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Friday February 26, 1915
From the United Mine Workers Journal: How the Elder Rockefeller Was "Smoked Out"
we find an article by Samuel J. Lewis which tells the remarkable story of how Mr. John D. Rockefeller Sr. was smoked out of his hide-out to be grilled to a toasty brown by Frank P. Walsh, Chairman of the
.
The author of the article writes of other attempts to question the elder Mr. Rockefeller:
Lewis gives Chairman Walsh the credit for managing to bring the Rockefellers, Jr. and Sr., and other masters of industry before the public eye:
Smoked Out
Federal Industrial Commission Campaign of Publicity
Forced Rockefeller to Testify.
By Samuel J. Lewis.
John D Rockefeller Sr Smoked Out
before the Commission on Industrial Relations
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If the Federal Commission on Industrial Relations, which has been meeting in New York, did no more than the one thing it should have a most prominent place in history as the body which started the fire that smoked out John D. Rockefeller, Sr.
And this, too, without any great blare of trumpets, burning of stink pots, beating of tom-toms or other considerable war cry!
Of course, at the outset, it might be said, and it might be well to say that the witnesses summoned and the evidence they gave constituted the smudge which smoked the elder Rockefeller to a beautiful and ham like brown. Frank J. Hayes, John R. Lawson and Edward Doyle [U. M. W. A. officials] told stories which called for and demanded answers. The Colorado situation—the whole coal mining cause—was put so plainly before the commission and true people, both in Colorado and in New York City, that the newspapers of the country greedily took cognizance of the evidence as making the best story in years. Then Standard Oil and Colorado Fuel & Iron, driven to the last trench, had to poke their heads above their sheltering dirt piles and fight for their lives.
Nevertheless, the fact remains that the commission summoned these witnesses in the first place, and gave them opportunity to tell their stories and make their arguments. Also the commissioners asked many questions to elaborate on obscure points. They gave much time to the Colorado testimony, to the story of Ludlow, the causes for the strike and the possibilities of its settlement. The commission did these things when it might have sidestepped; when it might have dodged or evaded.
Wherefore, let us give the glory for this unprecedented smoking to the Federal Commission on Industrial Relations. Hayes, Lawson, Doyle, White, Green, McLennan [U. M. W. A. officials] et al, do not need it anyway. They have enough as it is.
Let's go back to John D. Rockefeller, Sr., passing by the son, who as first witness for the family before the commission, probably only voiced the sentiments and views of the parent.
Heretofore the elder Rockefeller has steadfastly refused to testify before commissions, grand juries, investigating boards and what not. He has even carried this refusal to the hiding out stage, concealing himself for days and weeks from subpoena servers and deputy sheriffs. In fact, he had gone to the point of refusing to be interviewed, has locked himself away from newspaper men and the public; has surrounded himself with a cordon of guards as would an endangered or badgered monarch.
No body of men, on inquiry bent, could muster sufficient show of force to appall this richest man in the world or cause him to lower his battle flags. He was not to be probed, investigated, scrutinized, interviewed. He was bigger than Congress, mightier than the people, higher than legislative statute or resolution.
Memory recalls the time when a Congressional commission, known as the Pujo Committee, attempted to hail the Rockefeller family into public hall for cross-examination. One Samuel Untermyer who himself testified before this present industrial commission, was attorney for the Pujo body, which had set about to discover the source of some of the nation's swollen fortunes.
Untermyer issued his subpoenas, only to find them ignored. Then he began a pursuit of the Rockefeller breed, chasing William, a brother of John Dee, to Jeykl island, off the bleak Atlantic coast and there running him to cover in a sick bed. But the thing did not end there. The brother refused to give any real testimony, falling back upon the whine that he was a sick man—oh, very, very sick—and to disturb him would be the death of him. In fact, the physicians gathered at his bedside assured Mr. Untermyer that William Rockefeller was not long for this world. Ah, sick—sick!
Also it may be suggested that this William Rockefeller is still numbered among those of this earth, although the incident related was some few years ago. Said William showed remarkable recuperative powers—after Mr. Untermyer left and the Pujo Committee adjourned. He soon became strong and well, and is now indeed hale and hearty!
This only shows to what distances the Rockefellers will run when pursued by public questioners. But none of this with the present Industrial Relations Commission!
The commission met in Colorado for two weeks shortly before Christmas. It heard of the coal strike in District 15 from every possible angle. Then, in performing its further duties, it found occasion to go to New York to investigate the Rockefeller and other foundation to ascertain what effect the tying up of such huge sums of money might have upon the entire industrial situation.
But the Colorado strike was too big a thing to be shaken off. Even in New York it injected itself into the deliberations of the commission. In fact, to show the other side of the industrial picture, the commission had brought witnesses from Ludlow—women, wives of strikers, who had crooned over their burned and smothered babes in the black hole on that black day in April! These women's stories, and the stories of the labor leaders, demanded answer—called for explanation.
Mother Jones at the Ludlow Tent Colony
where the striking miners and their families lived
after being evicted from their homes by Rockefeller's gunthugs.
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John D. Rockefeller, Sr., could not escape the issue!
His son had testified. His secretaries, his lieutenants and captains had attempted to struggle against the lines which were closing in on the chief. But all in vain!
Then it was that the elder, for the first time in his almost four-score years, emerged from his obscurity, fear and worry written into the etched lines of his face, and asked to be heard.
Asked to be heard!
John D. Rockefeller, the billionaire, the employer of thousands, the man of colossal wealth, the genius of the money world, rapped humbly on the public's door and craved a moment of its time!
The Rockefellers Sr & Jr
out for a stroll.
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Was there ever such a sight? Did ever union or its members score such a victory? Did ever Congressional commission so nearly carry out the purposes for which it had been created ?
No excitement! No browbeating! No laying by the heels! No force! Just a simple, straight-forward exposition of actual facts by men and women who knew the things of which they spoke! And then this richest man on earth must come forward in his own defense! It was no time to trust the work to son or hirelings! It was a task which called for his own presence, his own personality!
And thus he came, tapping, tapping at the door—his millions left behind, and with nothing to aid him but the words he might utter!
Frank P Walsh, Chairman
Commission on Industrial Relations
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The chairman of this commission, Frank P. Walsh of Kansas City, Mo., is deserving of a word, that the miners may know him better.
Walsh is a lawyer—and a good one, too. He is reckoned as a leader at the bar in all the Central States. Calm, courteous, polite, judicial, he appears exactly the right man in the right place.
He is a cross-examiner par excellence, asking questions in a placid, respectful tone which brings the proper answer and forever does away with the possibility of refusal on the part of the witness. He has the gift of being able to put the most searching personal query in a manner which creates the impression in the witness' mind that that question, no matter how cutting, concise or probing, must be answered. It does not seem to be Walsh who is asking the questions. It does not seem to be the man. It is as if something higher and mightier than any mere individual were conducting an inquiry. It is as if the law—the government!—were asking and insisting on the answer.
And he does it with a quiet gentlemanliness which wins him friends even among those he must put on the grill. In the courtroom he is the same—the dignified, refined, complacent, civil man; the man who does not bully nor intimidate, yet who arrives at his goal. Just as he forced Mr. Rockefeller to come into court and confess judgment.
I well remember an incident in Colorado which well illustrates this chairman's demeanor and calm knowledge of his power. It was before the commission, then sitting in Denver, had called its first witness. I asked Mr. Walsh:
"What if the witnesses refuse to testify?"
I had in mind the corporation heads who were to be called, the documents they would be asked to produce and the biting, digging questions which would be put. Said Mr. Walsh, with one of his crooked and kindly smiles:
"Oh, they'll testify?"
And they did.
There was no slightest boast in his tones; no urging of the powers which lay behind his Congressional committee and which might be called upon; no bravado; no threat. It was just the assurance of one who knew that the thing he said was true, and would be proved true.
This Federal commission is not given with legislative powers. It can only inquire and report. Its duties end on the 31st of July of this year. Then its findings will be presented to Congress, and they will be voluminous, too, for it has been in every section of the country, has investigated much learned much.
But it is the intention to go farther than the submitting of a mere report. Recommendations will be forthcoming. Congress will be urged to pass certain laws and lay down particular regulations. And the workingmen of the country will certainly be gainers through the work of the body.
Certainly not all the members are enthusiastically for organized labor, and yet labor is well and ably represented. John B. Lennon, treasurer, and James O'Connell, vice president of the American Federation of Labor, are members. A. B. Garretson, president of the order of Railway Conductors ,is a commissioner. Then there is John R. Commons, professor of economics in the Wisconsin University, who occupies a rather neutral attitude with leaning toward labor; S. Thurston Ballard, a Louisville flour miller and employer of non-union men, Harris Weinstock, a San Francisco department store owner; Mrs. J. Borden Harriman, a New York society woman who takes keen interest in the commission's work, and Chairman Walsh. These make up a rather non-partisan board, and one which should be able to go into the causes of industrial unrest from every angle.
However, the biggest thing which this commission, its witnesses and the testimony have all united to do is the accomplishment of that hitherto impossible feat—bringing Mr. John D. Rockefeller into the pen.
Like the ground hog, now that he is out without having been frightened by his shadow, he may decide to stay out; may in time come to like the world and its crowds, preferring such things to the old obscurity. And thus, if he can be lured into an actual and permanent partnership with the public, great good may result. As it stands now, the people have had a brief inning, anyway!
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[photographs added]
"Smoked Out" by Samuel J. Lewis
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