MISTLETOE 



3865 



MITCHELL 



The river is navigable to a point nearly 2,300 

 miles from its mouth, and, above Great Falls, 

 for about 300 miles more, but the current is so 

 rapid in these upper stretches that only flat- 

 bottomed boats are practicable and safe. 



MISTLETOE, mis"ltoh, a small evergreen 

 shrub of the mistletoe family, native to the 

 greater part of Europe, and characterized by its 

 habit of growing on the trunks of various trees 

 (see PARASITE) . Contrary to popular belief, the 

 mistletoe is rarely found on the oak. Most 

 commonly the apple tree serves as its host, but 

 it also grows on the hawthorn, sycamore, lime, 

 poplar, locust, fir and other trees. Its thickly- 

 growing evergreen leaves and tiny yellow flow- 

 ers give a pleasing touch to orchards in Febru- 

 ary and March, and its white, translucent ber- 

 ries are loved by the birds. By rubbing their 

 bills, to which the seeds cling, against the bark 

 of trees on which they alight, the birds help to 

 propagate the plant. 



The mistletoe is a plant of many traditions. 

 Whenever the Druids, ancient priests of the 

 Celts, found it growing on the sacred oak, they 

 cut it off with a golden blade and gave bits to 

 the people for charms. In Northern mythology 

 it was an arrow made of mistletoe which slew 



MISTLETOE 



Balder, son of the goddess Frigga (see BALDER). 

 Early European nations seem to have revered 

 the mistletoe as a ceremonial plant, a practice 

 which is the probable origin of the familiar 

 Christmas custom of "kissing under the mistle- 

 toe." 



MITCH 'ELL, DONALD GRANT (1822-1908), an 

 American novelist and essayist, better known 

 under the name of IK MARVEL. He was born in 

 Norwich, Conn., was graduated at Yale and pur- 

 sued law studies in New York City. In 1853 he 

 was appointed United States consul to Venice, 



but after two years settled at "Edgewood," his 

 farm near New Haven, and occupied his time 

 with literary work and with farming. While in 

 Europe in 1848, he witnessed the revolution in 

 Paris, which he described in his book e'ntitled 

 The Battle Summer. His best-known works are 

 Reveries of a Bachelor and Dream Lije, two 

 volumes on which his fame largely rests, and 

 Dr. Johns, The Lorgnette and Wet Days at 

 Edgewood. 



MITCHELL, JOHN (1869- ), one of the 

 most influential, active and trusted leaders in 

 the organized labor movement in the United 

 States. He was born in Braidwood, 111., where 

 he attended school until he was ten years of 

 age. Later he 

 studied law for a 

 year, and also 

 gained an ex- 

 tended knowledge 

 of economic ques- 

 tions by private 

 reading. When a 

 boy of thirteen 

 he became a coal 

 miner, in 1885 he 

 joined the Knights 

 of Labor, and for 

 the next five years 

 worked and traveled in the West. In 1895 he 

 became an officer of the United Mine Workers 

 of America, served as president of the organiza- 

 tion from 1899 to 1908, and made his influence 

 felt by securing for the workmen better wages 

 and an extension of the eight-hour law. 



The successful anthracite coal strikes of 1900 

 and 1902 were directed by Mitchell, who was 

 then second vice-president of the American Fed- 

 eration of Labor, and he terminated the latter 

 by agreeing to accept the decision of the ar- 

 bitration committee appointed by President 

 Roosevelt. In 1907 the Buck Stove and Range 

 Company secured an injunction against the of- 

 ficers of the American Federation of Labor, be- 

 cause the members of that organization had 

 been advised to boycott the products of the 

 company. Since the blacklisting was not dis- 

 continued, Mitchell and his colleagues, Samuel 

 Gompers and Frank Morrison, were found guilty 

 of contempt of court and sentenced to a term 

 of imprisonment. The case, however, was later 

 dismissed by the Supreme Court. 



In 1914 Governor Glynn of New York ap- 

 pointed Mitchell to the State Workmen's Com- 

 pensation Board, and a year later he became a 

 member of a new Industrial Commission which 



JOHN MITCHELL, 



