Oklahoma was fast becoming the center of the western Socialist movement when Mother Jones sent this report from an organizing mission from the new state to the Appeal to Reason.

‘Message from Oklahoma’ by Mother Jones from Appeal to Reason (Girard). No. 568. October 20, 1906.

Dear Appeal:

I want to report conditions as I find them in the new states. I entered the territory at Wilburton. There the democratic nominee for United States Senator was holding a meeting. The committee called on me and asked that the meetings be held jointly, as mine was also billed. I wanted to hear how he presented the struggle of the toiling millions from a democratic standpoint. He showed the wrongs of the republican party, and the beauties of his own. I followed, and showed up that they were both wings of the vulture class and if that class did not have both those wings they could not exist twenty-four hours. I explained to the audience that I had been on the firing line of the industrial battle for years, and that democratic bullets shot workingmen, and their blood had watered the highways just the same as when republican bullets shot them. The result was that a Socialist local of seventy of eighty members was organized soon after.

At Hartshorn, the next stopping place, a tremendous meeting of men and women was held although there was but an hour to bill the meeting. Haleyville is strictly made up of miners. There was a splendid meeting held and they are ready for organization. Dow, another mining town, has sent for organizers.

They are ready for the new gospel all along the line. I have had tremendous meetings, and met the Appeal everywhere I went. It has done glorious work for humanity’s cause. Long may it live to continue the battle for justice.

I want to say a word for Comrade Snyder, the Territorial secretary. He has done yeoman work for the cause, and his compensation has been to see it grow. I held a meeting at Enid on the 10th. The court house was filled to overflowing with enthusiastic men and women. At Cleo the city band turned out, with all the citizens. It was a glorious meeting, and no doubt will bear good results for the cause.

At Alva, Okla., they had tremendously large meetings, which were attended by the school board. Everywhere there is a glorious message to humanity who have hope for the new day, and to no one does the working class of this country owe a deeper debt of appreciation than it does to the Appeal, and its hero champion, Comrade Debs.

I have not been well since I have been in the Territory. I shall end my tour on the 24th, and go to take up the battle with my comrades in Pennsylvania. I have promised the comrades everywhere to return this winter, and keep up the work for them.

Yours for the Revolution,
Mother Jones.

The Appeal to Reason was among the most important and widely read left papers in the United States. With a weekly run of over 550,000 copies by 1910, it remains the largest socialist paper in US history. Founded by utopian socialist and Ruskin Colony leader Julius Wayland it was published privately in Girard, Kansas from 1895 until 1922. The paper came from the Midwestern populist tradition to become the leading national voice in support of the Socialist Party of America in 1901. A ‘popular’ paper, the Appeal was Eugene Debs main literary outlet and saw writings by Upton Sinclair, Jack London, Mary “Mother” Jones, Helen Keller and many others.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/appeal-to-reason/061020-appealtoreason-w568.pdf