4
Until then, King knew little about the Rockefellers or their problems in Colorado. However, based
on his experience with the Lethbridge coal strike in western Canada in 1906. King was quite familiar with
the coal industry and its unions.
The Colorado Fuel & Iron Company, of which the Rockefellers’ held a 40% ownership interest,
was America’s 17
th
largest industrial concern. CF&I and the 170 coal operators in Colorado were in the
ninth month of a strike wherein the renegade United Mine Workers of America District 15 in Colorado
sought union recognition. Two months earlier, on April 20, a bitter gun battle had broken out in which
several miners and state militia were killed at one of the union’s tent colonies set up near Ludlow, Colo.
Following all the gunfire, the colony was set on fire. This led to the suffocation death of 11 children and
two women, who had sought refuge in a dugout pit. The “Ludlow Massacre” captured newspaper
attention across the country. Pro-labor activists squarely leveled blame for Ludlow and for the strike on
the Rockefellers, despite the fact they little direct involvement in day-to-day operations. [11]
During the same week that Greene contacted King, JDR Jr. had met with a young publicist, Ivy
Lee. Lee was retained to help deal with the adverse publicity across the country. Lee’s charge was to
conduct a publicity campaign to tell the coal operators’ side of the story. Lee’s recommendation was to
blanket the nation’s opinion leaders with a battery of bulletins that told the mine operators’ side of the
story. [12] Meanwhile, King would focus on the labor problems themselves.
1.2. Initial Consultations
King came to New York on Saturday, June 6, when he met at Rockefeller’s home with JDR Jr.,
Greene, and staff attorney Starr J. Murphy. King later recalled in his diary that work conditions in
Colorado were a comparatively minor part of the conversation. The linchpin issue was the recognition of
the union. The managers in Colorado – along with a committee of other operators – were adamantly
Convention