Don't let the ministers bother you, we know the Lord Jesus Christ as well as they do.
They don't let us go into their church conferences and they have no right to come into ours.
-Mother Jones
`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
Thursday December 22, 1904
From the Montana News: The Catholic Citizen Opines on Socialism and Unionism
Yesterday's Montana News a Socialist newspaper out of Helena, contained an article from the Catholic Citizen which discussed the spiritual perils of socialism upon the soul of the working man and woman:
CATHOLIC ON SOCIALISM.
We noted some weeks ago a letter written by Mr. Francis B. Livesey, who very appropriately lives at a place called Sykeville, Md,. in which fears were expressed for the salvation of Cardinal Gibbons because the Cardinal had spoken some friendly words about trade unionism. Mr. Livesey argued that a word for trade unionism was a word for Socialism.
Now comes Rev. P. Ullrich F. Mueller, C. PP. S., whose very name is a guaranty against liberalismus, and in a letter to The Catholic Tribune, dated from Carthagena, Ohio, says:
I have made Socialism one of the principal studies of my life. Some thirty or forty volumes of Socialist literature fill my shelves, all the Socialistic campaign pamphlets of the two last elections, a number of foremost Socialistic weeklies and a first class monthly form the base of my judgment. But is unionism Socialism? Emphatically: No! Unionism dare never be confounded with socialism. Even where unions have declared by majority referendum vote for Socialism, the unions, as such, stand for other principles than socialism. If they declare for "Socialism," as did the Western Federation of Miners, the meaning is (1) that they intend to support the "Socialist ticket;" (2) that they strive for "the co-operative commonwealth."
They do not thereby as yet approve of the "entire Socialist philosophy." The class conscious Socialist, too, must in many cases be distinguished from the "Socialist voter." The former, if he is consistent, is an atheist; the latter often an ignorant fellow, who by his vote wants to protest against the present mode of production and distribution of wealth, a fact which after all cannot, his ignorance pre-supposed, be so very grievous if we consider the starvation wages, the child labor, the overwork, etc., as prevalent in many fields of employment.
Father Mueller's desire is obviously to keep these poor fellows in the church rather than to read them out. Altogether a laudable purpose for one whose mission is the salvation of souls.-Catholic Citizen.
----------
[photograph added]
Comrade Debs Explains the Truth About Socialism
Quotes from Mother Jones, Socialist, Unionist, and Catholic
Mother Jones
The Miners' Angel
We would point out that our own Mother Jones is a Socialist, a Unionist, and a Catholic. She has been, since the ending of her employment under John Mitchell as an organizer for the United Mine Workers of America, traveling the country and speaking, often at the behest of the Socialist Party of America. She has also been selling
Unionism and Socialism, a book written by the nations #1 Socialist, Eugene V. Debs. If her soul is, indeed in peril from her embrace of the "entire Socialist philosophy," then we would note that she does not seem particularly concerned with the opinion of the preachers, Catholic or otherwise, as regards her state of grace. And neither are the miners, for she is known throughout the nation as "The Miners' Angel."
We offer below some thoughts from Mother Jones on the subjects of Socialism, Trade Unionism, and Christianity.
From her speech at the United Mine Workers Convention, January 25, 1901:
My brothers, we are entering on a new age. We are confronted by conditions such as the world perhaps has never met before in her history. We have in the last century solved one great problem that has confronted the ages in the mighty past. It had ever been the riddle of the people of the world. The problem of production has been solved for the human race; the problem of this country will lie with the workers to solve, that great and mighty and important problem, the problem of possession.
...When the children stood on the platform of a hall we had hired for them to expose the corporations one little boy of twelve came to the front and told us that he worked thirteen hours at night, that they paid him one cent an hour; but that these same people had gone to the church and put in a magnificent stained glass window in it. Did you ever hear a minister say one word about the condition of these children? We did not find one minister to defend these children. In the Scriptures they can see where the Master said, "Suffer little children to come unto me."
...We will join hands together for the emancipation of the human race. We do not live for ourselves alone. We are not building here today for now; we are building for long years to come, and the foundation which you lay with aching backs and your bleeding hands and your sore hearts will not perish with the years. It will grow and grow and live, and when the enemies of this organization shall lie mouldering in the grave and the world will have forgotten that they ever lived, your organization and your work will live.
From the
International Socialist Review of February 1902, responding to a preacher's comment that the miners needed college graduates to lead them:
Jesus, whose doctrines this man claimed to be preaching, took twelve from among the laborers of his time (no college graduates among them) and with them founded an organization that revolutionized the society amid which it rose. Just so in our day the organization of the workers must be the first step to the overthrow of capitalism.
From her speech at the United Mine Worker's Convention, July 19, 1902:
Things are happening today that would have aroused our Revolutionary fathers in their graves. People sleep quietly, but it is the sleep of the slave chained closely to his master. If this generation surrenders its liberties, then the work of our forefathers, which we will lose by doing this will not be resurrected for two generations to come. Then perhaps the people will wake up and say to their feudal lords "We Protest," and they will inaugurate one of those revolutions that sometimes come when the slave feels there is no hope, and then proceed to tear society to pieces
...My friends, it is solidarity of labor we want. We do not want to find fault with each other but to solidify our forces and say to each other: "We must be together; our masters are joined together and we must do the same thing."
...One night a comrade from Illinois [John H. Walker] was gong with me up the mountain side. I said, "John, I believe it is going to be very dark tonight," and he said he thought it was, for only the stars were shining to guide us. When we got to the top of the mountain, besides the stars in the sky we saw other little stars, the miners' lamp, coming from all sides of the mountains. The miners were coming there to attend a meeting in a schoolhouse where we had promised to meet them, and I said to John, "There comes the star of hope, the star of the future, the star that the astronomer will tell nothing about in his great works for the future ages; but that is the star that is lighting up the ages yet to come; there is the star of the true miner laying the foundation for a higher civilization, and that star will shine when all other stars will grow dim."
...Think, my friends! Did the laborers ever take twenty-two capitalists and riddle their bodies with bullets? Did the laborers ever take twenty thousand men, women and children and lock them up in the Bastille and murder them? No, labor has always advanced Christianity.
From her speech at Coney Island during the March of the Mill Children, July 26, 1903:
One hour of justice is worth an age of praying.
---------------
SOURCES
Montana News
(Helena, Montana)
-Dec 21, 1904
http://www.newspapers.com/...
Mother Jones Speaks
-ed by Philip S Foner
NY, 1983
The Speeches and Writings of Mother Jones
-ed by Edward M Steel
U of Pittsburgh Press, 1988
IMAGES
Cover of Unionism and Socialism
http://books.google.com/...
Ad for Unionism and Socialism
From the Appeal to Reason of July 16, 1904
Mother Jones, The Miners' Angel
http://www.greatthoughtstreasury.com/...
`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
The Preacher and the Slave-Utah Phillips
Long-haired preachers come out every night
Try to tell you what's wrong and what's right
But when asked how 'bout somethin' to eat
They will answer in voices so sweet:
You will eat bye and bye
In that glorious land up in the sky.
Work and pray and live on hay
You'll get pie in the sky when you die.
-Joe Hill
`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````