Newark leader. ([Newark, Ohio]) 1917-1946, 1921-09-23
MOTHER JONES
REMARKABLE LABOR CHAMPION
STILL ACTIVE
The Vigorous Old Veteran, Whose Ac-
tivities Antedate the Miners Union
On Hand to Assist in the
MingO County Fight
(By Federated Press)

Charleston, w. Va.-Mother Jones
went to Mingo county where the de-
tenders of Matewan are on trial for
their lives She will aid in the fight
for the accused workers and will
testify before the Senate Investi-
eating Committee in Williamson.
ran into the vigorous old veteran of
ninety-two years in the office of one
of the Charleston attorneys for the
Miners Union.
"Well, what have you found out
about the country, young man." she
asked.
/ told her about the airplane bomb
ing of miners villages and expressed
my amazement that such things could
happen in America.
Mother Jones looked at me in sur
prise:
"Don't you know where you are ?"
she said; "this is the place where they
have ben numbering men and women
since labor first began taking coal
out of the ground in West Virginia
Don't be surprised at anything that
happens in West Virginia"
This strong voiced old woman who
had taken part in the organization
battles of this state for twenty-five
years, from before there was miners
union here on through the sufferings
of the 1902 strike, the desperate fight
ing of Cabin and Paint Creek, she
seemed to take the brutalities of the
thug system here as just part of the
| fight.
"But what is to be done, Mother ?"
| asked; "the miners have fought
courageously all along, but what is
the next big move for West Virginia
labor to make ?"
'To get together" she said; "they
must get together, all the workers.
Not just he miners, but the rest with
them. A terrible thing has happened
in West Virginia these last few days.
Union railroad men have been carry
ing gunmen and machine guns that
were going to shoot union miners.
That is terrible thing for working
men to do against each other. told
the engineer who brought me down
here from Washington that the miners
would win every strike if he and the
other railroad men would carry no
scab coal. Every scab mine in West
Virginia would have to turn into a
union mine then. And told hime that
the railroad men would win their own
demands easily if they had the back
ing of the rest of labor, with the
miners giving no coal for scab trains
"Some progress has been made in
this state," she went on. 81 remem-
Der the time when we tramped the
ties without a miners union hall in
the state or hardly a friend. Those
were the days when the miners work
ed IL and IA hours a day anc
boys went underground at the age Of
nine. Now two-thirds of the miners
of this state are organized and work
eight hours instead of twelve anC
fourteen, and they buy their stuff
with money instead of company
script"
Mother Jones does not think thai
the hellish conditions in the five south
west counties of West Virginia where
the "thug-system" prevails are going
to be remedied in day, nor to bt
settled merely by Senatorial investi
cation. She believes in aggressive
action against those "blood- thirst!
murderers who shoot up workers
homes" However, she is going int
the Senatorial sittings in Ming'
county determined to get thorough
going airing to the conditions she i
so we'll acquainted with.