4.A Drop of Honey
If your temper is aroused and you tell ‘em a thing or two, you will have a fine time
unloading your feelings. But what about the other person? Will he share your pleasure?
Will your belligerent tones, your hostile attitude, make it easy for him to agree with
you?
“If you come at me with your fists doubled,” said Woodrow Wilson, “I think I can
promise you that mine will double as fast as yours; but if you come to me and say, ‘Let
us sit down and take counsel together, and, if we differ from each other, understand
why it is that we differ, just what the points at issue are,’ we will presently find that we
are not so far apart after all, that the points on which we differ are few and the points
on which we agree are many, and that if we only have the patience and the candor and
the desire to get together, we will get together.”
Nobody appreciated the truth of Woodrow Wilson’s statement more than John D.
Rockefeller, Jr. Back in 1915, Rockefeller was the most fiercely despised man in
Colorado, One of the bloodiest strikes in the history of American industry had been
shocking the state for two terrible years. Irate, belligerent miners were demanding
higher wages from the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company; Rockefeller controlled that
company. Property had been destroyed, troops had been called out. Blood had been
shed. Strikers had been shot, their bodies riddled with bullets.
At a time like that, with the air seething with hatred, Rockefeller wanted to win the
strikers to his way of thinking. And he did it. How? Here’s the story. After weeks spent
in making friends, Rockefeller addressed the representatives of the strikers. This speech,
in its entirety, is a masterpiece. It produced astonishing results. It calmed the
tempestuous waves of hate that threatened to engulf Rockefeller. It won him a host of