You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Tuesday March 14, 1905
From the Appeal to Reason: Josephine Conger on Mother Jones, the Socialist Agitator
Today we are pleased to present a poem for Mother Jones, penned by Josephine Conger and published in the Appeal to Reason of March 11th:
THE SOCIALIST AGITATOR.
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To "Mother" Jones.
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"Their need lies close to the quick of life,
And their cries tear my soul apart.
And down in the abyss from which they call,
I go, with my hands and my heart.
Down to the men in their awful din.
With the babe on her lean, starved breast;
Down to the men in their awful din.
Where the physical knows no rest.
Down where the soul in torpor sleeps.
While the body is worn to a shred;
Down where the brute powers overwork,
And the graces of life have fled.
Down in the valleys of sin I go,
Through the sloughs of the capitalist world;
To the shadowy pit where the souls of men
And women through greed are hurled.
And I carry the need of the weary world
To the crushed and despondent throng;
I tell them that men should have freedom in life,
As the only right for their wrong.
Freedom to labor and right to their hire,
And the food that they need to eat;
And clothes to wear and the sort of home
Which to the heart of the human is sweet.
I awaken desires in their sleeping souls;
I bring a new light to their eyes;
I make their utterances strong with hope,
Which before were but menacing cries.
I fill their minds with a new ideal
That will spur them on in a quest
For better conditions by which the race
May climb to its highest and best.
For their need lies close to the quick of life.
And their cries reach the soul in me,
And I know that humanity must ever be bound,
Till the undermost man it free.
-J. CONGER.
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SOURCE
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-Mar 11, 1905
http://www.newspapers.com/...
See also:
Women's Rights in the United States:
A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Issues, Events, and People [4 volumes]
-ed by Tiffany K. Wayne Ph.D.
ABC-CLIO, Dec 9, 2014
https://books.google.com/...
Josephine Conger-Kaneko
https://books.google.com/...
American Socialists and Evolutionary Thought, 1870-1920
-byMark Pittenger
Univ of Wisconsin Press, 1993 https://books.google.com/...
Re: The Socialist Woman
https://books.google.com/...
Works by JCK
https://www.google.com/...
IMAGES
Mother Jones, from AtR of Mar 11, 1905
http://www.newspapers.com/...
Josephine Conger (apparently before she began to use Conger-Kaneko)
http://blog.livedoor.jp/...
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Sunday March 14, 1915
A Poem About Finding the Face of Mother Jones on the Cover of the Miners' Journal
From the United Mine Workers Journal of January 21, 1915:
That grand old warrior:
Mother Jones
For our cover page of this week we reproduce a late picture of that grand old warrior of, and for, the working class, Mother Jones.
We miners love to claim Mother for our very own, but she does not belong to the miners alone.
Whenever and whenever the workers in any of the industries are fighting against oppression that has become unbearable, there will be found, in the forefront of the struggle, encouraging the men, consoling and succoring the women and children this woman of over four-score years; full of life, vigor and able resistance.
And, where oppression, borne too long, has crushed out the spirit that makes for resistance; where misery, dire poverty, overwork, has apparently reduced some of the workers to the black despair that accepts oppression dumbly, hopelessly; there also we will find this aged lover of her kind, fanning to life by her burning words of hope the all but extinguished divine spark of discontent and resistance.
Mother Jones's life has been dedicated to the great struggle to aid the self uplift of those who toil. Many of her friends have advised for her rest for the few years we still may hope to keep her here.
But for Mother Jones there can be no rest. Her message to the workers she will deliver with her last breath; she will die in the harness; her only regret, then, that she has not been able to accomplish more.
Let us hear her, heed her, aid her to the extent of our abilities while she is still with us; and after, carry forward the great work she has sacrificed her all for.
From United Mine Workers Journal of February 4, 1915:
TO MOTHER JONES
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Upon Seeing Her Face on the Front of the Journal.
Aye, Mither Jones, I kenned your face,
Wi' a' its winsome, cheery grace,
The snaw white po' 'ance in its place
The raven color stayed;
And sorrow had na left a trace
Nor age a blade.
Daddy Time wi' his fearsome sickle
O' blaws gaed baith o' us a mickle,
He thought tae pit us in a pickle
Sour and grumpy;
We gaed hissel' so raw a heckle
He fled a' lumpy.
Your smile called back lang syne years,
When we wi' a' our graith and gears,
In spite o' ither's doots an' fears,
Began a ficht;
An' mid woe an' bluid an' jeers
Fought for rieht.
О' success at times we had a wee,
At ither times we had tae flee,
An' gaols at times we had tae see,
An' the murderous wrath
0' thugs and ruffians full agree
Tae end our path.
I was pleased beyond a' words tae tell
When I saw the picture o' yersel'
A' smiles, a' cheery, blithe an' well,
Undaunted an' undismayed;
Though beset by a' the imps o' hell
Wi' gun an' blade.
It made my auld heart leap wi' joy,
An' ken that naething could destroy
The steadfast heart nor siller buy
The aul "True Blue,"
Whose gaze hypocrisy could spy
An' gar it rue.
Before our days cam' tae an end,
Ane short hour would like tae spend
Wi' you, my lang and noble fren',
Tae hear you tell
O' mickle things frae end tae end
About yersel'.
— S. M. SEXTON.
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SOURCE
The United Mine Workers Journal, Volume 23
Executive Board of the United Mine Workers of America,
Dec 3, 1914 - May 6, 1915
http://books.google.com/...
UMWJ of Jan 21, 1915
http://books.google.com/...
"Mother Jones"
http://books.google.com/...
UMWJ of Feb 4, 1915
http://books.google.com/...
"To Mother Jones"
http://books.google.com/...
IMAGE
Cover of UMWJ, Jan 21, 1915
http://books.google.com/...
Note:
I don't want to criticize librarians and archivists too much for without their work our working class history would be lost us, but I do have to question why so often it is that I find magazines and newspapers disfigured by stamps such as the one above. I beg those who must place these stamps to consider that the magazine or newspaper before them could be the last copy available to future generations, and to place the stamp way way off to the side. And certainly not on a beautiful magazine cover like the one above.
Now repaired!! with huge H/T to Johnny the Conqueroo!!
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The Death of Mother Jones-Gene Autry (with lyrics)
This grand old champion of labor
Was known in every land;
She fought for right and justice,
She took a noble stand....
May the miners all work together
To carry out her plan;
And bring back better conditions
For every laboring man.
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