Would Mother Jones Buy “Mother Jones”?
MARY HARRIS JONES was a socialist and labor organizer (1830-1930) who traversed America for more than 40 years, leading strikes and lending the labor and socialist movements her awesome rhetorical skills. She railed against the 14-hour workday, subsistence wages, child labor, and the company store. So did her allies in the radical press, in flimsy pamphlets and magazines printed on butcher-block paper. All that has now changed. The magazines of the radical left have lost their beleaguered look, as have their readers: Affluent societies produce affluent critics.