One day in early May, Mother Jones, enjoying life in “the pleasant boarding house in a private family on the banks of the Kanawha river,” was startled by some one throwing into the open window of the room where “she was detained but in no sense confined” beyond the fact that armed sentinels saw to it that she did not leave the room, a copy of _The Cincinnati Post_. Opening the paper she found under glaring headlines the story of the battle in the senate of which she had been in utter ignorance. This article told of the bitter fight being made against the Kern resolution, of the long distance call to Kern from New York City, and of the senator’s indignant response, “I’ll see you in hell first.” And she realized that if the battle in the senate was lost the cause of the miners in West Virginia would be set back for a generation. She did not know Kern--had never met him. The thought came to her that she should write him of the real conditions. Then she read _The Post_ article again in which the comment was made that the New York financiers “did not write, did not telegraph--they took the quickest way to reach him.” A letter--it might never reach him, and everything might be lost in the meanwhile. She decided to send a telegram. And she wrote: HANSFORD, WEST VIRGINIA, MAY 4. Senator Kern, care Senate Chamber, Washington, D. C.: From out of the military bastile, where I have been forced to pass my eighty-first milestone of life, I plead with you for the honor of this nation. I send you groans and tears of men, women and children as I have heard them in this state, and beg you to force that investigation. Children yet unborn will rise and bless you. MOTHER JONES. Reading it critically she concluded that the words “military bastile” might smack of pose and she substituted “military prison walls.”