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Newspaper Page Text
miM ' , iwiiftp.jpw iiiji),4jipuwitfjjjP' ONE MAN'S OPINIONS BY N. D. COCHRAN. Mother Jones. I enjoyed a long visit with "Mother" Jones the other day. It was the first time I ever had seen her. I have thought of our con versation often since, and my impres sion is that "Mother" Jones is really the greatest labor leader I have ever met the one with the clearest un derstanding of the situation. Before we meet people we have read about we form impressions from what we have read. I have watched Mother Jones through newspaper re ports for many years and had loved her for her sacrifices and for moth erly love for all workers everywhere in trouble. I had pictured her in my imagina tion, but it was a poor picture, com pared with the real Mother Jones in spirit and the flesh. Nothing I had ever imagined of her did her justice. She told me she was 82 years old. She doesn't look much over 60 and she just came from a nine weeks' imprisonment in a basement cell in Colorado a cell vile enough to have caused the death of a strong man prisoner not long before. I "wish everybody could see Mother Jones and know her. All of us know something of mother love, when it applies to a mother who loves, her own children and would die for them. Here is a mother who loves all work ing men, women and children as if they were in flesh and blood her own children and she would die for them. That was the most appealing emo tion in Mother Jones her love for oppressed humanity. Like most good lovers, she is a good hater, too. She refers to sjtate militiamen as "sewer rats." She can show bitterness when she talks of cowardly labor leaders who haven't the courage to do any thing but hold back the toiling thou sands until they are licked. But when she talks of the workers themselves--the rank and file, the! miners, the engineers, firemen, brake men then her eyes light up with a real mother ifove. She has the saving grace of humor. Here is her comment on John Mit chell walking down Fifth avenue, New York, with Anne Morgan on one arm and Mrs. Belmont on the other: "See how the labor movement is get ting on." And she has a sharp tongue in her mouth. She calls the suffragists "cats." She told Gov. Waite'that if he signed the bill giving women suf frage in Colorado he would set civili zation back in that state fifty years. And she will ask you to show her what w6men, with all the years they have had the franchise in Colorado, have done for oppressed humanity. In describing an interview she had with Gov. Ammons of Colorado this little old woman of 82 gave a micro scopic impression of that small-soul-ed imitation of a man by resorting to a squeaky, tenor voice in imitation of Gov. Ammons' part of the conversa tion. You have heard men try to imitate a woman's voice. Well, just imagine the kind of man Gov. Ammons seem ed to Mother Jones, when this little old woman tried to disguise her femi nine voice and make it sound less than feminine when she imitated Am mons. ' Mother Jones has been arrested many times. She has been in numer ous prisons. But she points with pride, to the fact that all of the arrests have been made by militiamen, and none by policemen or sheriffs. And every arrest was for exercising the right of free speech for speaking for the working class. She never violated a law. Mother Jones has seen the state soldiery and the private armies of gunmen shoot down striking work ingmen. She has seen all of the pow er of the law thrown on the side of capital against labor. She believes that unless labor will submit to slav ery it must fight itself free,