In Memoria Verborum Ferarum et Mirabilium: Recommended Reading March '24
Socialism Sunday #004 meets this month's Recommended Reading in honor of Mother Jones.
In Remembrance of Words Wild and Wonderful — for Mother Jones. . .
I imagine it may be impossible to truly know how deeply Mother Jones’ fight for the socialist cause means for someone who grew, as a person, in her wake. Ever in debt to her pursuit of justice, I find myself at a complete loss for words when I think of my family; of my grandmother who still lives in one of Southwestern Pennsylvania’s many coal-counties, God bless her. I will never by the Grace of God forget her stories of picking up spare bits of coal that had fallen off the trains, and the looming fear she felt as a result since such acts were against the law.
Why then, did she and the rest of our family continue to pick up the coal?
Hanging in my grandmother’s spare bedroom is this strange metal device which looks like an oversized frying pan with an extra long handle and a lid. My grandmother would often speak of the days when, in the Appalachian winters, they would heat the coal that had been gathered by the train tracks and place it in the “pans” before slipping it under the bed covers at night so as to keep warm. These pitiful and few lumps of coal, which I remember gathering myself for the summertime grills, was stolen in the eyes of the law.
It is for us that Mother Jones fought, and it is us that will remember her for as long as the good Lord allows.
Having spent a significant portion of my childhood in the wild and wonderful Appalachian Mountains, Mother Jones has a special place in my heart. Her words echo the matter-of-fact yet deeply emotional speech of a childhood spent under the sun-like lights of a coal mine at night.
“I explained to the audience that I had been on the firing line of the industrial battle for years, and that democratic bullets shot workingmen, and their blood had watered the highways just the same as when republican bullets shot them.”
This piece, taken from Appeal to Reason No. 568, was published on October 20, 1906. The sentiments, however, hold as much relevance and weight today as they did then, especially in light of the upcoming US presidential election. In Message from Oklahoma, Mother Jones effectively shreds the fraudulent difference between America’s democratic and republican parties by recounting a public statement she’d made in a meeting regarding a potential nominee for the US Senate. If a man or woman could have been worded any better, I can’t imagine how.
The Autobiography of Mother Jones
“The company put a woman on the stand. She testified that I had told the miners to go into the mines and throw out the scabs. She was a poor skinny woman with scared eyes and she wore her best dress, as if she were in church. I looked at the miserable slave of the coal company and I felt sorry for her: sorry that there was a creature so low who would perjure herself for a handful of coppers. I was put on the stand and the judge asked me if I gave that advice to the miners, told them to use violence.”
I can attest to the continued existence of many such individuals who, in the fight for their own survival and, despite their sweat and blood-stained efforts, have betrayed their class and their ancestry. Socialism, as a Christian ideology, does not hold this against such persons. Instead of attacking the weak as the capitalists and imperialists do, we find and have found the root of the rotten tree. We know where to spray the pesticides as much now as we did then, although we have lost much of our motivation.
Progress in Spite of Leaders: Mother Jones as an Advocate for True Femininity
“I am not a suffragist nor do I believe in “careers” for women, especially a “career” in factory and mill where most working women have their “careers.” A great responsibility rests upon women-the training of the children This is her most beautiful task. If men earned money enough, it would not be necessary for women to neglect their homes and their little ones to add to the family’s income.”
The capitalist propulsion of modern “feminism” is perhaps one of the most detrimental and fundamental ails plaguing Western society. Forcing women into the most brutal conditions has nothing at all to do with liberation or respect but rather is a key instrument of the dehumanization which lay, burning, at the heart of modern society. Mother Jones knew this, as every thoughtful victim of capitalism knows it today - men and women alike.
Yours for the Revolution,
M. Shultz — the Shultz Report