CHAPTER XIV: Child Labor
I have always advised men to read. All my life I have told them to study the works of those great authors who have been interested in making this world a happier place for those who do its drudgery. When there were no strikes, I held educational meetings and after the meetings I would sell the book, “Merrie England,” which told in simple fashion of the workers’ struggle for a more abundant life.
“Boys,” I would say, “listen to me. Instead of going to the pool and gambling rooms, go up to the mountain and read this book. Sit under the trees, listen to the birds and take a lesson from those little feathered creatures who do not exploit one another, nor betray one another, nor put their own little ones to work digging worms before their time. You will hear them sing while they work. The best you can do is swear and smoke.”
I was gone from the eastern coal fields for eight years. Meanwhile I was busy, waging the old struggle in various fields. I went West and took part in the strike of the machinists of the Southern Pacific Railroad, the corporation that swung California by its golden tail, that[Pg 115] controlled its legislature, its farmers, its preachers, its workers.
Then I went to Alabama. In 1904 and ’05 there were great strikes in and around Birmingham. The workers of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad were on strike. Jay Gould owned the railroad and thought he owned the workers along with the ties and locomotives and rolling stock. The miners struck in sympathy. These widespread strikes were part of the American Railway Union strike, led by Eugene Debs, a railway worker.
One day the governor called Douglas Wilson, the chairman of the strike committee, to his office. He said, “You call this strike off immediately.
The governor knew then he had a fight on, for Douglas was a heroic fighter; a fine, open character whom the governor himself respected.
The militia were called out. There was a long drawn out fight. I was forbidden to leave town without permit, forbidden to hold meetings. Nevertheless I slipped through the ranks of the soldiers without their knowing who I was—just[Pg 116] an old woman going to a missionary meeting to knit mittens for the heathen of Africa!
I went down to Rockton, a mining camp, with William Malley and held a meeting.
Coming back on the train the conductor recognized me.
“Mother Jones,” he said, “did you hold a meeting in Rockton?”
“I certainly did,” said I.
He reported me to the general manager and there was hell to pay but I kept right on with my agitation. The strike dragged on. Debs was put in jail. The leaders were prosecuted. At last the strike was called off. I was in Birmingham.
Debs was on his way north after being released from jail and the local union arranged a public meeting for him. We rented the opera house and advertised the meeting widely. He was to speak Sunday evening. Sunday afternoon the committee were served with an injunction, prohibiting the meeting. The owner of t