Past Events

Chicago Federation of Teachers member Brigid Duffy portrays Mother Jones during the performance, *A Table for Two at the Dill Pickle Club.*

2023 Springfield Mother Jones Dinner

Author: Labor should challenge capitalism

The labor movement must embrace its “willingness to lose,” according to Ahmed White, University of Colorado, Boulder, Professor of Law. White was the guest speaker for the 37th annual Mother Jones Dinner in Springfield on October 7.

White recently wrote Under the Iron Heel: The Wobblies and the Capitalist War on Radical Workers. White’s book thoroughly reviews the radical Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), founded in Chicago in 1905, that sought capitalism’s overthrow and democratic worker workplace control. The union was popularly known as the “Wobblies” and organized immigrant, agricultural and timber workers other union ignored. Because the IWW refused to sign union contracts with employers, the organization won some victories but had little long-term presence.

White documented how state and federal laws repressed the IWW, particularly World War I era criminal syndicalism legislation that saw union halls raided, plus union members arrested and convicted by the hundreds. He noted that many imprisoned Wobblies had a martyr complex, viewing the union almost as a religion. Vigilantes aided by local law enforcement, attacked the union, lynching and killing leaders. On July 12, 1917, 1,286 striking copper miners in Bisbee, Arizona, were forced onto railroad cattle cars and dropped in the desert. Continual repression meant by the mid-1920s the union was a shadow organization.

White’s conclusion was that capitalism’s “iron heel” will continue to oppress workers and that worker freedom only comes with the current economic order’s demise. Thus his call for a “willingness to lose” echoes the IWW ideal, which continually stood against capitalism.

The dinner featured the one-act play, A Table for Two at the Dill Pickle Club bu Larry Kirwan. The performance depicts a Chicago 1920 back room meeting between famed Irish American labor organizer Mary “Mother” Jones (1837-1930) and Irish and U.S. labor organizer Jim Larkin (1874-1947). Larkin helped found the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union, still a powerful Irish labor organization. In the play the two commiserate about their lives, Mother Jones feisty and ready for battle, Larkin, without a legal passport, anxious to return to his homeland. Larkin was arrested in the U.S. in 1920 and convicted under the criminal syndicalism laws that targeted the IWW, sent to Sing Sing prison. He was pardoned by New York State Governor Alfred Smith in 1923 and returned to Ireland where he continued his labor and radical politics. Irish native and Chicago Teachers Union Local 1 member Brigid Duffy portrayed Jones and Columbia College’s Will Casey Larkin.

The Mother Jones Foundation hosts the annual dinner “to remind modern audiences of our rich labor heritage” and to address contemporary labor questions.

- Mike Matejka

Haymarket Square 2021 - Italian FIOM and Coalition of Black Trade Unionists plaque dedications

2021 Progressive Miners of America Plaque Dedication, Gillespie, Illinois

2019 Union Hall of Honor Photos

2019 Mother Jones Memorial Photos

2018 Union Hall of Honor Gallery

2018 May Day Gallery

2017 In Review Gallery

2016 Union Hall of Honor Photos

2016 May Day Photos

October-14 2014 Union Hall of Honor

November-09 ILHS Union Hall of Honor 2009