WEBVTT

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I know you came

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to hear about the violence
at Blair Mountain.

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I will get to that.

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But I have traveled
a great distance as well,

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and there is more you need to know.

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There is a war between the classes.

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I've been present in that war

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for half a century,

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all across the country.

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You won't read about these battles
in your history books

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or about the price
that has been paid

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for justice,

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for human dignity.

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I'm going to tell you a bigger story,

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what led to the violence
at Blair Mountain

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and continues today.

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Years ago,

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one of my first big strikes,

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I organized an army of women.

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A strike had been going on
in the coalfields five months,

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the men badly discouraged

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because the company had started
to bring in strikebreakers.

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Scabs, we called them.

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In those days, coal was everything.
Without coal,

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homes went cold.

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Factories shut down.

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Trains stood still.

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A half a million men mined coal,

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and they were some of the most
exploited workers in America.

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Until the union.

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So I come into this strike
six months in,

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and I tell the men, you stay home
with the children for a change.

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You let your wives
attend to the scabs.

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On a given day the women were
to bring their mops, brooms,

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and they would charge the scabs

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up at the mines.

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That was my army.

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I always tell women,

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no matter what
the fight, just don't be ladylike.

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God Almighty made women.

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It's the Rockefeller gang of
thieves that made ladies.

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The sheriff, the general manager,
the corporate hirelings,

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they all heard of our plan.
They were on hand.

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The day came.

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The women came with
their mops and their brooms.

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I chose as leader

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an Irish woman who had
a most picturesque appearance.

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She had slept late that morning

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and her husband told her hurry up,
get into the army.

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She grabbed a red petticoat
and she slipped it over

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her thick cotton nightgown.

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She had on a black stocking
and a white one.

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She had tied a little red fringe
shawl over her wild red hair.

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Her face was red
and her eyes were mad.

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I looked at her and I thought,
she could raise a rumpus.

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You lead the army up to the drift mouth.

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You take that old tin dishpan
you have and your hammer,

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and when the scabs
come up from the mines

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you begin to hammer and howl.

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Don't be afraid of anyone.

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Up the mountainside,

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yelling, hollering,
she led those women.

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And when the scabs came up with the
mules and the coal, she began beating

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on that tin dishpan and hollering,
and the whole army joined in with her.

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And the sheriff
tapped her on the shoulder.

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My dear lady, said he, remember
the mules, don't frighten them.

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Well, she took that tin dishpan

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and she hit him with it.

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To hell with you and the mules!

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And he fell over
and dropped into the creek.

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And then the mules began to rebel,
and they bucked

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and they kicked the scab drivers,

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started off for the barn, and the scabs
started running down the hill

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followed by the whole army of women
with their mops and brooms.

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From that day on,
the women kept continual

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watch to see that
the company did not bring in scabs.

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Every day, women with a mop or a broom
in one hand, a baby in the other arm,

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stood to see that no one came in,

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and all night long they kept this watch.

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They were all living on
dry bread, black coffee,

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sleeping in rooms that never saw fire,

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often waking in the morning to find snow

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covering the outside of their beds.

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It was terrible hardship
for those families, but they won.

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They won their strike,

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and the victory was due
to an army of women

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with mops and brooms.

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I like drama.

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I don't even mind a good fight.

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I don't like violence.

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I've seen too many deaths
to be romantic about it.

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Mark Twain called this time

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the Gilded Age.

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Not the Golden Age, no.

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This was rot plated with gold.

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We were fighting Rockefeller,

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Morgan, Carnegie,
that whole gang of thieves.

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They owned the mines,
the mills, the railroads,

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the banks that made it all run.

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They called themselves
the Captains of Industry.

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We called them Robber Barons

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because they built their fortunes on
the backs of desperate working people,

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even reaching into cradles,
pulling children into the factories.

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Two million children
worked the mills

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and the breakers.

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Child labor is docile.

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It doesn't strike.

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There are no labor troubles.

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I went to Cottondale, Alabama,

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to help expose the truth
about child labor.

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I applied for work in a cotton mill and
the manager said he had nothing for me.

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Unless I had children,
that would work also.

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Oh, yes, sir, there are six of us.

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I just came on ahead to see what
chances there were for getting work.

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Fine, he said.

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He was so enthusiastic,
he went with me to find

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a house to rent.

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I was given work in the factory,

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and it was there I saw

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the silent little ones.

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Little girls

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and boys,

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barefoot, walking up and down

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amongst endless rows of spindles,

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reaching their thin little hands
into the machinery

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to repair snapped threads,

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crawling under the machinery to fix it.

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Tiny babies, six years old,

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with faces of 60
doing ten hour shifts,

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ten cents a day.

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I brought you

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pictures of them.

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5:30 in the morn,

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long lines of little gray children

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would come out of the early dawn,
into the factory,

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into the maddening noise,

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the lint-filled rooms.

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Outside, the birds sang.

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The blue sky shone.

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At lunch half hour,

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the children would fall asleep
over their cornbread and salt pork.

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They would lay on the bare floors

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and sleep.

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Sleep was their recreation.

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Their release.

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My children not arriving,
the manager grew suspicious.

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I left Cottondale,

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went to Tuscaloosa,
where I got work in a rope factory.

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This also run by child labor,
the lint heavy,

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the children crawling in and about

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under this dangerous machinery.

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Sometimes their hands
were snapped off.

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I worked the night shift
with these little ones.

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Six in the evening
till six come morn.

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And on our way home, we’d
pass the long lines of little children

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with their dinner pails
coming in for the day shift.

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They’d die of pneumonia,
these little ones.

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Of bronchitis,

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consumption.

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Oh but the birthrate,
like the dividends, is high.

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There's always another little hand
to repair a snapped thread

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when a child worker dies.

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Who is responsible?

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Years, years later,

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in Kensington, Pennsylvania,

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75,000 textile workers
went out on strike.

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Of this number,
over 16,000 were children.

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Every day the children would
come into union headquarters,

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some with their fingers off, some...

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They were, they were all stooped
little things, round shouldered, skinny,

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most of them not 10 years of age.

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I asked the newspapermen,

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why don't you publish the facts
about child labor in Pennsylvania?

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And they said, we can't,
because the mill owners

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have stock in the papers.

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Well I have stock
in these little children, said I.

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I'll arrange a little publicity.

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I decided the children
and I would go on a march.

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They carried knapsacks on their backs

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with a knife, a fork,
a tin cup, a plate.

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We took along this big wash boiler
in which to cook our food.

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Some of the boys dressed
as Revolutionary War soldiers,

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and carried flags,
and others carried placards.

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Less hospital, more school!

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We want to play!

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One little fella had a fife,
another had a drum.

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That was our band.

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We had all the spirit
of the colonial army.

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I have a picture of them.

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And we started in Philadelphia.

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We were going to march all the way

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to Long Island to see
President Theodore Roosevelt,

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to ask him to have
Congress pass a law

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prohibiting the exploitation
of childhood.

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The children were so happy,
they had plenty to eat.

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They took baths in the streams
and the rivers each day.

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The trainsmen would stop the trains

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and give us free rides.

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Farmers rode out to meet us with
wagons full of fruits and vegetables.

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We held meetings in

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towns and cities all along the way.

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In one place, the mayor said
we couldn't have a meeting

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because he didn't have
sufficient police protection.

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Oh, your honor, said I.

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These little children have never known
any sort of protection.

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They're used to going without it.

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He let us have our meeting.

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And in Princeton,

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I asked the mayor for permission
to speak opposite

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the campus of the big university,
and he gave it.

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Here is a textbook on economics, I said,

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pointing to little James Ashworth,

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who was 10 and stooped over
like an old man from carrying

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bundles of yarn
that weighed 75 pounds.

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He gets three dollars a week
working in a carpet factory

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10 hours a day, 6 days a week.

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We are told that every American boy

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has the chance of becoming president.

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I tell you, these little boys
would sell their chances any day

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for good square meals,

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a chance to play.

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The trouble is,
no one in Washington cares.

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I watched our legislators in one hour

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pass three bills
for the relief of the railways.

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But when labor cries for aid,
they don't listen.

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I asked a man in prison once

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how he happened to be there,
and he said he'd stolen a pair of shoes.

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I told him if he had stolen a railroad,
he might have been

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a United States senator.

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We created quite a stir
in Princeton.

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We trooped into New York,

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held meetings for thousands
and thousands.

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Finally,

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we marched out to Oyster Bay.

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We went right up
to the President's gate,

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and he was in.

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But he refused to see us.

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He was on vacation,

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we were told.

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McKinley, Taft, Wilson, Coolidge.

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They all had time for Mother Jones.

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Not Teddy,

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the Trust Buster.

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We lost the strike,

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these children
all driven back to the mills.

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But our little troop had done its job.

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We'd been written up in all the papers.

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We had drawn the attention of the nation
to the crime of child labor.

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And the next year,
the Pennsylvania legislature

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passed a child labor law
that sent thousands of these children

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home from the mills,
and kept thousands of others

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from entering factories
until they were 14 years of age.

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Struggle and lose.

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Struggle and win.

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That's the story down
the stairway of the ages.

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This was a time

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of great upheaval in our nation.

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There were strikes all over the country
because men were not earning

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a living wage.

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Immigrants were pouring in.

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They’d work cheap.

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Blacks were looking for work now.

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I would say to the men,
you stop finding fault with one another!

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Bury your personalities!

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Join hands!

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Fight this battle together!

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One of the best fellows we have
is the black man.

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He knows what liberty is.

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He knows that bloodhounds
chased his father

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over the mountains
and tore him to pieces.

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He prizes his liberty

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and he's willing to fight for it.

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Skin color is an accident.

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Besides, if you all work long enough

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for these coal companies,
you won't have any skin about you.

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For every ton of coal you dig,
so much is taken out

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to hire professional murderers
to keep you in subjection.

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And you pay for it.

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You stand about like cowards,
chewing your scab tobacco.

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You let the mine owners rob you,

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you send your own underaged kids
to work in the mills,

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and then you go about shaking your
rotten heads without a thing inside.

00:19:28.792 --> 00:19:32.296
Stop bickering with one another!

00:19:32.671 --> 00:19:33.881
Be men!

00:19:33.881 --> 00:19:37.926
Let Capital know it!

00:19:41.138 --> 00:19:43.223
I'm not a sweet old granny.

00:19:44.516 --> 00:19:46.435
It's just the outfit.

00:19:47.019 --> 00:19:49.271
When I told my boys to fight,

00:19:49.271 --> 00:19:52.149
they caught the spirit.

00:19:52.357 --> 00:19:56.820
And when I told them they ought
to be ashamed, they often were.

00:19:57.362 --> 00:20:00.657
I wanted them conscious of their dignity

00:20:00.866 --> 00:20:04.286
and their rights.

00:20:18.133 --> 00:20:22.304
I could always summon
a good lesson.

00:20:22.512 --> 00:20:27.434
I was a teacher long before
I was an organizer.

00:20:28.018 --> 00:20:30.604
I didn't start organizing

00:20:31.146 --> 00:20:36.235
till the second half of my life,

00:20:36.235 --> 00:20:39.821
after the Great Chicago Fire.

00:20:43.575 --> 00:20:46.078
I'd lost everything.

00:20:46.328 --> 00:20:47.663
Many of us had.

00:20:47.663 --> 00:20:51.500
A hundred thousand
of us were left homeless,

00:20:52.793 --> 00:20:56.004
standing in that Great Lake
with embers

00:20:56.004 --> 00:21:00.676
falling all around us.

00:21:00.676 --> 00:21:05.055
I camped out at St. Mary's Church
with other refugees.

00:21:05.055 --> 00:21:11.019
And nearby, in an old tumbledown
fire-scorched building,

00:21:11.645 --> 00:21:15.732
The Knights of Labor were holding
meetings.

00:21:16.024 --> 00:21:22.614
It was there I'd spend my evenings,
listening to splendid speakers.

00:21:23.532 --> 00:21:25.951
I learned about the
rights of workers,

00:21:27.494 --> 00:21:29.037
the suffering of families

00:21:29.037 --> 00:21:32.207
all over the country.

00:21:32.708 --> 00:21:34.918
I learned, finally,

00:21:36.086 --> 00:21:38.046
that poverty

00:21:38.380 --> 00:21:40.299
was not a sin,

00:21:40.674 --> 00:21:44.136
nor wealth a reward
for moral goodness.

00:21:45.762 --> 00:21:48.098
In the ashes of that

00:21:48.098 --> 00:21:51.560
burned-down city
I began to find my calling.

00:21:53.145 --> 00:21:55.605
I joined The Knights of Labor.

00:21:55.605 --> 00:22:00.110
I gave myself wholly to the cause.

00:22:01.862 --> 00:22:04.656
Those were the days of sacrifice
for the cause.

00:22:05.073 --> 00:22:08.118
There were no union halls,
high salaried officers.

00:22:08.285 --> 00:22:11.330
Those were the days of the martyrs

00:22:12.831 --> 00:22:15.709
and the saints.

00:22:16.960 --> 00:22:19.421
Oh, don't get me wrong.

00:22:19.421 --> 00:22:22.674
I know unions are institutions

00:22:22.674 --> 00:22:26.887
and like all institutions,
they're ripe for corruption.

00:22:26.887 --> 00:22:30.098
You get a man more interested
in his own advancement,

00:22:30.098 --> 00:22:31.933
he'll sell out the rank and file.

00:22:31.933 --> 00:22:32.768
I know.

00:22:34.061 --> 00:22:37.898
I dealt with many of them in my time.

00:22:39.441 --> 00:22:40.233
But you don't

00:22:41.360 --> 00:22:43.612
throw the baby out
with the bathwater.

00:22:44.112 --> 00:22:47.115
You just clean house.

00:22:49.451 --> 00:22:51.244
Speaking of which,

00:22:51.286 --> 00:22:53.663
there were very few women organizers.

00:22:55.332 --> 00:22:59.252
It was clear
I had a knack for hellraising.

00:23:01.099 --> 00:23:02.172
I put those up for you.

00:23:03.632 --> 00:23:09.054
The most dangerous woman in America.

00:23:09.054 --> 00:23:11.556
She had force, she had wit,

00:23:12.224 --> 00:23:15.018
she was the walking wrath of God.

00:23:16.728 --> 00:23:20.399
That's a lot to live up to.

00:23:30.158 --> 00:23:33.453
I'm from Cork, Ireland.

00:23:37.332 --> 00:23:40.752
Before I was 10
came the Potato Famine,

00:23:42.087 --> 00:23:43.255
the Great Hunger.

00:23:44.756 --> 00:23:49.970
A million people died
of starvation and disease.

00:23:50.887 --> 00:23:53.348
Another million left the country.

00:23:54.266 --> 00:23:56.518
We were among the
lucky ones who got out,

00:23:56.518 --> 00:23:58.770
who got passage to America.

00:24:00.397 --> 00:24:04.776
My father and eldest brother
came first.

00:24:05.360 --> 00:24:07.487
They worked for railroad
construction crews

00:24:07.487 --> 00:24:10.824
that took them to Toronto.

00:24:10.824 --> 00:24:12.367
As soon as they earned enough,

00:24:12.367 --> 00:24:15.120
they sent for us.

00:24:17.497 --> 00:24:19.833
I went to school to become a teacher,

00:24:20.292 --> 00:24:24.713
but dressmaking too
I learned proficiently.

00:24:25.005 --> 00:24:29.926
My first job was teaching at a convent
in Monroe, Michigan.

00:24:31.428 --> 00:24:33.597
I didn't stay long.

00:24:34.014 --> 00:24:38.143
Went briefly to Chicago,
went into dressmaking

00:24:38.143 --> 00:24:40.770
until another teaching position

00:24:41.563 --> 00:24:43.815
became open in Memphis.

00:24:47.110 --> 00:24:47.611
Memphis.

00:24:47.611 --> 00:24:52.407
It was a lively
Mississippi River port.

00:24:52.699 --> 00:24:56.119
It was the fastest
growing city in the south,

00:24:57.621 --> 00:25:00.790
and there were lots of Irish.

00:25:00.790 --> 00:25:04.377
It was there I met my husband,

00:25:04.377 --> 00:25:07.631
George Jones.

00:25:08.798 --> 00:25:11.718
My husband was an iron molder,

00:25:11.718 --> 00:25:14.554
a staunch member of the
Iron Molders Union.

00:25:15.722 --> 00:25:17.766
It was from him

00:25:17.766 --> 00:25:23.605
I learned the dignity of labor.

00:25:24.397 --> 00:25:26.900
We lived in Memphis
through the Civil War,

00:25:28.068 --> 00:25:32.989
the Emancipation, the federal
occupation, the race riots.

00:25:34.741 --> 00:25:36.952
I really had no idea
when I moved there

00:25:36.952 --> 00:25:40.539
that the country was
about to explode.

00:25:40.539 --> 00:25:44.543
We had four little children
right in a row.

00:25:44.876 --> 00:25:46.897
The Irish way.

00:25:49.056 --> 00:25:52.901
Catharine, Elizabeth,
Terrance, and Mary.

00:25:53.635 --> 00:25:55.595
We lived in the poorest
section of town.

00:25:55.595 --> 00:25:58.348
It was all Irish and blacks.

00:25:58.348 --> 00:26:00.017
Our district lay between two

00:26:00.018 --> 00:26:04.813
branches of the bayou, it was
stagnant in the summer

00:26:04.813 --> 00:26:06.815
and often flooded
in the rainy season.

00:26:06.815 --> 00:26:11.278
It was a breeding ground
for disease.

00:26:24.040 --> 00:26:27.669
Six months after Mary was born,

00:26:27.669 --> 00:26:29.754
yellow fever swept the city.

00:26:31.006 --> 00:26:32.882
Its victims

00:26:32.882 --> 00:26:35.260
were mainly among the poor
and the workers.

00:26:35.802 --> 00:26:39.431
All who could afford to, fled.

00:26:42.726 --> 00:26:44.936
They closed the schools

00:26:44.936 --> 00:26:47.564
and then the churches.

00:26:49.190 --> 00:26:51.901
People were not permitted
to enter the house

00:26:51.901 --> 00:26:54.988
of yellow fever victims
without a permit.

00:26:56.114 --> 00:26:59.242
The poor couldn't afford a nurse.

00:27:06.333 --> 00:27:08.101
Across the street from us,

00:27:08.101 --> 00:27:13.923
ten persons lay dead
from the plague.

00:27:14.716 --> 00:27:17.510
The dead surrounded us.

00:27:19.512 --> 00:27:22.390
They were buried at night,

00:27:22.390 --> 00:27:28.313
quickly, without ceremony.

00:27:30.106 --> 00:27:34.110
All about my house

00:27:34.110 --> 00:27:38.531
I could hear weeping and cries

00:27:38.531 --> 00:27:41.409
of delirium.

00:27:52.504 --> 00:27:56.383
One by one,

00:27:56.383 --> 00:27:59.511
my four little children

00:28:01.137 --> 00:28:03.723
succumbed.

00:28:07.977 --> 00:28:10.063
I washed their little bodies

00:28:10.063 --> 00:28:14.317
and got them ready.

00:28:22.659 --> 00:28:25.537
My husband caught the fever.

00:28:33.670 --> 00:28:37.173
I sat alone.

00:28:41.261 --> 00:28:44.222
Nights of grief.

00:28:45.265 --> 00:28:48.435
No one came to me.

00:28:50.895 --> 00:28:53.398
No one could.

00:28:58.899 --> 00:29:00.699
Other homes

00:29:00.699 --> 00:29:04.906
were as stricken as mine.

00:29:08.580 --> 00:29:13.585
After the union buried my husband,
I got a permit to nurse the sufferers.

00:29:13.585 --> 00:29:16.421
And this I did until this

00:29:17.422 --> 00:29:19.632
plague was stamped out.

00:29:19.632 --> 00:29:22.719
But I couldn't stay in Memphis.

00:29:26.139 --> 00:29:27.599
I gathered

00:29:28.683 --> 00:29:31.936
our few belongings.

00:29:34.689 --> 00:29:39.402
I returned to Chicago,

00:29:40.195 --> 00:29:43.615
went again into dressmaking.

00:29:49.662 --> 00:29:52.916
And then came that fire.

00:29:54.667 --> 00:29:59.047
And I...

00:29:59.047 --> 00:30:05.053
I lost every last
remembrance of my family.

00:31:09.117 --> 00:31:11.619
I'm going to tell you
about the men.

00:31:12.787 --> 00:31:15.039
About the miners.

00:31:17.625 --> 00:31:19.919
A strike had been going on

00:31:19.919 --> 00:31:24.090
in northern Colorado for four years.

00:31:24.841 --> 00:31:28.845
We were brought in to help organize
the southern part of the state

00:31:28.845 --> 00:31:33.641
to give the men courage
to go out in support of the north.

00:31:34.809 --> 00:31:37.312
What I did on the side was pray,

00:31:38.688 --> 00:31:40.815
pray that we could stop this war.

00:31:41.691 --> 00:31:46.321
The suffering was immense.

00:31:49.324 --> 00:31:52.619
I don't pray much anymore.

00:31:53.077 --> 00:31:55.705
I prefer to swear.

00:31:55.705 --> 00:31:59.500
Swearing gets things done
in the now.

00:32:03.171 --> 00:32:05.798
Pray for the dead.

00:32:07.967 --> 00:32:09.135
Fight like hell

00:32:10.094 --> 00:32:12.430
for the living.

00:32:14.015 --> 00:32:17.894
But if war has to be fought that
the men in the mines have the rights,

00:32:18.186 --> 00:32:21.397
let it come on.

00:32:21.940 --> 00:32:24.025
I met with the governor.

00:32:24.025 --> 00:32:28.488
I urged him to get the companies
to meet with the union.

00:32:29.530 --> 00:32:32.200
They wouldn't budge.

00:32:32.200 --> 00:32:36.371
So when the miners and
their delegates met to vote

00:32:36.663 --> 00:32:38.998
on whether to go out on strike,

00:32:39.374 --> 00:32:42.585
oh I gave them a harangue.

00:32:42.585 --> 00:32:44.796
If it’s strike or submit,

00:32:45.546 --> 00:32:48.466
why, for God's sake, strike!

00:32:48.466 --> 00:32:50.885
Strike until you win.

00:32:50.885 --> 00:32:52.303
Rise up!

00:32:52.303 --> 00:32:53.721
Strike!

00:32:54.514 --> 00:32:57.392
If you're too cowardly
to fight for your rights,

00:32:57.517 --> 00:33:00.561
there are enough women in this
country to beat the hell out of you!

00:33:02.480 --> 00:33:07.860
If it's slavery or strike,
I say strike

00:33:07.986 --> 00:33:11.864
until the last one of you
drops into your grave!

00:33:12.532 --> 00:33:16.119
Strike and stay with it
as we did in West Virginia.

00:33:16.744 --> 00:33:20.164
Think of the thousands
who are killed each year.

00:33:20.498 --> 00:33:22.625
There is no redress for it.

00:33:23.751 --> 00:33:24.899
We will strike

00:33:24.899 --> 00:33:28.756
until the mines are made secure.

00:33:29.757 --> 00:33:33.720
Human life valued more
than property.

00:33:34.929 --> 00:33:37.515
I will stay with you.

00:33:37.515 --> 00:33:39.976
Your officers will stay with you.

00:33:40.101 --> 00:33:42.186
We will not surrender.

00:33:42.186 --> 00:33:46.499
We will stay in southern Colorado
until the banner of

00:33:46.499 --> 00:33:52.030
industrial freedom
floats over every mine.

00:33:52.989 --> 00:33:55.033
That's the gist of what I said.

00:33:55.033 --> 00:33:58.453
I don't always speak
from the classics.

00:33:58.453 --> 00:33:59.453
But the men.

00:33:59.912 --> 00:34:04.542
The men lunged from their seats,
shouting, and they voted to strike.

00:34:04.625 --> 00:34:08.921
And we thought we were going to realize
the greatest victory in the history

00:34:08.921 --> 00:34:11.424
of the United Mine Workers
of America.

00:34:15.261 --> 00:34:17.889
But the mine owners

00:34:17.889 --> 00:34:20.975
vowed undying resistance

00:34:21.392 --> 00:34:23.561
to each of the miners' demands.

00:34:24.437 --> 00:34:27.732
So kicked out of their
company shacks,

00:34:32.028 --> 00:34:33.028
with wagon loads

00:34:33.028 --> 00:34:36.074
of furniture, utensils, bedding,

00:34:36.657 --> 00:34:40.036
over 9,000
southern Colorado miners

00:34:40.036 --> 00:34:43.664
and their families went out on strike.

00:34:44.582 --> 00:34:47.752
They made their way
through sleet and snow

00:34:48.211 --> 00:34:51.839
to the tent colonies
the union had erected.

00:34:53.174 --> 00:34:54.967
They sought a ten percent

00:34:54.967 --> 00:34:57.845
wage increase,
an eight hour day,

00:34:58.137 --> 00:35:02.141
freedom to shop at other
than the company store,

00:35:02.517 --> 00:35:05.812
and union recognition.

00:35:06.104 --> 00:35:08.231
Three out of four
of these demands

00:35:08.523 --> 00:35:11.526
were state law.

00:35:11.943 --> 00:35:15.488
But who travels into mining camps

00:35:15.655 --> 00:35:17.949
to see that laws are carried out?

00:35:19.575 --> 00:35:25.331
Everyone knows
who owns these counties.

00:35:25.957 --> 00:35:29.293
The company deployed
its men in trenches.

00:35:29.293 --> 00:35:34.066
They equipped them with searchlights
and machine guns

00:35:34.066 --> 00:35:38.261
and an armored car
they called The Death Special.

00:35:39.637 --> 00:35:43.599
Violence broke out
almost immediately.

00:35:46.060 --> 00:35:47.527
John D. Rockefeller Junior

00:35:47.527 --> 00:35:51.566
owned the majority share
of these mines.

00:35:51.941 --> 00:35:53.109
He was young.

00:35:53.109 --> 00:35:55.444
He had just inherited them.

00:35:55.444 --> 00:35:59.115
I wrote him thinking
I could educate him

00:35:59.991 --> 00:36:03.035
as to what was really happening.

00:36:04.453 --> 00:36:06.455
I was naive.

00:36:07.415 --> 00:36:09.750
But I didn't want this war.

00:36:10.626 --> 00:36:12.628
And war it was.

00:36:13.838 --> 00:36:15.756
We quickly got to work

00:36:15.756 --> 00:36:18.342
eliciting support, raising funds.

00:36:19.302 --> 00:36:23.723
The company targeted the union officers,
trying to keep us separate from the men.

00:36:24.891 --> 00:36:27.267
They had my skull drawn on a poster

00:36:27.267 --> 00:36:30.188
with two cross sticks saying
if I didn't quit, they'd get me.

00:36:30.521 --> 00:36:33.733
I was arrested.

00:36:34.275 --> 00:36:37.361
Oh, I’d been served with
injunctions in quantities

00:36:37.361 --> 00:36:41.741
sufficient to form a shroud about me,
but this was different.

00:36:43.659 --> 00:36:47.079
I was kidnaped
by soldiers off a train,

00:36:47.079 --> 00:36:49.415
held in a damp

00:36:49.415 --> 00:36:52.001
underground cell

00:36:52.001 --> 00:36:55.713
in a military bullpen
in Walsenburg, Colorado.

00:36:56.339 --> 00:36:59.175
They kept me in
solitary confinement

00:36:59.675 --> 00:37:02.178
for three months.

00:37:03.471 --> 00:37:05.640
I slept in my clothes by day

00:37:06.807 --> 00:37:09.852
and at night I fought off
the sewer rats

00:37:09.852 --> 00:37:13.858
with a beer bottle.

00:37:15.858 --> 00:37:18.444
And all the while,

00:37:18.569 --> 00:37:23.574
the cringing politicians
whose sworn duty

00:37:24.283 --> 00:37:26.911
is to protect the law,

00:37:26.911 --> 00:37:29.080
the liberty of the people,

00:37:29.747 --> 00:37:34.293
crawled subserviently before
the national burglars of Wall Street

00:37:34.418 --> 00:37:38.005
who were plundering and
devastating the state of Colorado

00:37:38.005 --> 00:37:42.343
economically, politically
and morally.

00:37:42.969 --> 00:37:44.971
Colorado was brutal.

00:37:44.971 --> 00:37:47.181
The fighting was constant.

00:37:47.556 --> 00:37:50.059
It went on a full year,

00:37:51.519 --> 00:37:54.480
culminating in the massacre

00:37:55.356 --> 00:37:56.983
at Ludlow.

00:38:04.782 --> 00:38:07.743
Louis Tikas.

00:38:12.164 --> 00:38:14.375
On Greek Orthodox Easter

00:38:16.377 --> 00:38:18.963
after the morning service,

00:38:18.963 --> 00:38:21.716
the gunmen came.

00:38:22.049 --> 00:38:24.844
They shot at anything that moved,

00:38:26.262 --> 00:38:28.806
wounding scores,

00:38:28.806 --> 00:38:31.726
killing a dozen miners.

00:38:34.979 --> 00:38:38.431
And eleven women
and their babies

00:38:38.431 --> 00:38:42.236
were roasted alive in a pit

00:38:42.903 --> 00:38:48.409
into which they had been
driven by machine guns.

00:38:52.872 --> 00:38:56.375
Finally the governor
called President Wilson

00:38:57.084 --> 00:39:05.051
to send in federal troops,

00:39:05.051 --> 00:39:09.472
and the strike was broken.

00:39:16.062 --> 00:39:18.439
The brutality

00:39:18.439 --> 00:39:22.902
of that strike stirred
the American people.

00:39:23.986 --> 00:39:26.739
Congress created a
special committee,

00:39:26.739 --> 00:39:32.536
the Commission on
Industrial Relations,

00:39:32.536 --> 00:39:36.707
to find out what really happened.

00:39:37.124 --> 00:39:40.836
They brought in business leaders
and labor leaders

00:39:41.045 --> 00:39:43.923
to testify.

00:39:46.675 --> 00:39:48.928
When it was my turn on the stand,

00:39:50.137 --> 00:39:54.016
the commissioner, Mr. Walsh,
asked me

00:39:55.184 --> 00:39:57.895
for my address.

00:39:59.438 --> 00:40:02.608
And I told him I,
I reside wherever

00:40:02.608 --> 00:40:06.404
there is a good fight against wrong
all over the country, sir.

00:40:07.029 --> 00:40:12.410
Wherever the workers are fighting
robbers, that's where I go.

00:40:12.743 --> 00:40:15.955
My address is like my shoes.

00:40:15.955 --> 00:40:18.999
It travels with me.

00:40:20.167 --> 00:40:22.044
I brought the

00:40:22.044 --> 00:40:25.381
transcripts of the whole hearings
for you to look at.

00:40:26.882 --> 00:40:31.011
I want to read you a short piece

00:40:32.054 --> 00:40:35.808
because I want to be accurate.

00:40:36.016 --> 00:40:38.519
I need my glasses.

00:40:43.149 --> 00:40:45.276
Mr. Walsh was interested in

00:40:47.361 --> 00:40:49.238
what I felt about violence

00:40:49.238 --> 00:40:52.116
in the mines.

00:40:59.123 --> 00:41:00.624
He said,

00:41:01.542 --> 00:41:03.043
Mother Jones,

00:41:03.043 --> 00:41:07.506
it appears that you are an advocate
of law and order.

00:41:08.132 --> 00:41:12.887
There is a statement attributed to you
that does you a grave injustice,

00:41:13.304 --> 00:41:17.558
and I would like to give you the
opportunity at this time to correct it.

00:41:18.309 --> 00:41:20.603
You purportedly told a group

00:41:20.603 --> 00:41:24.873
of striking miners
in West Virginia, quote,

00:41:24.873 --> 00:41:28.903
If the governor will not abolish
the Baldwin guards,

00:41:29.069 --> 00:41:32.406
I want you boys to stay out
of the pool halls,

00:41:32.615 --> 00:41:35.534
save your money and buy guns.

00:41:36.076 --> 00:41:41.207
If the governor won't protect us,
we will have to protect ourselves.

00:41:42.291 --> 00:41:45.211
End of quote.

00:41:45.419 --> 00:41:49.215
Now, Mother Jones, for someone
who believes in law and order

00:41:49.381 --> 00:41:54.011
there must be some mistake,
or you've been misquoted.

00:41:55.596 --> 00:41:57.681
My response.

00:42:05.773 --> 00:42:11.362
I was held in West Virginia
and in Colorado for three months,

00:42:11.862 --> 00:42:14.406
each time in solitary confinement,

00:42:15.658 --> 00:42:18.077
without the slightest charge

00:42:18.536 --> 00:42:20.621
ever being made against me

00:42:21.622 --> 00:42:25.543
and with the courts open
and unobstructed

00:42:26.001 --> 00:42:29.505
in the transaction of business.

00:42:30.339 --> 00:42:33.926
Sir, I am always in favor

00:42:34.343 --> 00:42:37.596
of obeying the law.

00:42:37.721 --> 00:42:40.099
But if the high class burglar

00:42:40.224 --> 00:42:45.229
breaks the law and defies it,
then I say we must have a law

00:42:45.229 --> 00:42:49.775
that will defend the nation
and her people.

00:42:49.775 --> 00:42:55.114
For whenever a nation undertakes
to crush her people,

00:42:55.573 --> 00:42:58.826
to debase and
dehumanize them,

00:42:59.410 --> 00:43:01.745
that nation is going
over the breakers.

00:43:02.288 --> 00:43:05.207
It is the history of all nations

00:43:05.332 --> 00:43:08.419
down the stairway of time.

00:43:09.503 --> 00:43:13.465
In 50 years, we have
created more wealth

00:43:13.716 --> 00:43:18.095
than any other nation has in 700.

00:43:18.095 --> 00:43:22.057
And one group owns that wealth,

00:43:23.976 --> 00:43:26.520
and the masses of people

00:43:27.646 --> 00:43:30.065
are impoverished.

00:43:36.989 --> 00:43:38.324
No, sir.

00:43:39.408 --> 00:43:41.493
There is no change

00:43:42.161 --> 00:43:44.538
in my statement.

00:44:01.597 --> 00:44:08.354
We lost Colorado,
but we won Pennsylvania,

00:44:08.854 --> 00:44:12.107
Illinois, Ohio, Indiana,

00:44:12.608 --> 00:44:15.903
even West Virginia.

00:44:15.903 --> 00:44:17.488
Against all odds,

00:44:17.488 --> 00:44:21.116
we organized West Virginia.

00:44:26.955 --> 00:44:33.212
Tent cities and its
bleak mountains...

00:44:52.690 --> 00:44:55.192
There is never peace

00:44:55.192 --> 00:44:57.486
in West Virginia

00:45:00.030 --> 00:45:03.251
because there's never justice.

00:45:15.796 --> 00:45:19.216
Cruel is the life of the miner.

00:45:19.299 --> 00:45:21.760
The weight of the world on his back

00:45:22.886 --> 00:45:25.514
down in utter darkness.

00:45:25.889 --> 00:45:27.850
Hours on end.

00:45:27.850 --> 00:45:29.893
No life in the sun.

00:45:31.520 --> 00:45:34.690
He comes up from the silence
of the old Earth

00:45:34.898 --> 00:45:38.485
utterly wearied,
into the evening light

00:45:38.986 --> 00:45:41.196
to the cheating weightcheckman,

00:45:42.489 --> 00:45:44.825
past the guards with their rifles

00:45:44.825 --> 00:45:48.120
and home to the company shack,

00:45:49.371 --> 00:45:50.414
where his wife

00:45:50.414 --> 00:45:53.876
may have a worrisome cough
and his children

00:45:54.209 --> 00:45:58.505
sit barefoot, underfed.

00:45:58.505 --> 00:46:02.801
And after a cup of weak tea
and a cold potato,

00:46:03.844 --> 00:46:06.805
he might sit on his stoop,
smoke his pipe

00:46:09.349 --> 00:46:11.351
and think how

00:46:11.685 --> 00:46:15.731
he could never afford
a home for his family,

00:46:16.607 --> 00:46:21.069
not even medicine for his wife,

00:46:21.069 --> 00:46:24.239
and that his children

00:46:24.281 --> 00:46:27.034
would never be better off
than himself.

00:46:28.619 --> 00:46:32.080
And how he must get up
in the dark morn

00:46:32.080 --> 00:46:36.502
and go through it all again
until falling rocks,

00:46:36.502 --> 00:46:38.796
and then his boy

00:46:40.088 --> 00:46:43.300
would take his place.

00:46:47.179 --> 00:46:49.389
This is the man

00:46:49.389 --> 00:46:52.351
I ask to walk miles
in the dead of night

00:46:52.351 --> 00:46:55.229
over a mountain, past gunmen,

00:46:56.230 --> 00:46:59.650
through streams that
run dark with blood.

00:46:59.900 --> 00:47:02.569
This is the man I want to organize.

00:47:07.908 --> 00:47:09.843
He calls me Mother,

00:47:12.788 --> 00:47:16.917
and I ask him to risk his life.

00:47:17.626 --> 00:47:21.421
This is West Virginia.

00:47:23.423 --> 00:47:25.843
Men died in these hills

00:47:27.261 --> 00:47:31.306
that others might be free.

00:47:31.306 --> 00:47:33.183
And they won.

00:47:33.183 --> 00:47:35.686
They won union recognition.

00:47:35.769 --> 00:47:39.398
It was a great victory.

00:47:42.568 --> 00:47:44.111
But the southwestern

00:47:44.111 --> 00:47:46.738
part of the state
still wasn't organized,

00:47:47.197 --> 00:47:50.158
the owners determined
to keep the union out.

00:47:50.325 --> 00:47:53.245
Within a decade
there was more war.

00:47:54.746 --> 00:47:57.124
I led a thousand miners
to Charleston

00:47:57.124 --> 00:48:00.377
to petition Governor Morgan,
to have him

00:48:00.377 --> 00:48:03.171
put an end to martial law,

00:48:03.589 --> 00:48:07.134
to rid the stage of the
Baldwin-Felts thugs!

00:48:07.509 --> 00:48:09.344
The governor turned us back,

00:48:09.344 --> 00:48:11.597
the courts denied our appeals.

00:48:11.805 --> 00:48:15.767
The men armed, both sides now

00:48:15.767 --> 00:48:18.645
spoiling for a fight.

00:48:21.064 --> 00:48:23.901
The governor warned me.

00:48:23.901 --> 00:48:27.946
If the miners march on
Mingo and Logan Counties,

00:48:28.155 --> 00:48:31.700
they will be slaughtered.

00:48:42.377 --> 00:48:46.006
This is what you came for.

00:48:47.925 --> 00:48:50.010
We met to rally the men.

00:48:50.802 --> 00:48:54.097
I took the stage.

00:48:54.431 --> 00:48:57.225
I urged them to be patient.

00:48:58.352 --> 00:49:02.814
I implored them, go home.

00:49:03.190 --> 00:49:07.319
We cannot win this battle.

00:49:07.903 --> 00:49:11.198
It will be a bloodbath.

00:49:12.157 --> 00:49:15.494
The men were wildly confused.

00:49:15.702 --> 00:49:19.623
We had readied them for battle.

00:49:21.041 --> 00:49:24.002
I lied to them.

00:49:24.002 --> 00:49:26.713
I told them I had received
a telegram

00:49:26.713 --> 00:49:29.633
from President Harding promising

00:49:29.800 --> 00:49:34.513
to use his good offices to negotiate
between the owners

00:49:34.680 --> 00:49:36.890
and the union.

00:49:37.599 --> 00:49:40.185
My fellow officers
were incredulous,

00:49:40.185 --> 00:49:43.897
they demanded to see the telegram.

00:49:46.066 --> 00:49:52.197
They called me a traitor,

00:49:52.197 --> 00:49:57.828
and they marched.

00:49:57.828 --> 00:50:00.706
Blair Mountain,

00:50:03.458 --> 00:50:06.586
the largest armed insurrection
on our soil

00:50:07.337 --> 00:50:10.215
since the Civil War.

00:50:12.884 --> 00:50:14.886
For two days,

00:50:14.886 --> 00:50:18.140
the miners fought the militia,

00:50:18.140 --> 00:50:21.226
the sheriffs and their hired guns,

00:50:21.852 --> 00:50:24.730
the detectives and
the mercenaries.

00:50:26.106 --> 00:50:30.986
They dropped bombs from planes
on my boys.

00:50:31.028 --> 00:50:35.323
They fired machine guns
into their charging lines.

00:50:35.449 --> 00:50:37.159
A million rounds!

00:50:37.159 --> 00:50:40.829
They brought in federal troops,
thousands of them!

00:50:41.329 --> 00:50:44.916
And on the third day,
the strike was broken

00:50:44.916 --> 00:50:48.718
and the miners were disarmed!

00:50:55.969 --> 00:50:59.264
But no loss is permanent.

00:51:00.724 --> 00:51:03.977
Injustice boils in men's hearts

00:51:04.978 --> 00:51:08.690
like steel in a cauldron,
ready to burn to white hot

00:51:09.524 --> 00:51:12.736
in the fullness of time.

00:51:12.861 --> 00:51:16.073
When you teach a man to stand

00:51:16.281 --> 00:51:19.117
beyond the boundary of his fear,

00:51:19.451 --> 00:51:24.414
to be conscious of his dignity,

00:51:24.414 --> 00:51:30.128
that man will not remain silent.

00:51:30.337 --> 00:51:32.798
You educate.

00:51:32.923 --> 00:51:35.050
You agitate.

00:51:35.675 --> 00:51:38.678
You organize.

00:51:38.804 --> 00:51:40.999
And you win.

00:51:44.601 --> 00:51:47.312
We've battled in the hills.

00:51:47.312 --> 00:51:49.189
We've battled in the courts.

00:51:49.189 --> 00:51:53.610
We've battled on the marble floors
of our legislatures.

00:51:53.902 --> 00:51:56.655
And we have halted

00:51:57.072 --> 00:52:00.283
the abuses of child labor.

00:52:00.659 --> 00:52:04.538
We have won the eight hour day

00:52:05.163 --> 00:52:10.544
and minimum wage,
standards for workplace safety,

00:52:11.128 --> 00:52:17.217
the right to organize
as a collective.

00:52:17.300 --> 00:52:19.511
These and much more

00:52:19.511 --> 00:52:22.013
we have won.

00:52:23.682 --> 00:52:28.186
But eternal vigilance

00:52:28.520 --> 00:52:31.898
is the price for these liberties.

00:52:31.898 --> 00:52:35.235
Freedoms don't drop from the clouds
while you sleep.

00:52:35.443 --> 00:52:37.988
You must buckle on your armor.

00:52:39.072 --> 00:52:41.408
Don't be afraid!

00:52:41.825 --> 00:52:43.994
We will stand together!

00:52:44.327 --> 00:52:48.707
It's a fighting age.