An army of strong mining women makes a wonderfully spectacular picture.
-Mother Jones
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Tuesday February 9, 1915
From the Boston Globe: Lucy Huffaker's Interview with Mother Jones
In Sunday's edition of the Boston Globe we find a long interview conducted by Lucy Huffaker with Mother Jones wherein Mother expresses her views on the roles of woman and motherhood. Now, those of us who know Mother Jones are in no way surprised by her very traditional views on the subject. Others, however, express not only surprise, but also dismay.
First let us say that, as a woman who has known the unending grief of losing her entire family (a husband and four little children) within a month's time, it is unlikely that Mother will ever forget the joys of a home full of children, and a father returning to them from a hard day at work. Can we blame her, then, for not understanding why women of wealth would hire others to raise their own children?
Where we disagree strongly with Mother is on the subject of Rockefeller's mother being to blame for his lack of care or concern for those who labor to make him rich. Why would Mother expect the wife of a capitalist to impart any other views to her son than the views which serve her own class interests? To do otherwise would make her a traitor to her own class, and a "bad mother" by the standards of that class.
We would point out that, even though Mother believes that a woman's place in the home, she most definitely does not believe that a woman in the home should be some sweet, quiet, lady-like creature, cringing meekly at her husband's feet.
In her many years fighting beside the men and woman of the coal camps, she has always urged the women to stand up and fight right alongside their men. During times of terror when the guns of the capitalists' hired thugs were turned upon them and their families, Mother Jones urged the women to:
Fight like hell until you go to heaven.
Remembering the battles in the Pennsylvania coalfields, she described the women there marching as an grand army from McAdoo to Coaldale, banging on pots and pans:
It was necessary to win the strike in that district that the Coaldale miners be organized.
I went to a nearby mining town that was thoroughly organized and asked the women if they would help me get the Coaldale men out. This was in McAddo. I told them to leave their men at home to take care of the family. I asked them to put on their kitchen clothes and bring mops and brooms with them and a couple of tin pans. We marched over the mountains fifteen miles, beating on the tin pans as if they were cymbals. At three o'clock in the morning we met the Crack Thirteen of the militia, patrolling the roads to Coaldale. The colonel of the regiment said "Halt! Move back!"
I said, "Colonel, the working men of America will not halt nor will they ever go back. The working man is going forward!"
"I'll charge bayonets," said he.
"On whom?'
"On your people."
"We are not enemies," said I. "We are just a band of working women whose brothers and husbands are in a battle for bread. We want our brothers in Coaldale to join us in our fight. We are here on the mountain road for our children's sake, for the nation's sake. We are not going to hurt anyone and surely you would not hurt us."
They kept us there till daybreak and when they saw the army of women in kitchen aprons, with dishpans and mops, they laughed and let us pass. An army of strong mining women makes a wonderfully spectacular picture.
Well, when the miners in the Coaldale camp started to go to work they were met by the McAdoo women who were beating on their pans and shouting, "Join the union! Join the union!"
They joined, every last man of them, and we got so enthusiastic that we organized the street car men who promised to haul no scabs for the coal companies. As there were no other groups to organize we marched over the mountains home, beating on our pans and singing patriotic songs.
We suspect that the views of Mother Jones regarding women and motherhood are shared by most of the women in the coal camps of America. Most of them care for the children at home while the men are working in the mines. Yet, there they are, ready to fight beside the men whenever they are needed, a community of men and women united in Freedom's Cause.
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