86 Quotes by Mother Jones

Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.

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

They began work at 5:30 and quit at 7 at night. Children six years old going home to lie on a straw pallet until time to resume work the next morning! I have seen the hair torn out of their heads by the machinery, their scalps torn off, and yet not a single tear was shed, while the poodle dogs were loved and caressed and carried to the seashore.

Go home now. Keep away from the saloons. Save your money. You going to need it. [Someone shouted] 'What will we need it for, Mother?' For guns [I said].

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.

What one state could not get alone, what one miner against a powerful corporation could not achieve, can be achieved by the union.

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

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.

The miners lost because they had only the constitution. The other side had bayonets. In the end, bayonets always win.