Mother Jones passed through Indianapolis Saturday
on the way to Washington, from Colorado.
"Mother" is looking fine; full of vim and active, as ever,
in the cause she has devoted her life to.
May she live long. We need her.
-UMW Journal
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Friday January 8, 1915
From the United Mine Workers Journal: News and Views
Today we feature some news and views gleaned from yesterday's edition of United Mine Workers Journal. The officers of District 15, who led the coal miners of Colorado through the long and difficult strike, have been re-elected. John M. O'Neil offers us some insight into the subject of anarchy which so concerns Jessie Welborn of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. And last, but certainly not least, Eugene Debs opines on the subject of "Peace on Earth."
District 15 Officers Re-elected in Colorado
Policy Committee, United Mine Workers of America; John McLennan, President District 15;
E. L. Doyle, Secretary-Treasurer District 15; John R. Lawson, International Board Member from District 15;
Frank J. Hayes, International Vice-President.
Lawson, Doyle and M'Lennon Elected
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Miners Indorse Policy of Present Officers.
Denver, Colo.
Final canvass of the vote cast for officers of District 15, United Mine Workers, has been completed by the tellers and shows that the present official staff was re-elected by overwhelming majorities, evincing the confidence reposed in their conduct of the strike by the rank and file. John McLennan, for president, had no opposition, while John R. Lawson and Edward L. Doyle, for National Board Member and Secretary-Treasurer, respectively, completely distance their competitors. A significant feature of the vote cast was election of Mike Livoda, of Trinidad, over Tom Scott, of Louisville, for Vice-President. Scott was a candidate for re-election and had a good record, but the boys on the firing line wanted to let the public know what they thought of the testimony given by Jesse F. Welborn, president of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, who said at the recent Federal industrial commission hearing in Denver that Livoda had offered to sell the operators a complete roster of union men employed in the southern mines before the strike. Livoda's election over so popular a man as Tom Scott is the answer given by the miners to this charge.
The election was held by referendum vote in the various coal camps and tent colonies of the State on December 8, and the returns canvassed last week at headquarters in Denver. Martin Black, Angelo Dandrea and Charles Hines acted as a board of tellers.
From the United Mine Workers Journal of January 7, 1915:
Who is Responsible for the Anarchy?
John M. O'Neil, in Trinidad Free Press.
John M O'Neil
During the session of the commission on industrial relations in Denver a prominent gentleman identified with the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company was summoned as a witness. It required several hours for him to present his testimony to the commission.
His statements left no one in doubt as to where he stood in the struggle between miner and operator. He is a man of ability, whose reputation has reached beyond the boundaries of the state of Colorado. It is unnecessary to be so personal as to mention his name. His statements revealed beyond every question of a doubt that his sympathies were with the corporate interests.
At the close of his testimony, however, he disclosed to the commission that he had been reading "the hand writing on the wall," and without being questioned, voluntarily admitted that there were symptoms of anarchy in this country, and that there might be a revolution.
He suggested to the commission that steps should be taken to suppress those sentiments, that might breed a rebellion. He believed that firm, intelligent action was necessary if our republic was to escape the evils which seemed to menace the institutions of this country.
We are free to confess that the prophetic vision of the gentleman can not be said to be at fault, for other men-whose ears are close to the ground have heard the rumbling of coming storm that may leave disaster in its wake.
When the gentleman stated that there were symptoms of anarchy apparent in this country, he was drawing conclusions from his observations, and men whose minds are clear and whose eyes are open, will agree with the fear expressed by the gentleman whose sympathies seem to be controlled by that element in society, who sometimes mock the agonies of the impoverished and oppressed.
When we see the countless thousands of poverty-stricken wretches in the ghettos of the large cities of this nation; when we note the condition of labor in many parts of this country; when we see manhood surrendering independence and constitutional rights; when we see virtue bidding for dishonor to appease the pangs of hunger, and when we see childhood with the lines of care written upon its brow is it any wonder that we sometimes hear of men banding together to wave the banner of anarchy in defiance of law and public peace? Is it any wonder that we sometimes hear of machines of destruction being placed in close proximity to the palatial mansions of moneyed kings and princes? Is it any wonder that we sometimes behold the columns of the press crimsoned with the deeds of men made desperate through hunger and want? Let us say with all deference to the gentle man who testified before the commission in Denver, that just as long as monopoly lives and reigns to trample in the dust the struggling victims of penury, just so long shall impoverished humanity jeopardize the safety of the oppressor.
There are two kinds of anarchy in this land of ours today—the anarchy of the rich and the anarchy of the poor.
Anarchy in broadcloth towers above the law and escapes with impunity, but anarchy in rags, the law reaches, condemns and convicts. The labor movement of this country is struggling to remove the cause which produces anarchy, and if the struggle is crowned with victory, there will be no more riots at Homestead, no more massacres at Latimer, no more bull pens in the Couer d'Alenes, no more military stockades in Cripple Creek, no more cremations at Ludlow, and never again in the history of this country will a state of this union disgrace itself by putting a Mother Jones behind the walls of a military bastile.
When strikes and lockouts silence the industrial machinery of a nation and when hunger nerves the arm of desperation to violate the law, the press, dominated by privilege, brands the striker as an outlaw, because he refuses to bow in meek submission to the will of an arrogant corporation. Branded as a demagogue and anarchist because he dares to raise his voice in protest of judicial dictums that assassinate liberty and nullify the constitution, which should be the patrimoney of every man, woman and child who live beneath the canopy of an American sky.
Branded as a disturber and an enemy to prosperity when he springs from his knees and stands upon his feet, and in the name of justice and humanity demands a remuneration for labor that will enable men and women to live above the squalor and want and wretchedness. No man or woman can be a good American citizen whose life is cramped within the narrow and contracted sphere of poverty. There may stream from the lips of eloquence the tinselry of rhetoric's most beautiful flowers in laudation of the glory that clusters around the folds of a nation's flag, but we dare to say that countless millions of flags kissing the breeze of heaven will not keep the fires of patriotism burning brightly in the homes of the people of this land, while the representatives of brawn and muscle stand upon the streets of our cities, conscious of the fact that a wife and babe are clad in rags and hungry at home.
Patriots and heroes, as a rule, are not born in hovels and garrets. Hunger and wretchedness will not protect the flag. Give to labor that justice that is due to man, and in every toiler's home that lies between the slopes of the Atlantic and Pacific, between the crystal chained lakes of the north to the gulf, at the south will be found a citizen who will be ever ready to protect the flag from insult and dishonor.
The giant corporation and the economic master may continue to point to the labor movement as the breeder of anarchy, but regardless of calumny and detraction, the principles that bring the workers together shall live, until labor shall raise the banner of industrial freedom above the ramparts of a soulless system that deifies the dollar, degrades man, makes a mockery of justice and puts the dagger of murder into every human right, that has been torn from the iron and blood stained hands of tyrants
[photograph, emphasis and paragraph break added]
Debs on War and Capitalism
Peace on Earth
(By Eugene V. Debs.)
(The hundred daily papers of the Scripps League embraced in the Newspaper Enterprise Association recently asked "the fifty most representative persons in the United States, to give their opinion—to tell in what way they think we Americans can be of most service in bringing back peace on earth and good will toward men." The following is Eugene V. Debs' contribution to the symposium:)
There has never been "Peace on earth and good will toward men" and we shall have to go forward and not backward to realize that ideal. Civilization is still in a primitive, rudimentary state. It has taken countless ages to bring us from the brute, the cave man and the savage to where we are today. The development has been painfully slow, but steady, and will continue to the farthest stretches of time.
"Thou shalt not kill" is now the law. But it applies only to individuals—not yet to nations. To slay your neighbor is murder—unless you are in uniform. But when the nation slays its neighbors and the killings amount into the thousands, it is not murder but patriotism to be proud of, glorify and rejoice over.
When shall peace come to earth? When the brute and savage shall have died in us and we have become human. In a word, peace will come to earth when humanity has been humanized, civilization civilized and Christianity christianized.
The war in Europe is a crime against civilization, but it had to come. It did not come by chance. Every war has its cause. Modern wars are between rival nations for commercial supremacy.
It is of little use to cry out against war while we tolerate a social system that breeds war.
Capitalism makes war inevitable. Capitalist nations not only exploit their workers, but ruthlessly invade, plunder and ravage one another. The profit system is responsible for it all. Abolish that, establish industrial democracy, produce for use, and the incentive to war vanishes. Until then men may talk about "Peace on earth," but it will be a myth-or sarcasm.
But there is no cause for despair. The world is awaking and we are approaching the sunrise.
We cannot stop the European war. We can and will intervene when the time comes, and do all in our power to restore peace. To end the war prematurely, were that possible, would simply mean another and perhaps even a bloodier catastrophe.
Let us show the people the true cause of war. Let us arouse a sentiment against war. Let us teach the children to abhor war.
More than forty years ago the Socialists of Europe declared:
We are against all wars, and especially against dynastic wars. With sincerest regret do we accept the unavoidable evils of a defensive war and we demand that the recurrence of such a social calamity be made impossible for all time to come by vesting in the people themselves the power to decide over war and peace.
The proposition is here made to put an end to war by democratizing war. In all the history of the world the people have never declared a war.
A constitutional amendment providing that no war shall be declared except by a vote of the people and that, as Allan Benson has suggested, if war is declared they who voted for it shall be the first to go to the front, would put an end to war forever in this country.
Woman, although the most vital factor in war and its most keenly suffering victim, has always been contemptuously ignored when war has been declared. Give woman the ballot on equal terms with man in every State of this Union and a mighty advance will have been made toward driving the horrible scourge of war from the face of the earth.
The earth is filled with its bounties; there is light in every brain and good in every heart; let us rejoice that we live at a time when old wrongs are being uprooted and new rights being proclaimed; when the night is passing and the better day is dawning, when all shall join rapturously in the divine anthem: "Peace on earth and good-will toward men."
[photograph added]
War, Who Is It Good For?
Jolly Ride for the Bayonet Trust, Armour Trust, Bullet Trust, and Bomb Trust.
United Mine Workers Journal, January 7, 1915
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SOURCE
The United Mine Workers Journal, Volume 23
Executive Board of the United Mine Workers of Americ, 1914
(search: January 7, 1915, choose p.68 & click down for articles)
http://books.google.com/...
Note: This is the same John M O'Neil who edited the Miners Magazine.
From Labor World of February 13, 1915:
The Free Press of Trinidad, edited by John M. O'Neil, formerly editor of the Western Federation of Miners' Magazine, is contemplating changing from a weekly to a daily paper. With proper support from the people of Trinidad and with brother O'Neil on the staff The Free Press would be a success as a daily.
See also:
Welborn + JayRaye
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Industrial relations: final report and testimony,Vol. 7
United States. Commission on Industrial Relations
D.C. Gov. Print. Office, 1916
(search: anarchy, & choose any-all links shown are interesting and relevant)
http://books.google.com/...
IMAGES
Policy Committee of District 15 during strike
https://archive.org/...
John M O'Neil
http://www.rebelgraphics.org/...
Note: Emma F Langdon has him incorrectly identified
as James M O'Neill, search below verifies correct name:
John M O'Neil + Western Federation of Miners
https://www.google.com/...
John M O'Neill Western Federation of Miners
https://www.google.com/...
Eugen V Debs
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
"A Jolly Ride" from United Mine Workers Journal of Jan 7, 1915
http://books.google.com/...
UMWJ Banner
http://books.google.com/...
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Rich Mans War by Steve Earle
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12:06 PM PT: As to correct spelling of John M's last name, I think this answers that question, as I doubt that, as editor, his own name would be misspelled.
Miner's Magazine
Western Federation of Miners, 1913
(search: "John M O'Neill")
https://books.google.com/...
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