She Had Guts: Josephine Roche

By Ellen and Paul Bonnifield

Josephine Aspinwall Roche

(December 2, 1886 – July 1976) She was a Colorado humanitarian, industrialist, Progressive Era activist, and politician. As a New Deal official she helped shape the modern American welfare state. She was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 1986.

Josephine Aspinwall Roche in 1929 purchased controlling interest in Colorado’s third largest coal mining company, Rocky Mountain Fuel. Two years earlier at the Columbine Mine near Lafayette, company gunmen killed six striking miners and wounded several more including women and children – the Columbine Massacre. Following the violence, Josephine purchased control of the mining company and introduced several revolutionary changes.

At a meeting in Governor Billy Adams office with mine owners and businessmen, a man passed her a note saying, “What this meeting needs is more beauty.” Her response was “What this meeting needs is not beauty, but guts.” She was a lady with ability and guts. John D. Rockefeller Jr. labeled her “a dangerous industrial radical.” He and his Colorado Fuel & Iron (CF&I) feared her.

Josephine, the only child of Ella and John Roche, was born December 2, 1886, in Neligh, Nebraska. John was a successful banker and investor. One of his investments was in Rocky Mountain Fuel Company. He sold his interests in the bank and moved to Denver where he was vice president of the coal company. She also was on the track team. (This was 1904. Women were not supposed to study economics nor run foot races. She would go on to prove her business savvy was above average.) Vassar was followed by graduate work at Columbia University where she studied sociology and economics.

In 1910, she worked at a Settlement House in Greenwich Village helping poor immigrant communities escape exploitation. Her thesis examined the relation between poverty, employment opportunity, and prostitution. Although she was not directly involved, she was nearby when in 1911 the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory burned. It was company policy to lock all the doors including bathrooms. One hundred and forty-six young women, (some as young as twelve) burned to death.

In 1912, Miss Roche moved to Denver where she lived with her parents. She was soon involved in the Progressive Party working for Theodore Roosevelt’s bid for president and general reform. Colorado clearly needed to improve. Labor wars and strikes were common. That year, the miners in the Northern Coalfield (Boulder and Weld counties) went on strike. The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) agreed to assist the miners by expanding the strike across the state. Thus, it became one of the basic causes of the terrible labor war culminating in the Ludlow Massacre. Josephine’s father John was one of the mine owners who brought on the war. On the question of labor relations, he was as narrow as Josephine was broad minded.

Unlimited opportunities opened for a young reformer. In 1903-04, Colorado fought a bloody labor war. People were shot and killed at voting sites. The graveyards voted, that is, a dead person who was registered, voted. Men would study the voter register and select a dead person, then cast their ballot. Often the dead voted twice – once for a Democrat and once for a Republican. The Democratic governor candidate, Alva Adams, received the most votes. The Republican Governor Peabody had appointed state Supreme Court Justices who declared him winner. Finally, to settle the issue, Adams was declared winner. After taking the oath, he resigned, and Peabody took the oath. Peabody immediately resigned and Henry Buchtel became governor. Thus, Colorado had three governors in one day.

After taking office, Robert Speer appointed Michael Delaney chief of police. He was well known for beating suspects until they confessed (Third Degree Delaney). Street cops were well known for their quick and brutal use of night sticks. Children (12-15) living in the poorer districts were often beaten and arrested for being disrespectful. Younger girls, who were showing signs of developing womanhood, were recruited into prostitution for men willing to pay big money for young virgins. Historian Phil Goodstein described Denver as a tourist city dedicated to assuring that visitors had a good time. Estimates range from 500 to 1000 prostitutes working on Market Street at any given time. Venereal disease estimates range at 75 percent. Gambling games were totally dishonest. When Henry Arnold was elected mayor, he appointed George Creel police commissioner with instructions to clean up Market Street. He appointed Josephine as Inspector of Amusements; thus, she was Denver’s first woman police officer. She set out to get young girls off the street and out of the brothels. Boys were also protected from police officers. Creel took the night sticks from the officers.

The reform effort only lasted a few months. The reality was there was no good way to help the girls. Prostitution was the only way they could make a living. Society and economy provided two choices: get married or work the street. During her brief period as officer, Josephine received enough respect from the residents of Market Street that she could walk the street alone day or night without harm. Creel fell out with the mayor and was fired, but when Arnold attempted to fire Roche, he found a beautiful woman who fought back. She passed the civil service test with a 94 percent. She took her case to the state court and won, but Arnold found other ways to freeze her out.

The Roche family was extremely private, so we don’t have a record of Josephine and her father John’s personal lives; however, she was living at home during the “Great Colorado Coal War of 1913-1914.” There must have been some family tension because her dad was one of the mine owner/operators who bitterly fought the United Mine Workers. During the strike Josephine assisted striking families living in tent camps including Ludlow. She had an up close and personal understanding of the basic cause of the strike and why families endured the hardship and danger of living and working in and around coal mines.

According to Colorado historian Caroline Bancroft, following the Ludlow Massacre, Josephine “Vow[ed] if she could alter the oppression and injustice of coal-mining conditions in Colorado, it would be her life work.”

Following the outbreak of World War I, she moved to Europe where she assisted Herbert Hoover in supplying aid to war ravished families. She returned to Colorado in 1918 and became director of the girls department of the juvenile court under Judge Ben Lindsey.

During World War I and the 1920's, powerful movements arose to eliminate anything considered un-American. The nation went on a witch hunt for communists and radicals – the Red Scare. Citizens and immigrants were rounded up and sent to jail or prison. The Red Scare was followed by the rise of the KKK. The Klan was exceptionally powerful in Colorado with the election of a Klan governor. Labor unions and leaders were driven underground or from the state.

Colorado had a long and bloody history of labor wars in the coal mines – 1893-94, 1903-04, and 1913-14. The 1913-14 strike began in 1910 in the Northern Coalfield. After Ludlow and the arrest and conviction of the UMWA leader John R. Lawson, organized labor was all but dead in Colorado.