You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes. -Mother Jones
``````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` Thursday May 12, 1904 From the San Francisco Chronicle: Mother Jones Arrives from the Seat of War
"Old Mother Jones" Who Arrived in San Francisco Yesterday.
"MOTHER JONES" IS ON A VISIT
---------- The Woman Labor Agitator Comes to Recuperate in California From Strain of Colorado Excitement ----------MRS. MARY JONES, better known as "Old Mother Jones" throughout the country, the woman labor agitator, who believes it to be her mission on earth to ameliorated the condition of the toiling masses, arrived in this city last Sunday. For an agitator, who has espoused the cause of the laborer and wage earner with as much vigor as the leading agitators, has suffered privation and has been imprisoned for the part she has taken in the cause she has made her life task, she came rather unostentatiously, and, as she says, quite unexpectedly. She hails from Colorado, but comes now from Utah, where she has been for some weeks lately and took quite an active part in the labor troubles in Carbon county. She says that she was held a prisoner in Price, Utah, for participating in the agitation and encouraging the striking miners, and was incarcerated with the leaders of the union. Her visit to California, according to her own statement, is merely for the purpose of recuperating, and not, as has been hinted, for the purpose of starting an agitation against the Citizens' Alliance. She positively denies that she has any such intention, nor will she start any labor agitation here, except that she intends to address some labor organizations while in this city. She intends to remain here about two weeks, or until she shall have fully recuperated from the effects of a severe attack of pneumonia from which she suffered last winter and the further effects of her confinement in prison in Utah. "I have come to rest," she said last evening, "because I am not quite strong, and to obtain the needed rest, I had to get away from the seat of war." Speaking of her most recent experience in Utah, she said: "I was completely worn out from my arduous labors and from the effects of the confinement. I was held a prisoner eighteen days by the authorities on the pretext that I had been exposed to contagion, but I was kept merely to prevent me from attending to what I considered my duties." "Old Mother Jones" is sixty-five years of age, a matronly figure with white hair and benevolent face, pleasant voice and gentle manner, rather an agreeable surprise in one so noted as a labor agitator as she is. Though a native of old Ireland she speaks without the slightest accent. In fact, she claims California as her home, because she has spent the greater part of her life on the Pacific Coast, and rather prides herself on the fact that she was in San Francisco during the turbulent days of the sand-lot agitation, mingled with the Kearneyites, participated in that memorable campaign ad spoke from the steps of the United States Mint on Fifth street, one of the favorite spots of the old agitators of those days. The cognomen "Old Mother Jones" she acquired while working in the cotton mills of the South, where she sought and obtained employment for the purpose of studying the condition of child labor in those establishments, and waged a vigorous agitation against the employment of children. On the labor question she is radical and decidedly out spoken, considering that the wage earner is the victim of numerous wrongs which must be righted. On the question of child labor and on the conditions prevailing in Colorado she speaks with considerable warmth and emphasis. Upon the latter subject, which appears to be the main topic with her, she said last evening: "You can quote me as saying that I consider the state of affairs in Colorado as a disgrace to any civilized nation in the world. I witnessed more brutality there than I conceived that any human wretch could exercise over another. You can state for me that they have done things so brutal that I am shamed to acknowledge that those things have taken place beneath the flag. I have seen our men murdered on the public highway; have seen their wives beaten, their families turned out on the roads in the dead of night by the humane companies who built churches, established Sunday-schools and sent millions abroad annually to the heathens to teach them Christianity-turned out of their own homes, not only of the shacks of the companies. It is appalling. I could not tell you of all the atrocities if I sat up here all night. The United Mine Workers have offered to arbitrate, but capital would not listen to arbitration. If military despotism is allowed to run rampant in Colorado we are facing a grave crisis in this country. I do not endorse violence, and will not work with an organization that countenances it. But I do not mean that the worker shall be a coward and not defend himself when wronged. Human life is sacred. I believe the workers have the strongest weapon in their own hands-the ballot-and I believe that the unions will win ultimately."
SOURCE San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco, California) -of May 12, 1904 Photo: "Old Mother Jones," Who Arrived in San Francisco Yesterday. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/305958/Mother-Jones (The article was accompanied by a drawing with the above caption. This photo is similar to that drawing.) ``````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````