The Autobiography of Mother Jones | Page 9

enter Monday. Your organization is not a
praying institution. It's a fighting institution. It's an educational
institution along industrial lines. Pray for the dead and fight like hell
for the living!"
Tom Haggerty was in charge of the Fairmont field. One Sunday
morning, the striking miners of Clarksburg started on a march to
Mononglia get out the miners in the camps along the way. We camped
in the open fields and held meetings on the road sides and in barns,
preaching the gospel of unionism. The Consolidated Coal Company
that owns the little town of New England forbade the distribution of the
notices of our meeting and arrested any one found with a notice. But
we got the news around. Several of our men went into the camp. They
went in twos. One pretended he was deaf and the other kept hollering in
his ear as they walked around, "Mother Jones is going to have a
meeting Sunday afternoon outside the town on the sawdust pile." Then
the deaf fellow would ask him what he said and he would holler to him
again. So the word got around the entire camp and we had a big crowd.
When the meeting adjourned, three miners and myself set out for
Fairmont City. The miners, Jo Battley, Charlie Blakelet and Barney
Rice walked but they got a little boy with a horse and buggy to drive
me over. I was to wait for the boys just outside the town, across the
bridge, just where the interurban car comes along. The little lad and I
drove along. It was dark when we came in sight of the bridge which I
had to cross. A dark building stood beside the bridge. It was the Coal
Company's store. It was guarded by gunmen. There was no light on the
bridge and there was none in the store. A gunman stopped us. I could
not see his face. "who are you!" said he. "Mother Jones," said I, "and a
miner's lad." "So that's you, Mother Jones," said he rattling his gun.
"Yes, it's me I said, " and be sure you take care of the store tonight.
Tomorrow I'll have to be hunting a new job for you." I got out of the
buggy where the road joins the Interurban tracks, just across the bridge.
I sent the lad home. "When you pass my boys on the road tell them to
hurry up. Tell them I'm waiting just across the bridge." There wasn't a
house in sight. The only people near were the gunmen whose dark
figures I could now and then see moving on the bridge. It grew very

dark. I sat on the ground, waiting. I took out my watch, lighted a match
and saw that it was about time for the interurban. Suddenly the sound
of "Murder! Murder! Police! Help!" rang out through the darkness.
Then the sound of running and Barney Rice came screaming across the
bridge toward me. Blakley followed, running so fast his heels hit the
back of his head. "Murder! Murder!" he was yelling. I rushed toward
them. "Where's Jo?" I asked. "They're killing Jo-on the bridge --the
gunmen." At that moment the Interurban car came in sight. It would
stop at the bridge. I thought of a scheme. I ran onto the bridge, shouting,
"Jo! Jo! The boys are coming. They're coming! The whole bunch's
coming. The car's most here!" Those bloodhounds for the coal
company thought an army of miners was in the Interurban car. They ran
for cover, barricading themselves in the company's store. They left Jo
on the bridge, his head broken and the blood pouring from him. I tore
my petticoat into strips, bandaged his head, helped the boys to get him
on to the Interurban car, and hurried the car into Fairmont City. We
took him to the hotel and sent for a doctor who sewed up the great,
open cuts in his head. I sat up all night and nursed the poor fellow. He
was out of his head and thought I was his mother. The next night Tom
Haggerty and I addressed the union meeting, telling them just what had
happened. The men wanted to go clean up the gunmen but I told them
that would only make more trouble. The meeting adjourned in a body
to go see Jo. They went to his room, six or eight of them at a time,
Until they had all seen him.
We tried to get a warrant out for the arrest of the gunmen but we
couldn't because the coal company controlled the judges and the courts.
Jo was not the only man who was beaten by the gunmen. There were
many and the brutalities of these bloodhounds would fill volumes. In
Clarksburg, men were