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Friday January 29, 1915
New York, New York - Mother Jones Meets with John D. Jr. at No. 26 Broadway
More sensational news being reported across the nation and into the coal camps of Colorado and West Virginia concerning Mother Jones and John D. Rockefeller Jr. Mother met with the young Mr. Rockefeller this past Wednesday afternoon in the once off-limits office at No. 26 Broadway. It was only six months ago that she was turned away from that "sacred edifice of capitalism."
The meeting between the two adversaries took place after Mr. Rockefeller had finished testifying before the Commission on Industrial Relations. Rockefeller was followed to the stand by his publicity agent, Mr. Ivy Lee, who admitted that pamphlets written by him had greatly exaggerated the salary of Mother Jones as well as those of other labor leaders.
MOTHER JONES AND
JOHN D. JR.
BURY HATCHET
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Find They've Misunderstood
Each Other;
To Co-operate Now.
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GREAT DAY FOR NO. 26.
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New York. Jan. 27.-(Special.)-Mother Jones, the strike agitator and friend of coal miners, who has been denouncing capitalists and their methods for many years, went to the office of John D. Rockefeller Jr. this afternoon to tell him about the situation in Colorado, where the Colorado Fuel and Iron company, of which Mr. Rockefeller is a director, has extensive holdings.
Many times in her addresses to striking miners Mother Jones has mentioned the office she visited today as the well of evil from which most of the woes of humankind emanated. Wherever she found trouble she found some means of connecting it with 26 Broadway.
Six months ago she was ushered out of the place after being told that Mr. Rockefeller would not see her. She went back to her people to hold him up to scorn, such scorn as men feel when they eat bitter bread and think they know why.
Admits She Was in Error.
Today she came from that office smiling. Her previous impression had been a great mistake and she acknowledged it. She realized as she had not realized before that not the least of injustice is the injustice of a slanderous tongue. She seemed happy to know that she had found that out.
[She said:]
He has been misunderstood...No one has wronged him more than I have. I used to call him a "High class burglar." I know now he isn't that. I know what he thinks about these things now. I am sure he means to do right.
Within two minutes after Mother Jones had gone down the hallway to the mighty boom of a flashlight in the hands of a deaf photographer, Mr. Rockefeller was shaking hands with half a dozen reporters in his own office.
`
Newspaper Men Surprised.
That has never happened before. News from 26 Broadway has come in the form of carefully prepared statements given out by a clerk. Tonight this pale young man with the keen eyes and softly modulated voice sat down and talked for more than half an hour of his affairs and the great problems they have bought to him.
[He said:]
Mother Jones...told me about conditions in Colorado as she has found them. She told me of the complaints of the miners, that they want opportunity to buy their supplies at other than company stores, that they want schools and churches not owned by the company and of which the teachers and ministers are not appointed by the company officials, that they want the right of free speech, the right to assemble and discuss their affairs, that they object to paying fees for the company's doctors-a variety of things that they believe to be wrong in principle and practice.
Learns from His Visitor.
I found that her mind is remarkably clear. She knows a great deal about those matters that I do not know. I told her that I realized that it was my duty as a director of the company to know more about them. I assured her that I believed that as a matter of principle the things of which she complained were wrong. Of course there should be free speech, free assemblage, independent stores, public schools, and all that. We found that on all matters which we discussed we were in agreement.
I pointed out to her the great difficulty of getting all these things in a mining camp far removed from the ordinary community life, where there would not even be an approach to these things if the company didn't supply them in its own way, the best way possible under the circumstances. She told me that she realized the practical difficulties of doing many things which the miners want done. She was very reasonable and told me that she now believes I am trying to be fair under arduous difficulties.
Admits Attacks on Him.
She admitted that she had said many things about me for which she had no foundation and explained that the effective way to arouse the miners is to lay all their troubles to "No. 26." She told me she had denounced me to the miners of Pennsylvania before she knew that we had no mining interests there whatever.
Now, I think there is a better understanding. I realize that as she said, the great difficulty is that there has not been sufficient opportunity for employes to lay their grievances before the higher officials of the company. What I am trying to do now is to get information on this situation. I am sure that differences will be more easily settled when the facts are known.
Will Start Quiz Today.
Tomorrow I am to talk with John R. Lawson, Frank J. Hayes, Edward L. Doyle, and a Mr. Lord. These gentlemen I have met at the hearings of the commission on industrial relations. They are connected with the organizations of miners in Colorado and may be expected to know what the situation is. I expect to get from them a frank statement of conditions there and to get their ideas on every matter that will help to clear up this trouble.
I think we all realize, and this war in Europe has brought us to a fuller realization of it, that war is wasteful, uneconomic, unchristian. When you think of men fighting each other you realize the stupidity of it and that there must be some way by which men who claim to be Christians can settle their differences.
I shall go to Colorado myself sometimes during this year, just as soon as I can do so. I shall talk with the men themselves there as I am talking with their friends here. Now that the strike is over, I think we can get together on some common basis for the general understanding of each other's positions.
Mother Jones Is "Young."
Despite her frizzy snow white hair "Mother" Jones might have been a very young miss, just arriving home again after attending her first ball, when a reporter called on her at the Union Square hotel tonight to hear her version of the two hours' chat she had had with young Mr. Rockefeller.
She caught her breath excitedly as she went over the glory of it all again. Her eyes snapped behind her rimless spectacles.
"And when are you and young Mr. Rockefeller going to start for Colorado to study labor conditions there together as you said today you would?" Mother Jones was asked facetiously.
No Travel Duet for Her.
"God of heaven, man," she laughed and her round pink face flushed happily, "I'd no more go to Colorado with him than--
"The whole nation would be following us there. That was only a joke. 'Come with me to Colorado,' says I, 'Mr. Rockefeller, and we'll look into the things together,' says I, but just as a joke."
"Yes, yes yes," she went on happily with that touch of brogue she learned in her native north of Ireland, "the young man means the best he knows how. But him raised in luxury, how could he know anything about real things? It isn't his fault, though-the raising he got is the cause of it.
"'Often and often,' says I to his face in his office today-I talk with the likes of him as I do with any one else, and why not?-'often and often, Mr. Rockefeller,' says I, 'I've called you a high class burglar.'"
Good Joke for Rockefeller.
"What did he say to that, Mother Jones?"
"O, he just laughed and laughed like the gentleman he's been raised to be. 'I've been as severe against you as any one,' says I, 'and burglar and worse was none too good for you, once I got my strike in a talk to the men. When we take up a bow and arrow to aim,' says I, 'there must be a target, and you were the target.'
"But, as I told the reporters before today, I see now the young man has been misrepresented. He's frank and he's open and he wants to do right, I think. For one I'm going to reverse what I've been saying about him."
"You'll speak highly of Mr. Rockefeller in your future speeches, Mother Jones?"
"Well," she said doubtfully, and her brow knitted thoughtfully for a moment, "Well, as I says to himself today, I'll never call him a high class burglar again. Frank and open is what he is, and he agreed with pretty near everything I told him in our long talk."
"And which of you was chief speaker?"
She Was Chief Speaker.
"I was," she answered explosively. "Sometimes he'd say something, but not often. 'Mother Jones' to him, you know, was some kind of a freak. That's what he thought till he heard me talk. You can't blame him because he has to associate only with educated people, as they're called-they're uneducated in human things-and so, I suppose, he thought I'd rant about dynamite and broken heads and things like that.
"I told him a lot he never knew before. He sat there kind of pale and very tired looking, but back in his head he was all alive and listening to me."
Admits Peril in Foundations.
Before the Commission on Industrial Relations
John D Rockefeller Jr, unidentified, Commissioner Weinstock, Commissioner Mrs. J Borden Harriman,
Commissioner Lennon, Chairman Frank P Walsh, Secretary Manley, Commissioner O'Connell
Before Mother Jones' visit Mr. Rockefeller had ended his third and last day of testimony before the federal industrial relations commission by sketching in a general way the purposes of the Rockefeller foundation and its methods of operation.
He admitted there was an element of possible danger in large foundations being able to impart the views of the men behind them to younger generations through educational institutions.
He admitted also it was possible such foundations might exercise an influence upon the liberalism of the country, as was done in Germany, he said, by the militarists. The safeguard, he asserted, lies in the legislative bodies and the spirit of the American people. The people of the United States would never tolerate such a thing, he thought, and added that be believed the foundations had no such idea. Their sole purpose, he said, was to bring about better conditions.
"Court of last Resort" O. K.
He declared there was no danger one hundred years from now that the Rockefeller foundation's directors might not be men of the same high standard and ideals as those who at present controlled its policies. He had no objection, he said, to a "court of last resort," consisting of the president of the United States, the governor of New York, and the presidents of several universities, with the power of veto over the foundation, but did not think that such an amendment to the charter was necessary.
He did not believe that within the terms of its charter the foundation could participate in politics, "in the defense of the trusts," or in anything other than its stated philanthropical purposes.
Would "Refer" Strike Calls.
Taking up labor conditions in general, Mr. Rockefeller said that in his opinion employer and employe "do not come face to face often enough."
He said he did not believe union leaders should have the right to call strikes without consulting the workers themselves. Neither did he think employes should have the right to stop work without appealing to their constituency.
"What's the function of a publicity agent?" asked Commissioner Garretson, "Is he hired to "put across' statements or to tell the truth?"
"If he didn't tell the truth, I certainly would have nothing to do with him," replied the witness.
Before Mr. Rockefeller left the witness stand, which he had occupied all yesterday and the day before, he told the commission he sincerely hoped its efforts would develop real improvements in the relations between capital and labor and aid in the general betterment of the condition of the workers.
The audience, in which there were socialists, individualists, members of the Industrial Workers of the World, and other similar organizations, applauded Mr. Rockefeller as he left the stand. Frank P. Walsh, Chairman of the commission, had to insist that order be maintained.
An entire family sacrificed to
the Colorado "Labor Difficulties"
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Ivy L. Lee, now a member of the personal staff of John D. Rockefeller Sr., who compiled and wrote the bulletins which gave the operators side of the labor difficulties in Colorado and which was entitled "The Truth About Colorado," was another witness today. He testified at length regarding an error in those bulletins, which were sent broadcast over the country.
A sum was stated in the bulletins as that which the labor organizers, including "Mother" Jones, had received as compensation for their services for nine weeks, when in reality the compensation was for an entire year's work.
Mr. Lee said he advised an insertion be made in the bulletins correcting the error. He did not know the pamphlets had been distributed without this correction slip until three months later. Then he, personally, sent a correction to all the persons to whom the original misstatement, had been made.
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[emphasis and photographs added]
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Carry It On - Joan Baez
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