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Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 13, 1914
Trinidad, Colorado – State Senator Robinson Opines on Rockefeller’s Conscience
From the New York American of April 12, 1914:
By Helen Ring Robinson.
State Senator in Colorado, an Authority on
Economic Conditions in That State.TRINIDAD, COLO., April 11—What is a conscience? The question comes like a shout to an observer down here in the Colorado strike zone, where the Rockefeller interests are paramount, after reading that John D. Rockefeller, Jr., declared before the Congressional committee investigating that strike that his “conscience acquits him” of responsibility for the conditions existing to-day in these coal fields.
Under such circumstances the Rev. R. Cook, of Trinidad, declares that the devil must have a large option on the conscience of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., but he insists on letting it go at that. He will not answer the question, “What is a conscience?”
Nobody in Trinidad will even try to answer it. The John D. Rockefeller, Jr., remark seems to have obfuscated any ideas the people here once had on the subject of “What is conscience?”
Here are some of the conditions in the Southern Colorado coal fields for which the Rockefeller interests must be held largely responsible.
Here are just a few facts which the facile conscience of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., acquits him of all responsibility for—facts which are matters of common knowledge in the two counties of Colorado dominated by the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company—-dominated in other words, by the Rockefeller interests…..
[Emphasis added.]
The article by Senator Robinson goes on to address the following conditions existing in the Coalfields of Southern Colorado under the rule of John D. Rockefeller’s Colorado Fuel and Iron Company:
“Political Control and Unspeakable Corruption.”
“White Slave Market Conducted in the Open”
“Gunmen, Enlisted Serve in the Militia.”
“Mathematical Analysis of Rockefeller Conscience”
“Militia Outspoken Against Labor Unions.
“[Imported Strikebreakers] Knew But One Word and That Was ‘War'”
“Depths of Ignorance Versus Millions”
“Control Without Vision Real Cause of Trouble”
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Senator Helen Ring Robinson Visits
the Strike Zone in Southern Colorado
Senator Helen Ring Robinson, traveled to the strike zone of Southern Colorado, arriving on April 8th, to begin an investigation into the ongoing strike situation in order to report on conditions there for the New York American.
At Pueblo, she met with Manager Weitzel of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. Like his boss, J. D. Rockefeller Jr., she found him to be a man of fine manners, high ideals, and impeccable courtesy. An unnamed appointee of Governor Ammons was not, however, so easily impressed by such high-class affectations, and confided to the Senator that the brutality directed against the strikers has so sickened him that he wished he had a few bombs to throw at certain people.
She made a tour of the mining camps and saw no sign of the bathhouses nor the recreation centers, nor the dance halls of which Mr. Rockefeller spoke so proudly during his testimony earlier this week before the House Committee in Washington. She did find plenty of saloons, however, along with dreary company shacks covered in soot near smoking piles of slack.
She also made a tour of the strikers’ tent colonies, where she found the people enjoying the warmth of spring after enduring the long Colorado winter in the tents. The colonist, made up of twenty-two different nationalities, have grown close during the long cold months, especially the women and children. The Senator noted that the angelic children turn into “little fiends” when the militiamen enter the camps, shouting “scab-herders” and “Tin Willies” at them. Many of the older strikers have not forgotten the brutalities visited upon them by militiamen and company guards during the bitter strike of ten years ago.
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SOURCES & IMAGES
Quote JDR Jr Conscience Acquits, Testimony bf House Com p2858,
WDC, Apr 6, 1914
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=msu.31293006718120&seq=842
New York American
(New York, New York)
– Apr 12, 1914
https://www.genealogybank.com/doc/newspapers/image/v2:145DB54559039B08@GB3NEWS-1779AB8F6A18D54E@2420235-173716ADC2F8A34E@30-173716ADC2F8A34E
Buried Unsung
Louis Tikas and the Ludlow Massacre
-by Zeese Papanikolas
U of Nebraska Press, 1991
https://archive.org/details/buriedunsungloui0000papa/mode/1up?view=theater
-pages 210-212:
re Helen Ring Robinson visit to Southern Colorado Strike Zone
https://archive.org/details/buriedunsungloui0000papa/page/210/mode/1up?view=theater&q=robinson
IMAGE
Helen Ring Robinson, Madison Journal (Madison Parish) p1, Mar 14, 1914
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88064430/1914-03-14/ed-1/seq-1/
See also:
NOTE: Entire Article by Senator Robinson can be read here:
Hearst’s Sunday American
(Atlanta, Georgia)
-Apr 19, 1914
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn89053729/1914-04-19/ed-2/seq-3
Rocky Mountain News
(Denver, Colorado)
-Apr 22, 1914
(Helen Ring Robinson blames coal operators and “their plug-uglies in the militia” for Ludlow Massacre.)
https://www.genealogybank.com/doc/newspapers/image/v2:12C601A5C4B97518@GB3NEWS-1479669C03E2FAD8@2420245-1477B8E75B6F73E8@4-1477B8E75B6F73E8
Apr 24, 1914, Rocky Mountain News, article by Mildred Morris
-Denver women’s mass meeting protests massacre at Ludlow;
Colorado State Senator Helen Robinson speaks.
https://www.genealogybank.com/doc/newspapers/image/v2:12C601A5C4B97518@GB3NEWS-1479669F04E908C8@2420247-1477B8E7765A46B0@6-1477B8E7765A46B0
Industrial Relations, final report and testimony submitted to Congress
by the Commission on Industrial Relations v.8
Testimony of Helen Ring Robinson:
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt/search?id=uiug.30112087783327&q1=helen+ring+robinson&sz=25&start=1&sort=seq&hl=true&page=search&seq=1&orient=0
Helen Ring Robinson
Colorado Senator and Suffragist
-by Pat Pascoe
University Press of Colorado, Nov 15, 2011
https://books.google.com/books?id=vhzjCwAAQBAJ
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday April 11, 1914
Washington, D. C. – John D. Rockefeller Jr. Testifies Before Federal Investigators
States He Is Willing to Lose All in Colorado, Including Lives of His Employes, in Pursuit of the “Great Principle” of Open Shop
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday April 12, 1914
The Testimony of John D. Rockefeller Jr., Monday April 6, 1914, Before the House Committee Investigating Conditions in the Coal Mines of Colorado
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The Women and Children of Ludlow – Tom Breiding
-Lyrics by Frank Hayes (last verse adapted by Tom Breiding)
POEM, Women and Children of Ludlow, Frank Hayes,
Machinist Monthly p617, June 1914
https://books.google.com/books?id=g8YUAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA617&dq=women+children+ludlow+frank+hayes&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjrw5uzgvSBAxUbmmoFHbZbCeAQ6AF6BAgGEAI#v=onepage&q=women%20children%20ludlow%20frank%20hayes&f=false
