The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1913-07-06
Labor Leader, Beloved
Among Coal Miners, Tells
Of Conditions in West Vir-
ginia and of Her Convic-
ton at Court-martial.

ship than in thug-economics: either one
VIII breed the other; they are brothers.
I am neither Socialist nor Anarchist; l
decry them BOTH and. naturely. In de-
CRYING them. I must decry their causes,
Note this: The well-fed man VIII
never knock another down to steal his
dinner
Mote this, also: The violent employer
and the violent employee both need curb
ing"
A white-haired old woman in hotel
room said these things and thus dazed
me, for 1 had gone there with eyes ready
for the blood-red flag.
Instead I got calm sociology, inter-
spersed with humor which I shall not
make an effort to transcribe because II
woul6 SO lose in telling: had expected
much incendiary talk in uncouth Eng
lish and found an educated woman, care
full Of her speech and sentiments. II she
had a red ia with her she kept it in
her sat>lel With her comb and brush
and powder pun. She has powder puff
- That, too, astonished me.
During the morning not a labor leader
came to see her. but among her visitors
were three semi-famous writer's for high
class periodicals. bent not on business,
but wholly social calls: woman author
of Importance; a widely celebrated wom-
an student of the economic problems of
the time.
Curiosity was not behind the visit
of any one of these. All were a little
more than friends, for all called her
mother" with affection. Indeed, the
handsome, well-dressed carefully
spoken. hospitable. smiling. sympathet-
ic. seventy-year-old woman who re-
ceived them and myself was none other
than that Mother" Jones. widely her
aided as the gray-haired virago of the
Virginia IA Lab
leader who was held a captive in what
was called the 'bull-pen" on the theory
that this was necessary for the safety
Of society.
Hus Been Prisoner.
never saw her lead a strike: I
have been told that she does so with
force amounting to incendiarism. After
two visits to her, aggregating quite
len hours, / should as much expect her
10 be violent as to see a matron at a
charity ball spring into anarchistic
action
Which indicates that she is an ex-
traordinary character. 1t is a fact
that her name has held State in ter
ror. that the mine owners declare her
as their strongest foe, that within the
held her prisoner behind the shining
I steel of bayonets.
Only when we talked about the West
Virginia situation did she show the
slightest tendency to step down from
ner calmly judicial. somewhat scholar
ly attitude. She called some West
Virginian capitalists rather mildly
critical names; denounced the West
Ffrginian industrial system as a def
mite infamy; told sad stories of its
women and its children victims. but
even as she told of fighting and her
willingness to fight. in certain cir
cumstances. she declared that fighting
is unnecessary and that the men and
bosses ought to get together for the
common good. each make some con-
:eessions. and go on about their bust
ness like. calm cooperating, reason
able human beings
There obviously is a Mother Jones
other than this extraordinary and wholly
T, unexpected one whom met at the Union
Square Hotel in New York City: but as
long as this one was then SO definitely
in evidence and based the arguments
which she set forth on an experience in
the midst of labor turbulence undoubted-
ly unprecedented for a woman. what she
saws may be considered worth reading.
II she be. in truth, a Doctress Jekyll-
Mrs. HYDE, she is wonderful in her
black silk. her carefully dressed. silvery
hair. her silk stockings. and neat pumps.
as stevenson male OOuDtet Is between
the covers of his book.
My husband died of yellow fever in
the South" said she, land the same dis
ease made other widows by the tens of
thousands. II is making no more wild
ows, because We now have mastered il.
The world is suffering, today. from an
Industrial yellow fever. not less fatat,
out, am certain. as preventable-
Cure for New Disease.
We have applied to the economic dis
ease which has distressed us all manner
of remedies. all unintelligent Students
have delved widely. but wrongly in the
main, in their search for causes. Each
has devised his remedy: most remedies
have failed because they did not touch
the cause Some remedies have succeed
ed; they got at the cause.
Il thoroughly believe that in the not
far distant future an era Of industrial
peace is waiting; We shall overtake it.
Real education is all We need to help us
find it. / hate the anarchist, be he in
the mine-breast with his pick against
the coal or in the national bank with his
hands upon the combination of the vault.
There are many in both places; but they
are growing fewer.
We cannot be a law unto ourselves n
this world. We must think Of Others,
and the others, the majority, will ults-
rnarely make all law. Inc equality.
which is the ideal of this country, Of
course is nearer now than ever, and such
situations as that which now exists in
West Virginia are the exceptions which
unauestionably prove the rule. That is
the sort of medievalism which Is as
abhorent to the intelligent employer as 1t
is to the suffering miner. The employers
suffer from it. too: they are as unhappy
as their men are. But they do not under
stand 1t is an extraordinary spectacle
Il have as little patience with the
workingman who cries that all employers
are hard-hearted wretches as I have with
the employer who declares all working
men to be mere brutes who must be
managed or ground into the dust. For
the dynamiter among labormen I have as
little sympathy as for the mill-owner VINO
works children at his looms fourteen
hours each day.
Thousands of employers are feeling
around for the way out of all this mud
die: some of them are finding II and
walking on 1t. II the workingmen were
not as reasonable and progressive in most
places the United States would be in pow
srty instead of riches, But, in order TO
De fair we must remember this: The
average employer has had a better chance
than the average worker to learn econo-
mic wisdom.
Some representatives Of the employ
ing class are wise today. Golden Rule
Jones, the present Mayor of Toledo. IL
n xriea Gov Ua;x - In