Mother Jones Heading Protest Procession of Strikers at Denver
“Mr. Governor, you notified your dogs of war to put me out of the state. They complied with your instructions. I hold in my hand a letter that was handed to me by one of them, which says ‘under no circumstances return to this state.’ I wish to notify you, governor, that you don’t own the state. When it was admitted to the sisterhood of states, my fathers gave me a share of stock in it; and that is all they gave to you. The civil courts are open. If I break a law of state or nation it is the duty of the civil courts to deal with me. That is why my forefathers established those courts to keep dictators and tyrants such as you from interfering with civilians. I am right here in the capital, after being out nine or ten hours, four or five blocks from your office. I want to ask you, governor, what in Hell are you going to do about it?”
I called a messenger and sent it up to the governor’s office. He read it and a reporter who was present in the office at the time told me his face grew red.
“What shall I do?” he said to the reporter. He was used to acting under orders.
“Leave her alone,” counselled the reporter. “There is no more patriotic citizen in America.”
From Denver I went down the Western Slope, holding meetings, cheering and encouraging those toiling and disinherited miners who were fighting against such monstrous odds.
I went to Helper, Utah, and got a room with a very nice Italian family. I was to hold a meeting Sunday afternoon. From every quarter the men came, trudging miles over the mountains. The shop men were notified not to come but they came anyhow. Just as the meeting was about to open, the mayor of the little town came to me and said that I could not hold a meeting; that I was on company ground. I asked him how far his jurisdiction extended. He said as far as the Company’s jurisdiction. He was a Company mayor.
So I turned to the audience and asked them to follow me. The audience to a man followed me to a little tent colony at Half Way that the miners had established when they had been evicted from their homes.