How PR Helped John D Rockefeller Jr. Get Away with Murder
- Tarasekhar Padhy
- Nov 22, 2024
- 5 min read
Updated: Nov 25, 2024
(If you prefer, you can watch this video instead: The Power of Public Relations (ft. John D. Rockefeller Jr.))
John D Rockefeller Jr. or JDR, was an American philanthropist and financier.
At least that’s what the mainstream media tell you.
In fact, he was a cold-blooded murderer who sacrificed the lives of his own employees for profits, despite being a billionaire and the sole heir to the Standard Oil Company.
However, despite committing atrocious acts against the very people who contributed to his immense wealth, JDR is primarily known for his charitable acts and civic duties. Truth be told, most people don’t even know that he ordered the killing of his workers, in an event known as the Ludlow massacre.
In this article, let’s look at how the Ludlow massacre transpired and what JDR did to clean his public image.
The Ludlow Massacre: The Complete Saga
The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) held a strike against the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I), an establishment majorly owned by JDR. There were two main objectives:
Enforce the Colorado mining law
Gain representation for the miners through the union
Achieving the above objectives will improve the working conditions and wages of the workers and give them a voice in the company to stand up for themselves. The workers, coal miners, demanded a 10% pay raise, an 8-hour workday, and the right to stay outside the company-owned colonies. [1]
In those times, coal miners were not paid with money, but with something called “coal stripes” that can be exchanged for goods and services in the shops owned by the company they work for. It’s like Amazon paying its employees with Amazon Gift Cards. This is why the third demand was pretty crucial.
Anyway, JDR denied all of the demands which escalated tensions between the workers and the CF&I management. The disgruntled employees then set up tent colonies after leaving the company barracks, with the largest one set just outside the town of Ludlow.
Even the vice president of CF&I commented “With everything running so smoothly and with an excellent outlook for 1914, it is mighty discouraging to have this vicious gang come into our state and not only destroy our profit but eat into that which has heretofore been saved.” [2]
By “this vicious gang” he meant “the striking workers.”
JDR stood by this and bribed the Governor of Colorado on 20th April, 1914 to get the situation under control. The Governor, then, sent the National Guards armed to the teeth to shoot the striking miners to kill the protest.
source[3]
At least 19 people died, including 13 women and children who lost their lives through suffocation when hiding in a fire pit to stay safe from the bullets.
source[4]
The miners retaliated to the best of their abilities but were no match to American militia.
President Woodrow Wilson dispatched the U.S. Army to restore order which involved shooting more coal miners and their families. There was an armed vehicle, with a mounted machine gun, called “The Death Car” was deployed for this purpose.
source[5]
It is estimated that about 66 people lost their lives by the end.
Ivy Lee: The Father of Modern PR
The newspapers at that time weren’t too kind to JDR, as you can imagine. So, the billionaire decided to clean his public image by hiring a PR professional that money can buy — Ivy Lee.
Here are four critical moves by Lee that helped clear the smear off the guy who literally called for the mass execution of his own employees because they asked for fundamental human rights:
1. Deny Allegations Outright
There was no internet back then. Collecting evidence takes time. Proving that they are legit to establish true malicious intent takes even longer. Additionally, a little bit of delay is enough to make the public cool down a bit.
That was the primary goal of this move.
Ivy Lee simply requested the public to withhold their judgments until all the judicial procedures had been completed. He also demanded that there is no proof that JDR was directly involved in the massacre. [6]
2. Smear Campaign
Another way you can get some heat off of you is by questioning the credibility of the accusers to plant the seed the doubt in the minds of the public.
Lee went after Mother Jones, a key labor and community organizer who played a pivotal role in empowering the workers. He claimed that she was an agitator and a former prostitute who was on the bankroll of the UMWA. [7]
To portray JDR as an innocent bystander, he stated that the CF&I management misled the billionaire, only feeding him information about the protests that were factually untrue, to remain in his good books.
Were both of the above claims true? It doesn’t matter.
What matters is that the public started giving JDR the benefit of the doubt.
3. Take Control of the Narrative
Lee distributed a misinformation pamphlet called the “Logan District Mines Information Bureau” to own the entire story. It became the “legitimate” source of the latest information because there was no internet back then. [7]
There is a famous saying “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.”
All the aforementioned lies that JDR didn’t do and that Mother Jones was a bad person were disseminated through this pamphlet.
He also played an instrumental role in forming trade associations such as the American Petroleum Institute in 1919, which further served this purpose. This allowed Lee and JDR to spread stories that were favorable to their business interests.
4. Humanize the Killer
Before the Ludlow Massacre, the billionaire maintained a private life, as all of them typically do.
However, this event changed that. Post the massacre and following brutal public scrutiny, JDR, thanks to Lee’s advice, did a complete 180. He was frequently seen in public after that, socializing with others, playing golf, and giving quips and quotes to the papers that the proles could relate to.
In some instances, he was also captured giving dimes away to children. [8]
All of this humanized him and made the public go a bit soft. He later doubled down on it by establishing many charitable organizations such as the Rockefeller Foundation and donated heavily to the WW1 and WW2 relief funds.
Moreover, to this day, many educational institutions and research departments continue to receive money from the billionaire’s empire, positioning him as the man who started it all. Over time, it was inevitable that the smut over his name would vanish into thin air.
Conclusion: PR is Not Useless
Contrary to what I believed as a kid, PR does a pretty good job as you are participating in the discussion and are eventually taking control of the narrative to bend reality.
Think of it as adding more pages to your biography.
After the Ludlow massacre, JDR’s biography will paint him as a scumbag, and righteously so.
However, after giving away millions of dollars which definitely helped people (like the refugees during the world wars and students that need scholarships), JDR’s biography will look much different.
In fact, only a small paragraph will talk about his “alleged” involvement in the massacre while the rest of the pages will praise him for his benevolence and philanthropy.
This is what Wikipedia says about JDR’s role in the Ludlow tragedy:
“He was widely blamed for having orchestrated the Ludlow Massacre and other offenses during the Colorado Coalfield War.” [9]
Eventually, in 1920, he ended up on the cover of TIME magazine:
source[10]
Congratulations Ivy Lee, you did it!
