# The Day Book (Chicago), 11 September 1912, page 9: the Rockefeller Black Hand story 'stretched'

Canonical: https://mobfiles.org/clippings/clip-day-book-1912-09-11-p9/

The Day Book's correspondent reports from Pocantico Hills on 11 September 1912 that he walked onto the Rockefeller estate and found no armed guards, and concludes that the Black Hand story of the week before had been stretched.

Page 9 of the Day Book, Wednesday, 11 September 1912. The story is datelined Pocantico Hills, N.Y., 11 September. The paper's correspondent writes in the first person that he expected to find armed guards and "black handers lurking behind the trees" at John D. Rockefeller's estate, and instead walked in on a fine September day without being stopped. "As for armed guards, if there was any such, he was in hiding, and your correspondent couldn't find him."

The piece is satire, and it is filed as a contemporary record of press scepticism about a Black Hand scare story. It answers the wire item the Day Book itself printed on 3 September ([The Day Book, 3 September 1912](/clippings/clip-day-book-1912-09-03-p29/)). The research record for this page gives the headline as "John's"; the Library's OCR reads "JAWN'S," and the OCR reading is printed above until the scan can be checked.

The correspondent uses a racial term for workers on the estate in the body of the story. It is not quoted here. No scan of this page is stored: the Library of Congress image service was unavailable when the page was filed.

## Sources

- Library of Congress, Chronicling America: https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83045487/1912-09-11/ed-1/?sp=9