You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Saturday January 30, 1915
New York, New York - Mother Jones Warned by Upton Sinclair, Has Change of Heart
Upton Sinclair protesting at No. 26 Broadway after the Ludlow Massacre.
Mother Jones, Thursday morning, received a telegram from Upton Sinclair which appeared to be a warning of sorts:
We are sure you will not let yourself be overcome by the sweet odor of the American Beauty rose.
It appears that this has caused her some soul searching and that she is not now as inclined to be taken in by the charms of John D. Rockefeller Jr. as she appeared to be immediately after their meeting at No. 26 Broadway this past Wednesday. After receiving Sinclair's message, Mother released a long statement to the press in which she insisted that Mr. Rockefeller must show by his actions, and not just by fine sounding promises, that he intends to address the injustices faced by the miners and their families in Colorado.
Mr. Rockefeller met on Thursday with Frank Hayes, Ed Doyle, and James Lord of the United Mine Workers of America. Mr. Lord is also head of the A. F. of L.'s mining department. The meeting was described as informal and unofficial.
From The New York Times of January 29, 1915:
STRIKE HEADS SEE MR. ROCKEFELLER
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Better Understanding Admitted
After Union Officials Tell Their Side.
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MOTHER JONES'S NEW TACK
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Calls Promises "Lip Service"
After WarningTelegram from Upton Sinclair.
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Frank Hayes, Ed Doyle, and James Lord
John D. Rockefeller. Jr., continued yesterday his policy of seizing the opportunity that the Federal Commission on Industrial Relations has presented for informing himself at first-hand of the views of leaders among Colorado miners. He invited to his office at 26 Broadway Frank J. Hayes, Vice President of the United Mine Workers of America; James Lord, head of the mining department of the American Federation of Labor, and Edward L. Doyle, Secretary Treasurer of district 15 of the United Mine Workers.
They went to Mr. Rockefeller's office in the afternoon and were in conference with him for three hours. William Lyon Mackenzie King, head of the Industrial Relations Division of the the Rockefeller Foundation, and Starr J. Murphy, of Mr. Rockefeller's personal staff, also took part in the talk. The discussion, it was understood, was absolutely frank and open and views were expressed freely.
"We had a pleasant talk and a frank exchange of views," the miners' officials said as they left Mr. Rockefeller's office. "Don't ask us any leading questions, as we prefer that Mr. Rockefeller should give out whatever seems best to him about the matter. See him."
When Mr. Rockefeller came out with Mr. King and Mr. Murphy he was not much more communicative. "It was quite unofficial and informal," he said. "They gave me certain facts about conditions in Colorado that I was glad to know about, and we had a general discussion. No new suggestions were made.
"You can understand how much depends on what is being done and how more harm than good might be accomplished by making too much out of it. I hope you won't make this meeting out to be anything else than what it was-an informal, unofficial talk over questions that interest us."
Mother Jones Changes Front.
Meanwhile Mother Jones, who had seen Mr. Rockefeller on Wednesday and had expressed the belief that he seemed a much misunderstood young man, seemed yesterday to have had some searchings of heart. She had received from Upton Sinclair in the morning a telegram reading: "We are sure you will not let yourself be overcome by the sweet odor of the American Beauty rose," and so she gave out a long statement in which she insisted that Mr. Rockefeller must show the country that his new affability toward labor was to be carried out in action. Here is what she said, in part:
Mr. Rockefeller is a very pleasant young man. He assured me that he is anxious to help the workers in their struggle for a chance to live as free men and women, and we are going to give him every chance in the world to show that he means it.
Good intentions are all right as paving blocks, but what we want is performance-and we want it now. I don't believe Mr. Rockefeller understands the needs and aspirations of the working people yet. If he did understand, and if he is sincere, he would realize that the new scheme for meeting his men in Colorado is a sham and a fraud.
He is letting the workers elect one representative at each mine, and these delegates meet with the company officials in Denver. They have no organization behind them. They are absolutely powerless to enforce any just demand. They have no treasury. The operators could put over anything they pleased, and if the men tried to resist by the only means in their power-a strike-they would be starved out in a week.
Only Lip Service So Far.
So far Mr. Rockefeller has given only lip service to democracy in industry. His new plan in Colorado masquerades as a basis for collective bargaining. It is the shadow, not the substance. You can't fool my boys. They know that this kind of a scheme is a hypocritical and dishonest practice. I don't believe Mr. Rockefeller understands this, because he says he believes in unions and collective bargaining and democracy in industry.
So Mother Jones urged Mr. Rockefeller to go out to Colorado as quickly as possible to see things for himself and make alterations in a condition, which, she asserted, kept the miners in as bad a position as if they were in Russia and not in America.
When Commissioner Garretson was asked yesterday how Mr. Rockefeller's testimony and behavior on the stand had impressed him, he said he thought both sides would be helped by his examination.
"Mr. Rockefeller," he declared, "is not the kind of man the laboring men thought he was, and I think he found the laboring men different from what he had supposed."
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[emphasis and photograph added]
From the New York Sun of January 29, 1915:
Mother Jones Now Doubts.
Mother Jones at Ludlow
Mother Jones, who talked with Mr. Rockefeller on Wednesday about the Colorado situation, made a statement yesterday in which she said she expected something more from Mr. Rockefeller than promises of help in remedying the conditions of which she complained to him. She wants him to go right out to Colorado now and see things for himself before the men forget about the strike of last summer.
Mr. Rockefeller is a very pleasant young man...[etc., see New York Times article above at "Mother Jones Changes Front" for beginning of statement.]
I am sure that Mr. Rockefeller will not be willing to take credit for being a liberal and enlightened and humane man without making good on his promise. He can't eat his cake and have it too. So far his company has not given up an atom of its arbitrary power. It is up to Mr. Rockefeller to prove that he is not trying to win favor with the public by putting out a few fine sounding phrases.
For ten years the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company and the rest of them have starved and hammered down my boys out there. They have lived like dogs. The companies have not only underpaid them but they have taken away the little they got through company stores, company houses and company saloons. My boys and their families have had no more rights in Colorado than animals.
The company was against them, the company's courts were against them; when they tried to help themselves they were blacklisted and beaten or shot down. I want to have young Mr. Rockefeller go now and see for himself.
Nothing is settled out there. The strike is over and unionism was ground under the heel of tyranny, ground down into the mud. I want young Mr. Rockefeller to see and understand. I want him to go out there now while the ashes of Ludlow are still hot. There is no use in his going out next summer or next fall. Now is the time, when people are thinking about it.
[emphasis and photograph added]
SOURCES
The New York Times
(New York, New York)
-Jan 29, 1915
http://query.nytimes.com/...
The Sun
(New York, New York)
-Jan 29, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/...
See also:
Hellraisers Journal: Upton Sinclair Arrested Picketing
the Offices of John D. Rockefeller Jr.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
IMAGES
Upton Sinclair Protesting at No. 26 Broadway
http://www.loc.gov/...
Frank Hayes, Ed Doyle, and James Lord
http://www.flickr.com/...
Mother Jones at Ludlow
http://www.socialwelfarehistory.com/...
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More on the statement of Mother Jones from Foner's Mother Jones Speaks
Philip Foner pieced together the statement of Mother Jones from three sources: The New York Times, the New York Call, and an unidentified newspaper clipping. Unfortunately, he did not specify the source for each paragraph. I believe that the unidentified clipping is probably The Sun of New York City. The following paragraphs are left over after subtracting the paragraphs from the Times and the Sun, and are most likely from the Call.. (Sadly, I have not been able to find any issues of the Call from January 1915 online.)
Mother Jones in one of Rockefeller's Prisons
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I urge Mr. Rockefeller to go out to Colorado as quickly possible to see things for himself and make alterations in a condition, which have kept the miners in as bad a position as if they were in Russia and not in America...
The United Mine workers is the only organization of coal miners in America. Mr. Rockefeller's employes will need its help if they are to enjoy the rights that he says they ought to have.
I am going to wait and see what happens. I like what Mr. Rockefeller says, and I hope he means it. It looks as though he had opened his eyes and that the great strike, with all its suffering, had not been in vain.
Mr. Rockefeller is a pleasant-spoken young man. He says he wants to help my boys in Colorado. This is what I want him to do. I want him to do now what he has always had a chance to do...
I believe in democracy. I want my boys to be good Americans. I am against violence. I hate bloodshed. In the strike they shot down in cold blood thirty of my boys and their wives and children. And what is the result? The murderers have been white washed and freed, and now the companies have had 200 of my boys indicted for murder. I want young Mr. Rockefeller to see this and understand it.
I'm not going out to Colorado with him. Why, they'd mob us at every depot. They would think that I was bringing him with me for protection. I don't need any protection.
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SOURCE
Mother Jones Speaks
-ed by Philip S Foner
NY, 1983
See also:
The Autobiography of Mother Jones
Chapter XXI: In Rockefeller's Prisons
http://womenshistory.about.com/...
IMAGE
Mother Jones in one of Rockefeller's Prisons
https://archive.org/...
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La Marseillaise - Mireille Mathieu
While he was in the Tombs prison, Sinclair was placed in a cell next to that in which the four women arrested with him were confined. The women, to keep up their courage, sang "The Marseillaise," and this so stirred Sinclair's poetic soul that he wrote these verses:
THE MARSEILLAISE IN THE TOMBS.
First comes the settler with his ax and plow,
He cleans the land and founds the future State;
A Freeman, proud and happy in his toil,
Sure that the nation will be strong and great;
Then comes the tradesman with his cunning wiles;
He takes the land-the freeman is a slave;
And justice sleeps, hatred and murder reign,
Hunger and want pursue men to their graves.
They rear the prison with its iron bars,
And all the solemn majesty of law;
But hark! the sound-the prison walls awake!
The song that roused a people into war.
Rejoice, rejoice! the voice of hope is heard;
There are no bars forged by the powers of wrong.
There stands no prison upon God's fair earth
That can withstand the fury of that song.
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