Quotes from Mary Harris Jones

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

I was born in revolution.

I have never had a vote, and I have raised hell all over this country. You don't need a vote to raise hell! You need convictions and a voice!

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.

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

I am not an anti to anything which will bring freedom to my class.

Not all the coal that is dug warms the world.

I am not afraid of the pen, or the scaffold, or the sword.

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.

I preferred sewing to bossing little children.

I'm not afraid of the press or the Militia.

Whatever your fight, don't be ladylike.

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

I will tell the truth wherever I please.

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?

The strike of the miners in Arizona was one of the most remarkable strikes in the history of the American labor movement. Its peaceful character, its successful outcome, were due to that most remarkable character, Governor Hunt.

You know I took an oath to tell the truth when I took the witness stand.

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!

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.

I'm not a humanitarian, I'm a hell-raiser.

That is, the wife must care for what the husband cares for if he is to remain resolute.

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.

I learned in the early part of my career that labor must bear the cross for others' sins, must be the vicarious sufferer for the wrongs that others do.

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