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.
-Mother Jones
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Monday September 27, 1915
Denver, Colorado - Rockefeller Returns from a Tour of the Scene of His Crimes
John D. Rockefeller Jr. is back in Denver; his tour of the southern Colorado coalfields is done. And, apparently, it is hoped that dressing up as a coal miner and descending 400 feet underground should prove to be a good enough publicity stunt to make the nation forget the younger Rockefeller's blood-stained hands and the burnt-out tent colony where the women and children of Ludlow were murdered.
The New York Times enthusiastically describes Rockefeller's tour:
Since Mr. Rockefeller reached Trinidad last Monday he has driven some hundreds of miles over mountains and plains in motor cars, dug coal in the Frederick mine, and descended a 400-foot shaft at Coal Creek; eaten beefsteak and beans at miners' boarding houses, and danced with miners' wives and daughters in a little school house after an amateur entertainment.
LEST WE FORGET
The entire Costa family lost their lives in the Ludlow Massacre.
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Rockefeller's cheerful and genial tour took place across the blood-soaked Southern Coalfield where only a short time ago striking miners and their families were evicted from Rockefeller's company towns, lived through the winter in tents, and were then massacred by Rockefeller's hired gunthugs armed with Rockefeller's imported machine guns.
From The New York Times of September 26, 1915:
ROCKEFELLER MAY MEET
LABOR CHIEFS
-----
Indicates That He Will Accept a Conference
with the United Mine Workers.
-----
WANTS TO HEAR ALL SIDES
-----
Completes a Week of First-Hand Investigation in
Colorado and Will Put Findings Into Effect.
-----
Special to The New York Times.
DENVER, Col., Sept. 25.-John D. Rockefeller, Jr., ended the first week of his investigation of his Colorado properties tonight, and will begin a series of conferences with his officials here on Monday. At these meetings any changes of policy that he may have decided upon will be formulated.
He has agreed to meet the President and Secretary of the Women's Justice League of Denver, and there is a possibility that he will also meet a committee of the International Board of the Mine Workers. Just before he left Florence this afternoon a dispatch was shown to him to the effect that the International Board of the United Mine Workers of America had decided to send a committee to discuss with him the Colorado labor situation. He was asked if he would receive the committee. He replied:
"I have not yet refused to meet any one, and I will not begin now."
"Does that mean that you will meet these union men?" he was asked.
"You have heard my answer, and you may interpret it for yourself. I am out West now to do things."
Greets Workers Everywhere.
Since Mr. Rockefeller reached Trinidad last Monday he has driven some hundreds of miles over mountains and plains in motor cars, dug coal in the Frederick mine, and descended a 400-foot shaft at Coal Creek; eaten beefsteak and beans at miners' boarding houses, and danced with miners' wives and daughters in a little school house after an amateur entertainment.
He has made a careful investigation of the system of direct mediation inaugurated recently by the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, and at each camp sought out the miners' representatives and talked with them about the practical side of the plan. This mediation system-which John R. Lawson, a labor leader, in jail at Trinidad, designated a substitute for recognition of the union-is under the direct supervision of David Griffiths, mediator for the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company.
On Tuesday the Women's Justice League sent a telegram to Mr. Rockefeller at Trinidad asking for a conference, and he replied through his secretary that he would be glad to meet their representatives. The league also asked Mr. Rockefeller to visit John R. Lawson in jail and to confer with the attorneys for the mine workers as to the charges of wrongs committed during Lawson's trial. The telegram of the league further requested that he give an audience to the officials of the mine workers.
Leaders Seek an Interview.
Robert H. Harlin, Percy Tetlow, and James F. Moran, members of the National Executive Board of the United Mine Workers, today invited Mr. Rockefeller to meet with them with a view to establishing contract relations such as existed in Wyoming, Montana, and Washington. From his statement at Florence it is presumed that Mr. Rockefeller will consent to meet the committee. The miners' committee issued a document today commenting on the statement accredited to Mr. Rockefeller that he did not discriminate between union and non-union labor. The committee said:
If Mr. Rockefeller was sincere when he said that his company did not care whether their employes were union men or not, then these employes will be permitted to join the organization of their choice; then the 800 or 900 members of our organization who have been refused employment will be treated as other men are treated by his company. And then no longer will summary discharge be the penalty imposed upon those who have the temerity to assert their manhood and declare their affiliation with the United Mine Workers of America.
If Rockefeller did not mean that his employes would be permitted to belong to the United Mine Workers without interference and without being discharged on some flimsy trumped-up pretext or other, then we wish it to be understood that union men cannot work for the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, and conditions in the camps owned by them are precisely the same as they were prior to and following the calling off of the strike; and the elements that led to the revolt of the miners of Southern Colorado still obtain.
[Photograph added.]
~~~~~~~~~~
SOURCES
The New York Times
(New York, New York)
-Sept 26, 1915
http://query.nytimes.com/...
United Mine Workers Journal
(Indianapolis, Indian)
-April 15, 1915
https://books.google.com/...
IMAGES
John D Rockefeller Jr Becomes a Coal Miner,
New York Tribune, Sept 26, 1915
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/...
Ludlow Massacre, Costa family,
UMWJ, Italian, Apr 15, 1915
http://books.google.com/...
John D Rockefeller Jr, ISR, July 1915
https://books.google.com/...
Ludlow Remembered,
UMWJ Cover, Apr 15, 1915
http://books.google.com/...
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Ludlow Massacre - John McCutcheon
You struck a match and in the blaze that started,
You pulled the triggers of your gatling guns,
I made a run for the children but the fire wall stopped me.
Thirteen children died from your guns.
-Woody Guthrie
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