When half a million mothers
in the richest city
in the richest country in the world
feel the pinch of hunger
as they are feeling it here now
nothing can prevent trouble.
-Mother Jones

Hellraisers Journal, Friday February 23, 1917
New York, New York – Mother Jones to Aid in Demand for Food

Food riots have broken out in New York City and in Philadelphia as the working-class women of those cities refuse to maintain proper civic order while they watch their children starve. In Philadelphia, police opened fire, killing one man and seriously wounding another. The police, as usual, claim that the workers fired first, and the word of the police has been printed as fact by the kept press of the nation.

Mother Jones is now in New York City to support the working-class women in their demand for food at prices that they can afford. She was interviewed by a reporter in her room at the Union Square Hotel.

From the New York Tribune of February 22, 1917:

“Mother” Jones To Head
Parade of 10,000
—–

Will Take Delegation to President
if Mayor Fails, She Declares
—–

“Mother” Jones, aged strike leader of Colorado fame, will lead an army of 10,000 East Side woman to the city Hall next Saturday afternoon, she declares. She will ask Mayor Mitchel “just what he proposes to do” about the food shortage in New York. If his proposals are unsatisfactory she will take a delegation of “starving women” to Washington on Sunday and lay the case of New York’s poor before the President.

“Mother” Jones arrived in this city yesterday to “help the food strike along.” In her room at the Union Square Hotel last night the aged labor leader made her plans known somewhat reluctantly. Publicity, she said, might result in them being “blocked”

[She said:]

But they can’t hold this movement back. When half a million mothers in the richest city in the richest country in the world feel the pinch of hunger as they are feeling it here now nothing can prevent trouble. I came here to try to prevent it, though, and I shall do everything possible.

On Saturday I’ll lead all the women who’ll follow me down to the Mayor. More than ten thousand will go. We’ll put the matter up to him and ask for action. If he won’t give us action, some of us will go to Washington and ask the President.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Food Riots in New York & Philly as Mothers Refuse to Maintain Good Public Order While Children Starve” →