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Introduction
7

spect and trust. I cannot help feeling that both were true and that the disagreements were only such as inevitably grow out of close association of different types of mind in a great conflict.

Mother Jones was always doubtful of the good of organized institutions. These require compromises and she could not compromise. To her there was but one side. Right and wrong were forever distinct. The type is common to all great movements. It is essentially the difference between the man of action and the philosopher. Both are useful. No one can decide the relative merits of the two.

This little book is a story of a woman of action fired by a fine zeal. She defied calumny. She was not awed by guns or jails. She kept on her way regardless of friends and foes. She had but one love to which she was always true and that was her cause. People of this type are bound to have conflicts within and without the ranks.

Mother Jones was especially devoted to the miners. The mountainous country, the deep mines, the black pit, the cheap homes, the danger, the everlasting conflict for wages and for life, appealed to her imagination and chivalry. Much of the cause of trades unionism in England and America has been associated with the mines. The stories of the work of women and children in the mines of Great Britain are well known to all trades unionists. The progress of