Mother Jones famous quotes

I asked a man in prison once how he happened to be there and he said he had stolen a pair of shoes. I told him if he had stolen a railroad he would be a United States Senator.
-- Mother Jones

#Men #Shoes #Economic Inequality

I am not blind to the shortcomings of our own people. I am not unaware that leaders betray, and sell out, and play false. But this knowledge does not outweigh the fact that my class, the working class, is exploited, driven, fought back with the weapon of starvation, with guns and with venal courts whenever they strike for conditions more human, more civilized for their children, and for their children's children.
-- Mother Jones

#Children #Gun #Class

Some day the workers will take possession of your city hall, and when we do, no child will be sacrificed on the altar of profit!
-- Mother Jones

#Children #Cities #Profit

I will tell the truth wherever I please.
-- Mother Jones

#Telling The Truth #Please

Sit down and read. Educate yourself for the coming conflicts.
-- Mother Jones

#Down And #Conflict #Educate

You must stand for free speech in the streets.
-- Mother Jones

#Speech #Free Speech #Streets

Out of labor's struggle in Arizona came better conditions for the workers, who must everywhere, at all times, under advantage and disadvantage work out their own salvation
-- Mother Jones

#Struggle #Work Out #Arizona

Life comes to the miners out of their deaths, and death out of their lives
-- Mother Jones

I have always advised men to read
-- Mother Jones

#Men

Sometimes it seemed to me I could not look at those silent little figures; that I must go north, to the grim coal fields, to the Rocky Mountain camps, where the labor fight is at least fought by grown men
-- Mother Jones

#Fighting #Men #Mountain

Little girls and boys, barefooted, walked up and down between the endless rows of spindles, reaching thin little hands into the machinery to repair snapped threads
-- Mother Jones

#Girl #Boys #Hands

I want to hold a series of meetings all over the country and get the facts before the American people
-- Mother Jones

#Country #People #Want

I'm not afraid of the press or the Militia.
-- Mother Jones

#Not Afraid #Militia

I was born in revolution.
-- Mother Jones

#Revolution #Born

What is a good enough principle for an American citizen ought to be good enough for the working man to follow.
-- Mother Jones

#Men #Citizens #Principles

Men's hearts are cold. They are indifferent.
-- Mother Jones

#Heart #Men #Cold

I am not blind to the shortcomings of our own people.
-- Mother Jones

#People #Blind #Blindness

Freedom for the working class!
-- Mother Jones

#Class #Working Class

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 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!
-- Mother Jones

#Friday #Monday #Morning

Reformation, like education, is a journey, not a destination
-- Mother Jones

#Journey #Destination

I would fight God Almighty Himself if He didn't play square with me
-- Mother Jones

#Fighting #Play #Squares

In Georgia where children work day and night in the cotton mills they have just passed a bill to protect song birds. What about the little children from whom all song is gone?
-- Mother Jones

#Song #Children #Night

You know I took an oath to tell the truth when I took the witness stand
-- Mother Jones

#Telling The Truth #Witness #Oath

Not all the coal that is dug warms the world.
-- Mother Jones

#Coal #World

God almighty made women and the Rockefeller gang of thieves made the ladies.
-- Mother Jones

#Thieves #Gang #Almighty

Today the white child is sold for two dollars a week to the manufacturers.
-- Mother Jones

#Children #Two #White

I went West and took part in the strike of the machinists - the Southern Pacific Railroad, the corporation that swung California by its golden tail, that controlled its legislature, its farmers, its preachers, its workers.
-- Mother Jones

#California #Southern #Railroads

I believe that no man who holds a leader's position should ever accept favors from either side. He is then committed to show favors. A leader must stand alone.
-- Mother Jones

#Believe #Responsibility #Men

Injustice boils in men's hearts as does steel in its cauldron, ready to pour forth, white hot, in the fullness of time.
-- Mother Jones

#Heart #Men #White

If they want to hang me, let them. And on the scaffold I will shout Freedom for the working class!
-- Mother Jones

#Technology #Class #Want

My address is like my shoes. It travels with me. I abide where there is a fight against wrong.
-- Mother Jones

#Women #Fighting #Shoes

I am not afraid of the pen, or the scaffold, or the sword. I will tell the truth wherever I please.
-- Mother Jones

#Telling The Truth #Not Afraid #Please

And who is responsible for this appalling child slavery? Everyone.
-- Mother Jones

#Children #Slavery #Responsible

I nursed men back to sanity who were driven to despair. I solicited clothes for the ragged children, for the desperate mothers. I laid out the dead, the martyrs of the strike.
-- Mother Jones

#Mother #Children #Men

I am Mother Jones. The Government can't take my life and you can't take my arm, but you can take my suitcase.
-- Mother Jones

#Mother #Government #Arms

I believe that movements to suppress wrongs can be carried out under the protection of our flag.
-- Mother Jones

#Believe #Flags #Movement

I am not unaware that leaders betray, and sell out, and play false.
-- Mother Jones

#Play #Leader #Betray

a TEN-YEAR-OLD lad in Indianapolis who was arrested for picking up coal along the side of railroad tracks is now in jail. If the boy had known enough to steal the whole railroad he would be heralded as a Napoleon of finance.
-- Mother Jones

#Boys #Years #Jail