Wishing Chair - Dishpan Brigade lyrics

Old Mary Harris was five feet tall Grey hair, eyes an Irish blue She'd buried her husband and four little ones Now the Union was all she knew She'd stand up to any company gun Where there was a fight she was home And the breaker boys and the silk mill girls Called her Mother Jones J.P. Morgan owned the Drip Mouth Mine He paid a $1.35 a day 12-14 hours, 6 days a week Oh that was the company way Now anthracite coal is a hard, hard coal It burns so clean and true It burns off the dreams of a miner's soul And the blood of the UMW Oh Mother cried out shame, shame, shame We've nothing to lose but our chains Many a miner's life's been saved By a dishpan brigade The strikers held out for 4 long months Hard bread and coffee everyday Between the scabs and the guns And the Pinkertons Their courage was slipping away So the Union called in Mother Jones She said,"Will you be slaves or be men?" Then she told all the women to meet up at dawn, "And we'll go to the lion's den." So the women marched to that Drip Mouth Mine With their dishpans mops and brooms And the sheriff said, "Now you go back home I'm afraid you'll upset the mules." But an angry woman knocked the sheriff down She said "to hell with the mules and with you" Then they chased those scabs all the way back to town And that strike was almost through Oh Mother cried out shame, shame, shame We've nothing to lose but our chains Many a miner's life's been saved By a dishpan brigade The women kept watch every night With their babies in their arms And the Union won the Arnot strike And not a soul was harmed Oh Mother traveled another thirty years Where there was a fight she was home And the breaker boys and the silk mill girls Called her Mother Jones