Mother Jones News for May: Visits Grave of Martin Irons

Mother Jones, Mar 11, 1905, AtR

During the month of May 1907, Mother Jones was found active as a speaker for the Socialist Party in Texas, and, in Arizona, she was found in Bisbee, assisting the Western Federations of Miners. While in Texas, Mother paid a visit to the grave of Martin Irons. An account of that visit can be found below, along with a tribute to the Pioneer Labor Hero, Martin Irons.

From The Dallas Morning News of May 1, 1907:

“MOTHER” JONES WILL SPEAK.
—–
Chicago Woman, Speaker on Socialistic
Topics, Is Here.

“Mother” Jones of Chicago, a lecturer whose advocacy of Socialism has made her well known throughout the United States, will speak tonight at 8 o’clock in the Woodman Hall at the corner of Corinth and Wall Streets, near the cotton mills. Tomorrow night she will speak in the City Hall auditorium, and both addresses will constitute part of the campaign for municipal positions of the local Socialist candidates.

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Tag: Martin Irons