Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1901-03-01
Mother Jones Heard.

Mother" Jones spoke last night in
the criminal court room to an audience
largely composed Of her friends, the
miners, says the Indianapolis News.
I'VE have turned today into wage
slavery, and the wall of the oppressed
has not yet been heard by the nation.
But the wall of the children is going
to rise, and it will touch the hearts of
the men and women of this nation,
and they will rise-not with bayonets
and gatling guns, but with votes. We
propose that these children Of labor,
in the mines and in the factories. sha Il
no longer be sacrificed on the altar of
corporate greed. | sometimes blush
with shame to be an American. blush
that ] live in a land where my fore
fathers fought and bled that our little
ones might have free schools and free
education. aud be fl ee men and women.
In the anthracite region thousands of
little boys we're working when the
strike came, for % or 30 cents a day.
1t was a burden for those little fellows
TO carry the ch-talked about dinner
pail. If they had had it the pail would
have touched the ground as they
walked. Stree the strike the operators
have had to advertise for breaker
boys. Why? Because the fathers got
small increase in wages, so that they
were able to send their little boys to
school We find in many OF the mining
districts through which | have passed
In the last two months, men working
ten ard eleven hours a day. and there
larc months and months that they
never see a dollar that they can call
their own. In one camp they had to
take out twenty tons of coal before
they had dollar to buy anything to
eat. 1t took twenty tons of coal to pay
for the powder, the corporation doc
tor and for the rent of the shack-it
can't be called a house-in which the
miners live-to pay for oil, for the
hospital fund, and for the sharpening
OF their tools. All this before a dollar
can come to his family. In Baltimore.
last summer, went into such store
md my purchase was sent up to be
wrapped by pale, delicate little girl,
cooped up in box. | was told that
she was 10 years old. worked from S
! said to the clerk: Give me back my
money and you keep the goods. The
proprietor came and asked If anything
was wrong. ! said there was a great
deal of wrong. and told him to take
that fragile child out OF that box on
that terrific hot day in Angus and
send her home to her mother When
! see 10000 little breaker boys, some
on crutches, picking slate, do you
wonder that there are agitators in this
country trying to array the people
against such conditions as these? In
your own state you have 900 hands out
on strike at an Evansville mill. Look
at the silk mills in Pennsylvania, with
their young girls and little boys And
we are to go and ask God to bless us,
The wonder to me is that we are not
cursed for standing by such conditions
Some people say that women have
no place speaking in public. say.
keep your children out of the mills
and factories, and put them in the
school houses. and we will stay at
home, and we'll be glad to stay at
home. Go to the ballot box and do
your duty, and we will not have to 90
away from home. We believe the
mines should be owned by the people