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Tuesday October 26, 1915
From The Labor World: Mother Jones Tells of Time Locked Up as Military Prisoner
we are pleased to republish, in full, an article by Mother Jones which occupied almost one-half of the front page and was continued onto page two of the paper. In the article, Mother recounts her experiences as a military prisoner in the states of the West Virginia and Colorado. Mother has always been ready to answer the call of the miners whether they be organized by the Western Federation of Miners or by the United Mine Workers of America.
And she has never shied away from the threat of prison, no matter how dark or grim the cell may be.
THRILLING EXPERIENCES OF
'LITTLE ANGEL OF MINERS'
IN MILITARY PRISONS
BY MARY(Mother) JONES
In 1904, during the industrial conflict in Colorado, the military was out against the strikers at the metal mines in Cripple Creek, and other places. They were jailing men and women, putting them in bull-pens, or military prisons, and putting them on trains and deporting them. During the strike of the coal miners again, the military was sent in to the coal fields and they were not there long before they began to show their power, as they did in the days of the American Revolution.
They began to arrest men, and they came at night when a number of our men who were on strike had been placed in jail, and then the process of deporting us took place. I had been out all day at the mine with the women and children, and when I returned and was about to retire that night I was arrested by the military and deported out of the strike district. Seven militiamen escorted me with their bayonets
Without Food or Water.
Two miners were also deported with me. Within a week over 100 coal miners were taken and made to walk 18 or 20 miles in the hot sun. They got no water to drink until they reached a place called Bohn. When they came in to Trinidad they had to drink out of the trough where the rats and dogs drank. They were placed on a train and sent across the border. They walked thirty miles, some of them, through the sage-brush before they got anything to eat or drink. They were told never to return. I also had orders not to return, but I didn't comply with the orders.
Now we will go to the West Virginia affair. In 1903, a company of the militia was sent up to New River. A mine-owner and the sheriff spent nearly a whole afternoon with the Governor to urge him to send that militia, although every railroad man and every other honest, peaceful citizen can vouch for the miners being law-abiding at the time. That militia did not treat the miners brutally, but in 1913 the Governor sent the militia into the strike zone.
There is where many conflicts took place. The militia arrested men and women without warrants, tried them in their drum-head courts, sentenced some of them to 2 1/2, 5 and 7 1/2 years in the Moundsville penitentiary, West Virginia. The civil courts were open all the time, but the military assumed the role of despots. A meeting was held in the city of Washington at the armory, attended by people most interested in the nation's honor and welfare, and the matter was put before that audience that night. I was one myself among the speakers, and the next morning the Moundsville prison opened, the boys signed their release, and they don't know to this day why.
The Militia Against the Courts.
There has never been any explanation given to them. About the 12th or 13th of February, the military was sent in the second time to the strike zone. They began arresting miners indiscriminately, to pick up everyone they felt like. We learned there were about 200 miners under arrest in Pratt by the military. The miners on the other side of the Kanawha river began getting excited and suspended work at the mines.
I heard of meetings they were holding and I left Charleston and went down. I held a meeting that night at Booner. I then adjourned the meeting to meet at Lancaster (?) at 10 o'clock the next. The miners attended the meeting. At the close of my address to them, I asked them to have each local union to go by itself and elect a delegate to go and see the Governor and ask him to prevent the militia from arresting any more of our boys.
Let the civil courts go through the process. They elected, I think, 13 or fourteen delegates on that committee. I took them into a church and instructed them what to do. The committee and myself took the train and went to Charleston. The boys said, "Will you come with us, Mother?" "No," I said, "I think you had better go by yourselves and come to the hotel and tell me what the Governor says. Don't lose your heads or get irritated in anyway. Put the matter up to the Governor in a very kindly, business like manner."
When the boys and I parted, I was walking quietly along when an officer jumped out of an automobile and said "We want you." I was taken in the automobile, put in a hotel in a room held there until the C. & O. train came, then I was taken on the train and handed over to the military 25 miles away from the civil courts. At the time I was arrested the civil courts were open and ready to do business. I was put into a room in Pratt and held there from the 14th day of February until the 8th day of May. The military guarded the room all the time. On the 8th or 10th of March there was a drum-head military organized.
Military Trial a Farce.
Two attorneys were appointed by the military court. They called on me, told me that the court had appointed them to defend me. I replied that I had nothing against them personally, but no lawyer in this country would ever defend me before that court or any other court of its type. But he went down and got four of the boys that were in the bullpen at the other end of the street and brought them up. I told the boys my intentions, but I said to them "Don't you be governed by the stand that I take," and they said they intended taking the same stand. There was about forty of us taken into Court.
We were tried for four days and four nights the court went on. On the last night, I think it was 11 o'clock when the distinguished court adjourned. We were taken, up to the Supreme court in Charleston, at least I was with one or two of my colleagues, with military escorts, and the distinguished Supreme court spat on the constitution and said the military could do what they pleased. That was the highest court of West Virginia. But among them was a Patrick Henry, Judge Robinson, who dissented, and told them what they were doing. But they paid no attention. The corporation are of far more importance with the judicial puppet today than the honor of the nation or any conception of justice.
The boys soon afterwards were taken to Clarksburg jail, and I was left the lone military prisoner in that military camp. Some of the military were taken out of there and a Captain Sherwood was put in control. He was not as brutal as the others were. Freeman Older, Editor of the San Francisco Bulletin, sent his wife across the continent to find out what they were doing to me, and she came to Pratt. They at first wouldn't let her see me, but they relented and gave her a few minutes with me. She took a photograph of the military giving me my mail.
Senator Kerns Starts Action.
On another day she came in to the family who lived in the back of the house. She wasn't sitting there two minutes until a uniformed sewer-rat came up and grabbed her and took her up to the court-room. What they did I did not learn, but she at last went away and went to Washington and had a conference with Senator Kerns. The Senator brought the matter up on the floor of the Senate. The discussion arose between him and Senator Gough. Gough, up against the power of the nation, finding out that the state was on trial, sent a telegram to Senator Gough [Kern?] defending himself; I also sent a telegram to Senator Kerns, which read:
From out the military prison walls of Pratt, West Virginia, I send to you the groans and heart-aches and tears of men, women and children, as I have heard them in this state, pleading with you in their behalf for the honor of the nation. Push, that investigation of the conditions of West Virginia, and the children yet unborn will arise and call you blessed.
Senator Kerns read the telegram to the United States Senate and it was acted on. The investigation was made soon afterwards.
All our men were taken out of the prison. I also was taken up to the governor and the distinguished gentleman didn't tell me I was free, but told me I could go to the hotel. He said he had been trying to settle that question, and I said, "Governor, I could have settled it in a week. I want to ask you a question, governor. I stood in the bull-pen Wednesday (?) I watched the school-room door close in the first week of April on the children. Many of those children never again would cross the threshold of a school-room door.
Appeals To Governor
They would have to go out and battle for bread on the economic field. Don't you think, governor, that it would have been much more to the honor of the nation and the state if the $700,000 that was spent for the military to crush their fathers into slavery would have been spent far better in the school-rooms, and give to the nation more highly developed citizens, men and women, intellectually, morally and physically?" That ended our conversation. I left, and that is all I know about being turned loose. That is my experience in West Virginia, hurriedly run over.
As to the military in Colorado. In September, 1913, I went into Colorado. A convention of the miners was called. I attended the convention and heard their said grievances.
It was always a question in my mind how those men, could have stood the oppression they related to that convention.
The strike was called on the, 23rd of September. There were machine guns, six hundred gun-men, sworn into service by the sheriffs. All the miners, so far as I knew were pretty peaceful, law-abiding men. As a rule they have no desire to create trouble, because they are well aware, that the courts and all public officers are their deadly enemies, particularly in Colorado.
On the 20th or 22nd of October, I got up a parade of the children in all the mining camps, and brought them into Denver, because the little ones didn't have much joy in life. I had a band of music, and about 1500 children marched in that parade. They carried banners asking the C. F. & I. officials not to crush them and make slaves of them.
Governor Did Not Appear.
But these things never appeal to the dollar hog, and as I was about to disband the parade, someone said, "The Governor is in town." I took the children down to the hotel he was at, and they, played and sang in front of the hotel. But the governor, did not come out to say kindly, words to the little ones. Whether he was afraid of his masters or whether his heart, didn't throb for them I am not prepared to say. I left for Washington the next day to try and get a Congressional investigation.
I know the longer conflicts last the more bitter both sides get. I returned to Colorado and took up my work again. In December there was a convention of the officers of the State Federation of Labor held in Denver. I was sent for by the officials of the miners to El Paso to prevent strikebreakers from coming in.
Oh my return on the fourth of January I got off the train at Trinidad. I was met by the militia and the Captain, one Smith says, "We got ye! There's her satchels, take 'em." I asked what the trouble was. He said, "We are going' to arrest you." I said, "Why, I am going to Denver." I got on the train. But he said, "I am not going on the Santa Fe, I go on the C. & S." "Get in and get your ticket!"
They didn't sell C. & S. tickets in the Santa Fe office. He went in and inquired what train was to leave at 9:15, which gave me an hour and quarter. I was taken to the military headquarters.
I asked to be permitted to get a cup of coffee, and he said to the captain "Take her in the restaurant." I inquired who was going to pay for the breakfast. The captain said, the state. So I let the state pay the bill. Then I was put in a room with four militiamen and held there till the train came. I was put in an automobile.
There were three uniformed fellows with bayonets pointed at my back, one at each side, the captain at the right, and another uniformed fellow in the front of the automobile. I was taken to the depot. There was the cavalry, there was the infantry. I got my ticket, went on the train with a militia escort, until I was put out of the strike zone.
Slipped It Over on Them.
I went into Denver, and the governor said I couldn't go back to Trinidad. Well, no governor owns a state nor a county, and I had no respect or use for a dictator, whether he is governor or a judge. I bought my ticket on Saturday and my sleeper on the 11th of January.
While they had detectives watching me at the hotel and at the gate, I got on the sleeper without them knowing it, and got off in the morning before the trains pulled into the station. The military were at the station watching. I went up the street, went into the hotel, and sat down, and my boys came and were there talking to me.
I was there three hours, before the military or the governor ever knew I was in town, and I did no hiding. About half-past eleven the military came and I asked them, "Did you come to get me boys?" They said yes, and I said "all right here I am." I was taken down and put into an automobile.
There was a company of military and a company of cavalry, and a company of hired murderers, gunmen, all there on the street. I was driven to the Sisters' hospital, a portion of which was converted into a prison. The civil courts where open when they drove me by the courts. They were there doing business, I was put in a room there. There was a soldier with a bayonet posted outside my room in the hotel. There was one at our side of the door.
There was one outside the window, and the headquarters was in the next room. For nine long weeks I never saw a human being, (I don't count the soldiers human) except my attorney, Mr. Hawkins, once, and Mr. Clark, another attorney, came to me to sign the application for habeas corpus.
Court Refused To Act.
The district judge refused to grant the writ of habeas corpus. They continued to hold me. I never got a letter, a postcard, a book or a paper. No friends, no one was allowed to communicate with me or see me. I was simply in the hands of the military.
After nine weeks when Attorney Hawkins was applying to the supreme court in Denver for a writ of habeas corpus, a fellow by the name of Colonel Davis came and asked me if the governor wanted to see me would I go into Denver to see him. I said, "while I have no respect for the governor, I have for the office he holds, so I will comply with your request."
He came that night and gave me just eight minutes to get ready for the train. I was put into the automobile, the hotel was dark when I came out of the hospital, taken down the back way, into an automobile, and carried off down the back alleys.
Again Shipped To Denver.
The Santa Fe was pulled away out on the crossing or switch from the station, where nobody could see what was going on. I was somewhat relieved when I was put into the sleeper, taken into Denver, and I was turned loose.
The general said I was free. Then I rang up my attorney, Mr. Hawkins, and he came down, and he said, "They kidnapped you." "I don't know what they did, but I am here." I was taken up to the governor's office by Attorney Hawkins and John R. Lawson. In the discussion I told the governor that I was going to return to Trinidad. All civil courts were open, they could deal with me. He said, "if anybody told me it was not the thing to do, I don't think I would do it." I replied, "governor, if Washington took such advice we would be under King George now. If Lincoln had taken advice from such as you, Grant would would not have conquered at Appomattox. I don't propose to take your advice."
Again Arrested by Soldiers.
In four days I bought my ticket and started, went on that train at night. Before I arrived at Walsenburg the military came took me out of my berth although my ticket would carry me fifty miles further. I was escorted to the guardhouse, and there put in a cellar, and kept there for twenty-six days and nights. My case was coming up before the supreme court.
The court had ordered the military to take me in person to the court, and they had to take the military out of the district. They were unable to bring any charges against me that would stand in court, and so I was turned loose.
Fortunately for me, the colonel that had charge of me was rather a human character. I shall always remember him with a great deal of appreciation. His name was Col. Verdeckberg.
The general sent word that I was free, and he would give me transportation to any place which I pleased. I replied I never took favors from the enemies of my class. I would take none from the general nor the governor. That ended my dealing with the military.
[Photographs and emphasis added.]
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