Hellraisers Journal – Monday May 25, 1914 Rockefeller Safe in New York; Ludlow Survivors with President at White House
From The Washington Times of May 21, 1914:
Upper left to right: Judge Lindsey, Mary Thomas, Pearl Jolly, Mary Petrucci, Thomas Daughters. Lower left to right: Mrs. Lindsey, Frank Hayes, Mrs. Lee Champion
In Trinidad, Colorado, 1200 men, women and children, the Ludlow refugees, left homeless and with all of their earthly possessions destroyed, are being cared for by the United Mine Workers of America. While in New York City, we are pleased to report, Mr. John D. Rockefeller Jr. is, at long last, safely back at work, his “tormenters” vanquished.
From The Fort Wayne Sentinel of May 20, 1914:
JOHN D. JR., IS BACK AT HIS JOB ———-
He Emerges from Retirement to Find Tormenters Silenced. ———- THE COLORADO CASE ———-
New York, May 20.-John D. Rockefeller, jr., has returned to work after twenty days spent at the country estates of his father at Pocantico Hills. Since May first when he went into retirement most of his tormenters under the leadership of Upton Sinclair, have been silenced, several by being sent to jail.
Sinclair is in Colorado and Marie Ganz and the Rev. Bouch [Bouck] White are serving sentences on Blackwell’s Island, the latter for having broken up the services at the Calvary Baptist church ten days ago.
“Mother” Jones alone remains in the lecture field and denounces the Rockefeller interests in the Colorado coal district. Mr. Rockefeller’s secretary said yesterday that he was making no investigation of the conditions in Colorado. He was only a minority stockholder in the Colorado Fuel and Iron company, it was said, and whatever recommendations he could offer might not influence the officials of the company in dealing with the miners.
[Emphasis added.]
In Washington D. C., Judge Lindsey escorted three miners’ wives on a visit to the White House where they met with President Wilson.
From The Lincoln Star (Nebraska) of May 21, 1914:
PRESIDENT HEARS LINDSEY’S STORY ———-
Denver Judge Explains Strike Conditions in Colorado to Wilson ———-
Washington, May 21.-President Wilson granted and audience today to Judge Ben B. Lindsey of Denver and a delegation of women and children from the strike districts in Colorado. Judge Lindsey explained to the president that Colorado really has a civil war in which it is necessary that the federal government shall take a firm hand and force mediation.
After leaving the White house Judge Lindsey said he had asked for an audience with John D. Rockefeller, jr., one of the owners of the mines in the strike region, in New York, and hoped to be able to persuade Mr. Rockefeller to submit all differences to arbitration.
The president listened to Judge Lindsey and his associates with much interest, and informed them that he did not contemplate the immediate removal of federal troops.
Mrs Lindsey and Mrs. Lee Champion, wife of the Colorado judge, who has been on relief work in the strike districts, accompanied Judge Lindsey to the White house. Other members of the party were Mrs. Pearl Jolley [Jolly], Mrs. Mary Petrucci, Mrs M. H. Thomas and her two children, Rachael and Olga aged four [six] and six [four] years, who were under fire at Ludlow.
The women told President Wilson of their harrowing experiences. Mrs. Petrucci had three children killed at Ludlow. Although she still is in a nervous condition, she insisted on accompanying Judge Lindsey cast, that she might tell the president of the conditions in the mining districts.
More on White House Visit From Accounts of Mary Thomas and Judge Lindsey:
Many years later Mary Thomas O’Neal recalled the visit:
While my children took a nap I fixed up our clothes and brushed our shoes. We had to look clean and tidy to meet the President of the United States. I was nervous and shaky, for the interview with him would be as if I were to meet Queen Victoria!
Upon our arrival at the White House we were shown into a room, not very large, rather like a living room with a fireplace. There was a table in the center and comfortable chairs all about. We were told that the President would grant us twenty minutes. The man who showed us in then opened a door and announced, “The President of the United States.”
We all stood up. He shook our hands and was very cordial. He seemed like an ordinary person. I didn’t quite know what to expect of one in so high and exalted a position. He was a real human being, and I began to relax. We all had our say, and Judge Lindsey asked that he do something about “this disgrace to Colorado.” The President promised him nothing definite, but kept questioning us wives.
My two daughters were by now playing at his feet. He picked up four-year-old Olga and put her on his knee, and drew Rachy, age five, close beside him. Turning to me he said, Mrs. Thomas, you tell me the whole story in your own way.” And I did. It was like I was talking to my father.
On December 15, 1914, Judge Lindsey testifiedbefore the Commission on Industrial Relations. He gave this testimony regarding his conversation with President Wilson at the White House meeting of May 21st:
I do not care to go into the conversation I had with the President of the United States, but to say briefly that I told him that of course there were rights on both sides and that we deplored violence and deplored lawlessness, but we believed that he was the man who had it in his power at this time to bring about peace in our rather distracted State, that there was a great deal of bitterness between all kinds of people that ought not to be, and that in our judgment it was the sentiment of many people in this State—and we believed the majority of the people, and that was our belief—that this should be arbitrated, that he should appoint a board of arbitration, and that if the two contending parties did not consent to it that he should use whatever means he had under the law and the Constitution to compel them to consent. He doubted whether he had any such power, and he asked me to argue it before him. And I argued it, and in doing so I gave him as the reasons—I will state them as briefly as I can—that the governor of this State had confessed, in calling in the Federal troops, that the sovereignty of the State of Colorado had broken down, a government that was guaranteed us by the Constitution of the United States, a republican form of government, had ceased to exist. And that while there was no direct power in the Constitution to authorize a President to take measures that would force parties to agree to arbitration of a difficulty like this, that in my judgment there were necessarily implied powers. I referred to that fact and to some things President Lincoln had said as his attitude on that. I got this statement of President Lincoln’s afterwards, and I would like just to read it here, because it is the substance of what I argued to President Wilson. President Lincoln, in a letter to Mr. Curtis, in his The Republican Party (Vol. I, p. 406):
I did understand, however, that my oath to preserve the Constitution to the best of my ability imposed on me the duty of preserving by every indispensable means that Government—that Nation—of which that Constitution was the organic law. Was it possible to lose the Nation and yet preserve the Constitution? By general law, life and limb must be protected; yet often a limb must be amputated to save a life, but a life is never wisely given to save a limb. I felt that measures otherwise unconstitutional might become lawful by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the Constitution through the preservation of the Nation. Right or wrong, I assume this ground, and now avow it.
I told the President that in order to preserve our larger constitutional rights out here, in order to bring about peace and good order in this State, that it did seem to me that for the reasons mentioned, and possibly some others I do not recall now, that he would, if the necessity arose, as President Lincoln pointed out here, be justified in compelling the coal operators to consent to this arbitration.
The President was very much interested in this presentation, and said so. He said that one difficulty was that the States themselves, according to the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, seemed to be the judges of what was a republican form of government. I argued that by the confession of the governor of this State, that the legislature had been in session—but even if he did not have the confession from the governor, he had it from the legislature, with all the authority of the State, the representatives of the people of the State—they had been unable to preserve law and order in this State, and therefore had called on him as the President. Now, he, as President, could take such measures as he saw fit and as seemed to him indispensable and necessary to preserve peace and order and the bigger rights of the people under the Constitution. He said he would consider that. He said that some foreign ministers—I think, of the Italian and Austrian Governments—had protested to him that their citizens were not safe in the State of Colorado, and that apparently, from this confession of the governor and this act of the legislature, that, in my judgment, amounted to a confession that the sovereignty of the State was broken down and the rights of these foreign citizens could not be preserved.
The President said that presented a nice question; that he was going to look into that and these other matters, and they would be considered. He said: “Judge Lindsey, I think this is a very important question with reference to all the people, and I want you to know that myself and others connected with the administration have done and want to do all we can within our legal rights to bring about peace and order in Colorado.” I told him that I believed our people were thoroughly convinced of that, and we appreciated his efforts.
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