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Monday May 31, 1915
From the Appeal to Reason: Round by Round Pummeling of Rockefeller by Walsh
offers more reporting from P. H. Skinner, staff correspondent to the
, who sat ringside as Frank P. Walsh, chairman of the Commission on Industrial Relations, gave the young Mr. Rockefeller a good three-day "pummeling." Skinner describes the battle in 14 rounds. Today we offer the conclusion of Skinner's coverage, rounds seven through fourteen. See
of May 29th and 30th for the first two parts of Skinners coverage.
Skinner's description of Rockefeller confronted with a postcard from the parents of little Frankie Snyder, on the back of which was a photograph of little boy's corspe, needs no comment. Who among us can ever forget the brutality of Rockefeller's gunthugs as they told Frankie's father to "take that damn thing." Rockefeller's thugs were referring to the body of the little boy, as they chased the family from their burning tent, burning from a fire started by these hired gunmen-miltia while the family was yet cowering in the cellar below.
Mr. Rockefeller replied when asked if he wanted to view the photograph, "No; you have described it."
Frank P Walsh
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Round Seven
[Capitalism's pride gets winded and makes desperate efforts to keep from falling to the floor. He is saved by the sound of the gong.]
Walsh read a portion of a letter written by young Rockefeller the day after Christmas, 1913, in which it was set forth that the elder Rockefeller was gratified at the way things were going. The letter spoke of men being brought into the mines from the South and East.
Walsh-Were the men from the South negroes?
Rockefeller-I don't know.
Walsh-For your information they were.
Walsh-How did your father express this satisfaction?
Rockefeller-I see him as often as I can and he is always glad to have me tell him about things. It is entirely natural that we should tell him about a matter of this kind.
Walsh-How did he express his satisfaction?
Rockefeller-It would be difficult for me to recall.
Walsh-He was unusually satisfied, wasn't he?
Rockefeller-Well, you seem to know.
Walsh-Well, I'll read it.
Whereupon Chairman Walsh read the letter.
Walsh-Some time prior to the time this letter was written had not several thousand of your faithful employes taken to the canyons rather than stay in the mines any longer?
Rockefeller-Didn't know the number, but thought it was about 4,500.
Walsh-And a few months prior to that letter had not Jeff Farr armed 326 men and turned them loose?
Rockefeller-That's a statement that has been made. I don't know.
Walsh-And prior to that letter did such men not riddle the Forbes tent colony and riddle the leg of one boy with nine bullets?
Rockefeller was dubious in his knowledge of this.
Round Eight
[Walsh fails to make his opponent stand up and fight. The cowardly millionaire again tries to hide behind his second.]
Walsh brought up Jeff Farr and his employment of 328 special deputy sheriffs, who were gunmen and thugs, he said, recruited from all parts of the country, and the shooting of a miner at Forbes as he lay in his tent.
"I can't vouch for the account of that," said Rockefeller.
Q. Well, did your officials, prior to this letter of yours at Christmas time, ever treat with the men? As a matter of fact, didn't they refuse even to go through a door in a thin partition to meet the representatives of the men? A. I remember that the representatives of the company met the representatives of the miners in the presence of Secretary Wilson and proposed terms that were not agreed to by the men.
Round Nine
[Rockefeller clinches and hangs on until separated by sheer strength and skill of his opponent. Walsh compels him to stand up and take his medicine.]
Walsh read the report on the deportation of miners from Colorado, and Rockefeller admitted having had some knowledge of the facts through letters from officials.
Next Walsh read a letter from L. M. Bowers to Rockefeller in which was the sentence: "Old Mother Jones has been on the ground two weeks, but Saturday we understand the governor ordered her to leave the state and not to return."
"You are aware, are you," asked Walsh, "that deportation is a violation of the fourteenth amendment?"
"No, I am not."
Walsh read the fourteenth amendment.
"You recognize it, as read?" he inquired.
"Yes."
"You recognize it as one frequently invoked to protect property rights?"
Rockefeller was noncommittal.
"Did you know that this lady's rights were to be violated by deportation?"
He did not, said Rockefeller.
Now that he knew it, Walsh asked, would he wish to discharge Bowers and other officers who were responsible? If there was any doubt concerning Bowers' part, he added, Bowers was in the room, as was Starr J. Murphy, and this afternoon they probably could arrive at a conclusion relative to the former's personal responsibility and he could be discharged if they found-as the chairman said the letter indicated-that he had violated the law.
"I've stated and I maintain," said Rockefeller,"that I'll do whatever is right, but I do not intend to commit myself to any specific action."
"You believe in upholding the constitution?"
"I do; I am in favor of absolute justice."
Round Ten
[Walsh knocks Rockefeller to the floor with a straight blow at his jaw, after the latter's desperate efforts to evade the blow.]
Walsh read a telegram from L. M. Bowers, vice president of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, in which he told Rockefeller five days before the Ludlow disaster of the arming of more than 100 volunteers at Trinidad, who were to be paid by the Rockefeller company.
"Do you know," Walsh asked, "that this is the troop that not only shot, into the camp at Ludlow, but looted the bodies and set fire with the torch?"
"That's the report," Rockefeller said.
"Do you uphold these acts?"
"I don't uphold any acts of violence," Rockefeller replied with heat.
"Yet, you say that you uphold every act of your executives, and your executives employed these gunmen," Walsh persisted.
"Don't you feel a moral responsibility for those actions?" Walsh added.
"I would feel a greater moral responsibility if the executive officers had not done everything in their power to preserve life and property," was Rockefeller's response.
[Emphasis above added.]
Round Eleven
[Rockefeller has an unpleasant round, breathing heavily and perspiring profusely. The young millionaire shows loss of nerve.]
"Did you read the evidence at the coroner's inquest over the Ludlow disaster?" Chairman Walsh asked. When Rockefeller replied in the negative Walsh asked him if he did not feel it a duty to determine the facts to learn the train of events that lead to the massacre.
"I have such knowledge of the actions of the executives to give them my entire confidence," Rockefeller replied.
"Yes," Walsh continued, "you only take their word. You close your eyes to the crimes at Ludlow and the evidence of the coroner's inquest. You close your eyes to the other outrages. You sit in your offices in New York and say 'I uphold these executives.'"
"Now for your information," Mr. Walsh continued, "I will tell you that all these people were not smothered. I will read you a postal card I received from a woman in Trinidad whose little boy was shot and killed, 'while caressing his sister' as his mother wrote.
"Here is the picture of the child; do you want to see it?" Walsh asked as he handed it to Rockefeller.
"No; you have described it," Rockefeller answered.
Round Twelve
[Rockefeller manages to escape in this round by clever feinting and artful dodging.]
Chairman Walsh-Do you know it to be a fact that there was not a single life lost among the striking people and militia until your executive officers whipped the governor into line and had the militia protect the importation of strikebreakers into the camp?
Rockefeller-I do not.
Chairman Walsh-Do you say that it is not a fact?
Rockefeller-I don' express any opinion about it.
Round Thirteen
[Rockefeller tries to crawl under the ropes, but crowd forces him back to meet his opponent squarely.]
Walsh-Prior to that time hadn't you received a letter form Mr. Bowers telling you that he had used every effort to whip the Governor of Colorado into line?
Rockefeller-I have forgotten any such letter.
Walsh-Is it the case that in a matter so important as whipping into line the Governor of a State you forget?
Round Fourteen
[In this round Rockefeller took the count and was considered badly beaten, having failed to answer convincingly the three charges.]
When Chairman Walsh finished questioning Rockefeller, Commissioner Weinstock presented a letter to the latter which set forth a preliminary statement in which the commissioner reviewed the commission's inquiry into Colorado conditions.
[It read:]
What I have been able, in brief, to get out of it all...is that the strikers and their sympathizers made three specific charges.
That at no time after the strike could they get a hearing at the hands of the operators.
That the civil and judicial machinery for obtaining such justice as the law affords was in the hands of the operators and not available to the strikers.
That the operators, through their agents, were the first to resort to violence and that all the violence which followed was defensive on the part of the strikers and not offensive.
If these three charges have been established then it must be plain that the responsibility for the unfortunate happenings in Colorado must be laid at the door of the operators and the strikers are entitled to all support and sympathy of the American people.
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[Photographs added.]
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WE NEVER FORGET
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