The Autobiography of Mother Jones | Page 8

said Mr. Wilson.
Three men entered. They looked at me uneasily and Mr. Wilson asked
me to step in an adjoining room. They talked the strike over and called
President Wilson's attention to the fact that there were mortgages on his
little home, held by the bank which was owned by the coal company,
and they said, "We will take the mortgage off your home and give you
$25,000 in cash if you will just leave and let the strike die out."
I shall never forget his reply:
"Gentlemen, if you come to visit my family, the hospitality of the
whole house is yours. But if you come to bribe me with dollars to
betray my manhood and my brothers who trust me, I want you to leave
this door and never come here again."

The strike lasted a few weeks longer. Meantime President Wilson,
when strikers were evicted, cleaned out his barn and took care of the
evicted miners until homes could be provided. One by one he killed his
chickens and his hogs. Everything that he had he shared. He ate dry
bread and drank chicory. He knew every hardship that the rank and file
of the organization knew. We do not have such leaders now.
The last of February the company put up a notice that all demands were
conceded. "Did you get the use of the hall for us to hold meetings?"
said the women.
"No, we didn't ask for that."
"Then the strike is on again," said they.
They got the hall, and when the President, Mr. Wilson, returned from
the convention in Cincinnati he shed tears of joy and gratitude.
I was going to leave for the central fields, and before I left, the union
held a victory meeting in Bloomsburg. The women came for miles in a
raging snow storm for that meeting, little children trailing on their
skirts, and babies under their shawls. Many of the miners had walked
miles. It was one night of real joy and a great celebration. I bade them
all good night. A little boy called out, "Don't leave us, Mother. Don't
leave us!" The dear little children kissed my hands. We spent the whole
night in Bloomsburg rejoicing. The men opened a few of the freight
cars out on a siding and helped themselves to boxes of beer. Old and
young talked and sang all night long and to the credit of the company
no one was interfered with.
Those were the days before the extensive use of gun men, of military,
of jails, of police clubs. There had been no bloodshed. There had been
no riots. And the victory was due to the army of women with their
mops and brooms.
A year afterward they celebrated the anniversary of the victory. They
presented me with a gold watch but I declined to accept it, for I felt it
was the price of the bread of the little children. I have not been in Arnot

since but in my travels over the country I often meet the men and boys
who carried through the strike so heroically.
CHAPTER VI
- WAR IN WEST VIRGINIA
One night I went with an organizer named Scott to a mining town in the
Fairmont district where the miners had asked me to hold a meeting.
When we got off the car I asked Scott where I was to speak and he
pointed to a frame building. We walked in. There were lighted candles
on an altar. I looked around in the dim light. We were in a church and
the benches were filled with miners.
Outside the railing of the altar was a table. At one end sat the priest
with the money of the union in his hands. The president of the local
union sat at the other end of the table. I marched down the aisle.
"What's going on?" I asked.
"Holding a meeting," said the president.
"What for?"
"For the union, Mother. We rented the church for our meetings."
I reached over and took the money from priest. Then I turned to the
miners.
"Boys," I said, "this is a praying institution. You should not
commercialize it. Get up every one of you and go out in the open
fields."
They got up and went out and sat around a field while I spoke to them.
The sheriff was there and he did not allow any traffic to go along the
road while I was speaking. In front of us was a schoolhouse. I pointed
to it and I said, "Your ancestors fought for you to have a share in that
institution over there. It's yours. See the school board, and every Friday

night hold your meetings there. Have your wives clean it up Saturday
morning for the children to