" Sir, a Woman "

The wise do not know everything. Samuel Johnson, able lexicographer, once ejaculated: "Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all!" Yet Mrs. Mary Harris Jones--"Mother" Jones--attended the Farmer-Labor Convention in Chicago (see page 5) and made a speech that, if surprising in a woman of her age, could hardly be described as poorly done.

What made the speech "surprising ' was that such coherence, such sense and such spirit should come from the lips of a woman of 93-- for Mary Harris was born in Ireland in 1830. She was taken to Canada at the age of seven, was educated there, and later went to the South and worked in the cotton mills. There she fought child labor. There she married and had four children. There husband and children were swept away by yellow fever.

Then she plunged entirely into Labor affairs. Attached to the Federation of Labor, yet claimed by the Socialists, full of sweetness in times of labor peace, a very Amazon in action, she has had a part in nearly every important strike in the last ten years.

Hear the clear words she spoke in Chicago: " You must organize and use your heads. You have been letting bosses override you too long. You must clear out the crooked labor leaders among yourselves.

"All you need to do is to unite politically and you can have a thorough cleanup. You will be able to clean out the gunmen in the coal fields, particularly in West Virginia. It is time to get back to the spirit of the Revolutionary fathers! "