Charleston WV
August 15, 1912
This, my friends, marks, in my estimation, the most remarkable move
ever made in the State of West Virginia. It is a day that will mark
history in the long ages to come. What is it? It is an uprising of the
oppressed against the master class.
From this day on, my friends, Virginia — West Virginia —
shall march in the front of the Nation's States. To me, I think, the
proper thing to do is to read the purpose of our meeting here today
— why these men have laid down their tools, why these men have
come to the statehouse.
[Jones reads from letter]
To His Excellency
WILLIAM E. GLASSCOCK,
Governor of the State of West Virginia:
It is respectfully represented unto your excellency that the owners of
the various coal mines doing business along the valley of Cabin Creek,
Kanawha County, W. Va., are maintaining and have at present in their
employ a large force of armed guards, armed with Winchesters, a
dangerous and deadly weapon; also having in their possession three
Gatling guns, which they have stationed at commanding positions
overlooking the Cabin Creek Valley, which said weapons said guards use
for the purpose of browbeating, intimidating, and menacing the lives
of all the citizens who live in said valley, who are not in accord
with the management of the coal companies, which guards are cruel, and
their conduct toward the citizens is such that it would be impossible
to give a detailed account of.
Therefore, suffice it to say, however, that they beat, abuse, maim,
and hold up citizens without process of law; deny freedom of speech, a
provision guaranteed by the Constitution; deny the citizens the right
to assemble in a peaceable manner for the purpose of discussing
questions in which they are concerned. Said guards also hold up a vast
body of laboring men who live at the mines, and so conduct themselves
that a great number of men, women, and children live in a state of
constant fear, unrest, and dread. We hold that the stationing of said
guards along the public highways and public places is a menace to the
general welfare of the State. That such action on the part of the
companies in maintaining such guards is detrimental to the best
interests of society and an outrage against the honor and dignity of
the State of West Virginia.
[Interrupted by loud applause.]
As citizens interested in the public
weal and general welfare, and believing that law and order and peace
should ever abide, that the spirit of brotherly love and justice and
freedom should everywhere exist, we must tender our petition that you
would bring to bear all the powers of your office as chief executive
of this State for purpose of disarming said guards and restoring to
the citizens of said valley all the rights guaranteed by the
Constitution of the United States and said State.
In duty bound, in behalf of the miners of the State of West Virginia.
[Jones puts down the letter.]
I want to say, with all due respect to the Governor — I want to
say to you that the Governor will not, can not, do anything, for this
reason: The governor was placed in this building by Scott and Elkins, and he don't dare oppose
them. Therefore you are asking the governor of the State to do
something that he can not do without betraying the class he belongs
to.
I remember the Governor in a state, when Grover Cleveland was perched
in the White House — Grover Cleveland said he would send the
federal troops out [to protect the miners], and the Governor of that
state said, "Will you? If you do, I will meet your federal troops with
the state troops, and we will have it out." Old Grover never sent the
troops; he took back water...
You see, my friends, how quickly the Governor sent his militia when
the coal operators got scared to death...
They wouldn't keep their dog where they keep you fellows. You
know that. They have a good place for their dogs and a slave to take
care of them. The mine owners' wives will take the dogs up, and say,
"I love you, dea-h" [imitating a mine owner's wife]. My friends the
day for petting dogs is gone; the day for raising children to a nobler
manhood and better womanhood is here! You have suffered; I know you
have suffered. I was with you nearly three years in this State. I went
to jail. I went to the Federal courts, but I never took any back
water! I still unfurl the red flag of industrial freedom; no tyrant's
face shall you know, and I call you today into that freedom —
long perch on the bosom —
[Interrupted by applause.]
I am back again to find you, my friends, in a state of industrial
peonage...
We will prepare for the job, just like Lincoln and Washington did. We
took lessons from them, and we are here to prepare for the job.
Well, when I came out on the public road [to get to the rally] the
superintendent — you know the poor salary slave — he came
out and told me that there were notaries public there, and a squire
— one had a peg leg — and the balance had pegs in their
skulls!
[Laughter]
They forbid me speaking on the highway, and said that if I didn't
discontinue I would be arrested.
Well, I want to tell you one thing, I don't run into jail, but when
the bloodhounds undertake to put me in jail I will go there. I have
gone there. I would have had the little peg-leg squire arrest me, only
I knew this meeting was going to be pulled off to-day, to let the
world know what was going on in West Virginia. When I get through with
them, by the Eternal God, they will be glad to let me alone.
I am not afraid of jails. We [will] build jails, and when we get
ready, we will put them behind the bars!...
Now, brothers, not in all the history of the labor movement have I got
such an inspiration as I have got from you here to-day. Your banners
are history; they will go down to the future ages, to the children
unborn, to tell them the slave has risen, children must be free.
The labor movement was not originated by man. The labor movement, my
friends, was a command from God Almighty. He commanded the prophets
thousands of years ago to go down and redeem the Israelites that were
in bondage, and he organized the men into a union and went to
work. And they said, "The masters have made us gather straw; they have
been more cruel than they were before. What are we going to do?" The
prophet said, "A voice from heaven has come down to get you together."
They got together and the prophet led them out of the land of bondage
and robbery and plunder into the land of freedom. And when the army of
the pirates followed them the Dead Sea opened and swallowed them up,
and for the first time the workers were free.
And so it is. That can well be applied to the State of West
Virginia...
I hope, my friends, that you and the mine owners will put aside the
breach and get together before I leave the State. But I want to say,
make no settlement until they sign up that every bloody murderer of a
guard has got to go. This is done, my friends, beneath the flag our
fathers fought and bled for, and we don't intend to surrender our
liberty.
I have a document issued 18 years ago telling how they must handle the
labor movement — pat them on the back; make them believe that
they were your devoted friends. I hold that document, taken from their
statement in Washington. It plainly states, "We have got to crucify
them, but we have got to do it cunningly." And they have been doing it
cunningly...
Oh you men of wealth! Oh you preachers! You are going over to China
and sending money over there for Jesus. For God's sake, keep it at
home; we need it. Let me tell you, them fellows are owned body and
soul by the ruling class, and they would rather take a year in hell
with Elkins than ninety-nine in heaven. Do you find a minister
preaching against the guards? He will preach about Jesus, but not
about the guards.
When we were crossing the bridge at [the] Washington [coal mines] the
bloodhounds were at the company store. The bloodhounds might have
thrown me into the river and I wouldn't have known it. The [miners]
were hollering "Police! Police!" I said, "What is the matter with
you?" They said, "Oh God! Murder! Murder!" Another [miner] came out,
and his feet never touched the sidewalk.
My boys came running to me and said, "Oh, Mother, they are killing the
boys..." I said, "Call them boys here." Then [the guards left]; they
thought I had an army with me. Then I picked up a boy streaming with
blood where the hounds had beat him.
You are to blame. You have voted for the whole gang of commercial
pirates every time you get a chance to free yourselves. It is time to
clean them up...
If your sheriff had done his duty as a citizen of this State and
according to his oath, he would have disarmed the guards and then
there would have been no more trouble. Just make me governor for one
month. I won't ask for a sheriff or policeman, and I will do business,
and there won't be a guard [remaining] in the State of West
Virginia. The mine owners won't take 69,000 pounds of coal in dockage
off of you fellows. Sixty-nine thousand pounds of coal they docket you
for, and a few pounds of slate, and then they give to Jesus on Sunday.
They give your missionary women a couple of hundred dollars and rob
you under pretense of giving to Jesus. Jesus never sees a penny of it,
and never heard of it. They use it for the women to get a jag on and
then go and hollow for Jesus. I wish I was God Almighty! I would throw
down some night from heaven and get rid of the whole blood-sucking
bunch!
I want to show you here that the average wages you fellows get in this
country is $500 a year. Before you get a thing to eat there is $20
taken out a month, which leaves about $24 a month. Then you go to the
"pluck-me" stores and want to get something to eat for your wife, and
you are off that day, and the child comes back and says, "Papa, I
can't get anything."
"Why," he says, "there is $4 coming to me?"
The child says, "they said there was nothing coming to you." And the
child goes back crying without a mouthful of anything to eat. The
father goes to the "pluck-me" store and says to the manager, "there is
$4 coming to me," and the manager says, "Oh, no, we have kept that for
rent. You are charged $6 a month, and there are only three days gone,
[and there] is a rule that two-thirds of the rent is to be kept if
there is only one day."
That is honesty? Do you wonder these women starve? Do you wonder at
this uprising? And you fellows have stood it entirely too long! It is
time now to put a stop to it! We will give the Governor until
to-morrow night to take them guards out of Cabin Creek.
Here on the steps of the Capitol of West Virginia...I want to tell you
that the Governor will get until tomorrow night, Friday night, to get
rid of his bloodhounds, and if they are not gone, we will get rid of
them!
Aye men, aye men, inside of this building, aye women, come with me and
see the horrible pictures, see the horrible condition the ruling class
has put these women in. Aye, they destroy women. Look at those little
children, the rising generation, yes, look at the little ones, yes,
look at the women assaulted...I have worked, boys, I have worked with
you for years. I have seen the suffering children, and, in order to be
convinced, I went into the mines on the night shift and day shift and
helped the poor wretches to load coal at times. We lay down at noon,
and we took our lunches, and we talked our wrongs over. We gathered
together at night and asked, "how will we remedy things?" We organized
secretly and, after a while, held public meetings. We got our people
together in those organized states...I don't care about your woman
suffrage and the temperance brigade or any other of you class
associations, I want women of the coming day to discuss and find out
the cause of child crucifixion, that is what I want to find out.
I have worked in the factories of Georgia and Alabama, and these
bloodhounds were tearing the hands off of children and working them 14
hours a day until I fought for them. They made them put up every
Saturday money for missionary work in China. I know what I am talking
about. I am not talking haphazard, I have the goods.
Go down, men of to-day, who rob and exploit, go down into hell and
look at the ruins you have put there, look at the jails. We pay
$6,000,000 a year to chain men like demons in a bastille — and
we call ourselves civilized. Six million dollars a year we pay for
jails, and nothing for education.
I have been to jail more than once, and I expect to go again. If you
[addressing crowd] are too cowardly to fight, I will fight. You ought
to be ashamed of yourselves, actually to the Lord you ought, just to
see one old woman who is not afraid of all the bloodhounds. How scared
those villains are when one woman 80 years old, with her head grey,
can come in and scare hell out of the whole bunch! We didn't scare
them? The mine owners run down the street like a mad dog today.
They ask who started this thing. I started it, I did it, and I am not
afraid to tell you if you are here, and I will start more before I
leave West Virginia. I started this mass today, I had these banners
written, and don't accuse anybody else of this job.
It is freedom or death, and your children will be free. We are not
going to leave a slave class to the coming generation, and I want to
say to you that the next generation will not charge us for what we've
done; they will charge and condemn us for what we have left undone.
...Yes; we have no fears of them at all. I was put out at 12 o'clock
at night — and landed with 5 cents in my pocket — by seven
bayonets in the State of Colorado. The Governor told me — he is
a corporation rat, you know — he told me never to come back. A
man is a fool, if he is a Governor, to tell a woman not to do a
thing. I went back the next day, and I have been back since to fight,
and he hasn't bothered me. He has learned it won't do to tamper with
women of the right metal!...
Now, my boys, you are mine; we have fought together, we have hungered
together, we have marched together, but I can see victory in the
Heavens for you. I can see the hand above you guiding and inspiring
you to move onward and upward. No white flag — we can not raise
it; we must not raise it. We must redeem the world!
Go into our factories, see how the conditions are there, see how women
are ground up for the merciless money pirates, see how many of the
poor wretches go to work with crippled bodies.
I talked with a mother who had her small children working. She said to
me, "Mother, they are not of age, but I had to say they were; I had to
tell them they were of age so they could get a chance to help me to
get something to eat." She said after they were there for a little
while, "I have saved $40, the first I ever saw. I put that into a cow
and we had some milk for the little ones." In all the years her
husband had put in the earth digging out wealth, he never got a
glimpse of $40 until he had to take his infant boys, that ought to go
to school, and sacrifice them.
If there was no other reason that should stimulate every man and woman
to fight this damnable system of commercial pirates. That alone should
do it, my friends.
Is there a committee here? I want to take a committee of the well-fed
fellows and well-dressed fellows; I want to present this to the
Governor. Be very polite. Don't get on your knees. Get off your knees
and stand up. None of these fellows are better than you, they are only
flesh and blood — that is the truth...
I will give the press a copy of this resolution and this petition,
that was given to the Governor.
Now, my boys...I am going up Cabin Creek. I am going to hold meetings
there. I am going to claim the right of an American citizen.
I was on this earth before these operators were. I was in this country
before these operators. I have been 74 years under this flag. I have
got the right to talk. I have seen its onward march. I have seen the
growth of oppression, and I want to say to you, my friends, I am going
to claim my right as a citizen of this Nation, I won't violate the
law; I will not kill anybody or starve anybody; but I will talk
unsparingly of all the corporation bloodhounds we can bring to jail.
I have no apologies to offer. I have seen your children murdered; I
have seen you blown to death in the mines, and there was no redress. A
fellow in Colorado says, "Why don't you prop the mines?" The operator
said, "Oh, hell; Dagoes are cheaper than props!" Every miner is a Dago
with the blood-sucking pirates, and they are cheaper than props,
because if they kill a hundred of you, well, it was your fault; there
must be a mine inspector kept there.
The night before the little Johnson boys were killed the mine
inspector — John Laing is the mine owner; he wouldn't inspect
them — the mine inspector went there and said the mines are
propped securely. The next morning the little Johnson children went to
work, and when they were found, their hands were clasped in their
dinner buckets with two biscuits.
You work for Laing day after day! He is a mine inspector, but he
wouldn't be if I had anything to say about it. He would take a back
seat!
Boys, I want to say to you, obey the law. Let me say to the Governor
and let me say to the mine owners — let me say to all people
— that I will guarantee there will be no destruction of
property. In the first place, that is our property. It is inside where
our jobs are. We have every reason to protect it. In the mines is
where our jobs are. We are not out to destroy property; we are out to
preserve and protect property, and I will tell you why. We are going
to get more wages, and we are going to stop the docking system! Put
that down [Jones points to a reporter in the
crowd]. Your day for docking is done! ...If they don't stop
it, we will!
We'll take care of the property; there will be no property
destroyed. Not a bit; and if you want your property protected these
miners will protect it for you, and they won't need a gun.
We will protect it at the risk of our lives. I know the miners; I have
marched with 10,000 — 20,000 — and destroyed no
property. We had 20,000 miners in Pennsylvania, but destroyed no
property... I will tell you why we are not going to destroy your
property, Mr. Governor: Because one of these days we are going to take
over the mines. That is what we are going to do; we are going to take
over those mines.
The Government has a mine in North Dakota. It works eight hours
— not a minute more. There are no guards, no police, no
militia. The men make $125 a month, and there is never any trouble at
that mine. Uncle Sam is running the job, and he is a pretty good mine
inspector...
I want you to listen a moment. I want the business men to listen. You
business men are up against it. There is a great revolution going on
in the industrial world. The Standard Oil Company owns 86 great
department stores in this country. The small business man is beginning
to be eliminated. He has got to get down, he can't get up. It is like
Carnegie said before the Tariff Commission in Washington. "Gentlemen,
I am not bothered about tariff on steel rails." He says, "what
concerns me and my class is the right to organize." ...Carnegie said
that in a few years, he went into the business with $5,000; he took
$7,500. He said he knew the time was ripe for steel bridges, and he
went into it. He closed out his interest for $300,000,000.
Do you wonder that the steel workers are robbed? When one thief alone
can take $300,000,000 and give to a library — to educate our
skulls because you didn't get a chance to educate them yourselves.
A fellow said, "I don't think we ought to take those libraries." Yes,
take them, and let him build libraries in every town in the
country. It is your money. Yet he comes and constructs those libraries
as living monuments reddened with the blood of men, women, and
children that he robbed.
How did he make $300,000,000? Come with me to Homestead, and I will
show you the graves reddened with the blood of men, women, and
children. That is where we fixed the Pinkertons, and they have never
rose from that day to this. And we will fix the Baldwins in West
Virginia. The Pinkertons were little poodle dogs for the operators. We
will fix the Baldwins just the same...
Senator Dick said, when I met him, "I am delighted to see you,
'Mother' Jones." I said, "I am not delighted to see you." He said,
"What is the matter?" I said, "You have passed the Dick military bill
to shoot my class down, that is why I wouldn't shake hands with you."
That is the way to do business with those fellows. All the papers in
the country wrote it up, and he was knocked down off his perch. I will
knock a few of these Senators down before I die!
[Applause]
...Be good; don't drink, only a glass of beer.
The parasite blood-suckers will tell you not to drink beer, because
they want to drink it all, you know. They are afraid to tell you to
drink for fear there will not be enough for their carcass.
[Someone from the crowd cries "the Governor drinks champagne!"]
He needs it. He gets it from you fellows. He ought to drink it. You pay for it, and as long as he can get it for nothing, any fellow would be a fool not to drink it...
I want you to keep the peace until I tell you to move, and when I want
you every one will come. Now, be good. I don't tell you to go and work
for Jesus. Work for yourselves; work for bread. That is the fight we
have got. Work for bread. They own our bread.
This fight that you are in is the great industrial revolution that is
permeating the heart of men over the world. They see behind the clouds
the star that rose in Bethlehem nineteen hundred years ago, that is
bringing the message of a better and nobler civilization. We are
facing the hour. We are in it, men, the new day; we are here facing
that star that will free men and give to the Nation a nobler, grander,
higher, truer, purer, better manhood. We are standing on the eve of
that mighty hour when the motherhood of the Nation will rise, and
instead of clubs and picture shows or excursions, she will devote her
life to the training of the human mind, giving to the Nation great men
and great women.
I see that hour. I see the star breaking your chains...
I know of the wrongs of humanity; I know your aching backs; I know
your swimming heads; I know your little children suffer; I know your
wives. I have gone in and found her dead and found the babe nursing at
the dead breast, and found the little girl 11 years old taking care of
three children. She said, "Mother, will you wake up, baby is hungry
and crying?" When I laid my hand on mamma she breathed her last. And
the child of 11 had to become a mother to the children.
Oh, men [speaking of mine owners], have
you any hearts? Oh, men, do you feel? Oh, men, do you see the judgment
day on the throne above, when you will be asked, "where did you get
your gold?"
You stole it from these wretches. You murdered, you assassinated, you
starved, you burned them to death, that you and your wives might have
palaces, and that your wives might go to the seashore. Oh God, men,
when I see the horrible picture, when I see the children with their
hands off, when I took an army of babies and walked a hundred and
thirty miles with a petition to the President of the United States, to
pass a bill in Congress to keep these children from being murdered for
profit. He had a secret service then all the way to the palace. And
now they want to [re-elect] that man! What is the American Nation
coming to?
Manhood, womanhood, can you stand for it? They put reforms in their
platforms, but [we] get no reform. [Roosevelt] promised everything to
labor. When we had the strike in Colorado he sent 200 guns to blow our
brains out. I don't forget. You do, but I don't. And our women were
kicked out like dogs at the point of the bayonet. That is
America. They don't do it in Russia. Some women get up with $5 worth
of paint on their cheeks and have tooth brushes for their dogs and
say, "oh, them horrible miners. Oh, that horrible old Mother Jones,
that horrible old woman."
I am horrible! I admit, and I want to be to you blood-sucking pirates!
I want you, my boys, to buckle on your armor. This is a fighting age;
this is not the age for cowards; put them out of the way. Take your
medicine [Governor], because we are going to get after you, no doubt
about it.
[Cries from the crowd "Give it to them!"]
Yes, I will.
[Cries again "Give it to them!"]
I want you to be good. Give the Governor time until to-morrow night,
and, if he don't act then it is up to you. We have all-day Saturday,
all-day Sunday, all-day Monday, and Tuesday, and Wednesday if we need
it.
We are used to living on little; we can take a crust of bread in our
hands and go.
Boys, stay quiet until tomorrow night. I think it would be a good
thing to work tomorrow, because the mine owners will need it. The mine
commissioner will get a pain in his skull to-night and his wife will
give him some "dope." The mine owner's wife is away at the
seashore. When she finds no more money coming she will say, "ss there
any more money coming?" He will say, "most of the miners are not
working." She will say, "take the guards and shoot them back into the
mines, those horrible fellows."
The Governor says, if you don't go to work, said he, in the mines or
on the railroads, I am going to call the militia, and I will shoot
you...I said we can get ready too.
What militia can you get to fight us? Those boys on Paint Creek
wouldn't fight us if all the governors in the country wanted you to. I
was going yesterday to take dinner with them, but I had something else
to do. I am going some day to take dinner with them, and I will
convert the whole bunch to my philosophy. I will get them all my way.
Now, be good, boys.
[Jones reaches for a hat in the crowd.]
Pass the hat around, some of these poor devils
want a glass of beer. Get the hat. The mine owner robs them. Get a hat
you fellows of the band...
Another thing I want you to do: I want you to go in regular parade,
three or four together. The moving-picture man wants to get your
picture to send over the country.
[Someone in the crowd asks what the collection is
being taken for.]
The hat is for miners who came up here broke, and they want to get a
glass of beer. And to pay their way back — and to get a glass of
beer. I will give you $5. Get a move on, and get something in it...
The National Government will get a record of this meeting. They will
say, my friends, this was a peaceful, law-abiding meeting. They will
see men of intelligence, that they are not out to destroy but to
build. And instead of the horrible homes you have got we will build on
their ruins homes for you and your children to live in, and we will
build them on the ruins of the dog kennels which they wouldn't keep
their mules in. That will bring forth better ideas than the world has
had. The day of oppression will be gone. I will be with you whether
true or false. I will be with you at midnight or when the battle
rages, when the last bullet ceases, but I will be in my joy, as an old
saint said:
O, God, of the mighty clan, God grant that the woman who suffered for
you, Suffered not for a coward, but oh, for a man. God grant that the
woman who suffered for you, Suffered not for a coward, but oh, for a
fighting man.
[Senator Charles Dick (R-OH), Chairman of the Committee on
Militia and member of the Mines & Mining Committee, introduced
legislation in 1902 to increase the size of state militia, which had
been used by governors of several states to break strikes forcibly and
quell labor disturbances.]
