Authors: Edmund Morris
46
He suspected that
TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 331–32.
47
“Unfortunately the strength”
Ibid.
48
Two days later
Washington
Evening Star
, 30 Sept. 1902; TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 359–60; Henry Lawrence,
Memories of a Happy Life
(Boston, 1926), 156; TR to John J. Leary, Leary Notebooks (TRC).
49
Crane suggested
Carolyn W. Johnson,
Winthrop Murray Crane: A Study in Republican Leadership, 1892–1920
(Northampton, Mass., 1967), 27–30; Cornell,
Anthracite Coal Strike
, 176; TR to John J. Leary, Leary Notebooks (TRC).
50
Roosevelt was not
TR to Hanna, 27 Sept. 1902 (TRP); TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 360.
51
In the cool
Qu. in Jacob A. Riis,
Theodore Roosevelt the Citizen
(Washington, D.C., 1904), 376. Crane is generally given credit for persuading TR to hold a strike conference, but the initial idea appears to have come from John Mitchell, who wrote Mark Hanna on 8 Sept. 1902, “The strike might be brought to a close if you could have the President write the railroad presidents and our officers to meet with him and you to try to adjust our differences” (MIT).
52
He showed them
TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 360; Wood,
Roosevelt As We Knew Him
, 470.
53
He got his
The following text is from the original “Memo to the President dictated by P. C. Knox as representing his views and those of Mr. Crane, Mr. Moody, and Mr. Payne,” 30 Sept. 1902 (PCK).
54
Roosevelt struck out
Ibid.; Cornell,
Anthracite Coal Strike
, 182, misdates this memorandum as 3 Oct. 1902. TR deleted the phrase
no precedent in other strikes will be created
when he made his own public statement later.
55
THE COAL STRIKE
Horace N. Fisher to Knox, 1 Oct. 1902, and Edwin E. Hoyt to Harry Hoyt, 6 Oct. 1902 (PCK); Pottsville
Miners Journal
, 24 Sept. 1902;
Literary
Digest
, 4 Oct. 1902. Press accounts tended to exaggerate the violence, just as secretive Slavs downplayed it. John Mitchell admitted to six deaths, then seven. Stewart Culin, who spent six weeks touring the anthracite country, reported that not a day went by without “one or more” funeral procession. In the end, only three murders could be officially documented. John Mitchell to T. J. Sauerford, 1 Oct. 1902 (JM); Culin,
Trooper’s Narrative
, 38–40; Anthracite Coal Commission,
Report to the President
, 73.
56
Mark Hanna wrote
Hanna to TR, 29 Sept. 1902 (TRP).
57
“The present miner”
Press statement, 29 Sept. 1902 (JM).
58
Sentimentalities of this
Even as TR prepared to make his “impartial” intervention in the strike, a consignment of nonunion anthracite arrived in Washington “for the exclusive use of the Executive Mansion” (Washington
Evening Star
, 22 Oct. 1902). Plenty of reserve anthracite was secretly shipped out of eastern Pennsylvania to elite customers. Culin,
Trooper’s Narrative
, 28, mentions “the low roar of distant trains, moving coal under the protection of darkness.”
59
“socialistic action”
This was no neurosis. For an example of the sort of radical activism already centering around John Mitchell, see the “Program of Reforms” drawn up by his friend Henry Demarest Lloyd, a leading socialist intellectual. The document calls for sweeping nationalizations of industry, punitive taxes on wealth, profit restrictions on private investment, and “immediate registration of all citizens.” Chester Destler,
Henry Demarest Lloyd and the Empire of Reform
(Philadelphia, 1963), 472.
60
I SHOULD GREATLY
TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 334.
61
Duplicate telegrams
A. J. Cassatt to TR, 2 Oct. 1902 (TRP); Cornell,
Anthracite Coal Strike
, 179.
62
“Doesn’t that just”
New York
World
, 3 Oct. 1902. The idea that anthracite miners, by exclusively striking an exclusive resource, were a “trust” in restraint of trade was not new. Knox had received several Sherman Act petitions to that effect, including one from Willcox himself. But he rejected them on the same grounds that he disallowed antitrust prosecution of the operators. “The miners’ activities are clearly restricted to production, a field in which the State [of Pennsylvania]’s power is necessarily exclusive.” P. C. Knox to TR, 7 June 1902, and “Memorandum on Mr. Ross’s letter,” 7 Oct. 1902, both in PCK.
1
It’ll be a hard
New York
Journal
, 17 Oct. 1902.
2
CURIOUS ONLOOKERS
Except where otherwise indicated, descriptive and atmospheric details of the coal-strike conference are based on reports in the Washington
Evening Star
, 3 Oct. 1902, and
The New York Times
and
The Washington Post
, 4 Oct. 1902.
3
Actually, he had
George Cortelyou interviewed by N. W. Stephenson, Aug. 1927 (NWA).
4
For almost an
Washington
Evening Star
, 3 Oct. 1902; visual description of Mitchell based on photographs and studio portraits in JM. Other details from “Mitchell, Leader of Men,” profile in
World’s Work
, 25 Oct. 1902, and Frank J. Warne, “John Mitchell: The Labor Leader and the Man,”
Review of Reviews
, Nov. 1902.
5
While George Cortelyou
Walter Wellman, “The Inside History of the Great Coal Strike,”
Collier’s Weekly
, 18 Oct. 1902 (illustrated).
6
Eben B. Thomas
Ibid. For Markle’s cruelty to employees, see Miller and Sharpless,
Kingdom of Coal
, 259, 272.
7
“Gentlemen,” said
New York
World
, 4 Oct. 1902.
8
“Dee-lighted,”
The following account of the coal-strike conference is based on
Report of the Conference Between the President and Representatives of the Anthracite Coal Companies and Representatives of the United Mine Workers of America, October 3, 1902
(Washington, D.C., 1903). TR’s own account appears in TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 359–66. Because TR himself notes that the transcript does not include “all of the invectives of the operators,” the author has also relied on a few obvious “news leaks” from participants. Cortelyou, for example, is clearly Walter Wellman’s source for “Inside History.” Other sources are New York
Sun
and New York
World
, 4 Oct. 1902. The latter features on-the-spot drawings.
9
He began to
John Mitchell interviewed by J. J. Curran,
The Survey
, 18 Jan. 1919.
10
A yard or two
George Cortelyou interviewed by N. W. Stephenson, Aug. 1927 (NWA).
11
Laying down his
Report of the Conference
, 4; New York
World
, 4 Oct. 1902.
12
“Mr. President, I”
Report of the Conference
, 4;
New York Tribune
, 4 Oct. 1902. 158
“Before considering”
Report of the Conference, 4
.
13
THE OPERATORS RETURNED
John Markle, in Robert J. Spence,
John Markle, Representative American
(New York, 1929), 110–12, recalled being surprised and angered by the abrupt termination of the morning session. He erred, however, in saying that he protested this treatment at once. The transcript indicates he did so later.
14
Roosevelt had
See TR to Seth Low, 3 Oct. 1902: “I read to the operators and miners this morning the paper which you have probably seen in this afternoon’s press.” TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 337.
15
A BOWL OF WHITE
New York
World
, 4 Oct. 1902.
16
“Do we understand”
The New York Times
, 4 Oct. 1902. The following dialogue is reconstructed from accounts in ibid.; New York
World
, 4 Oct. 1902; Wellman, “Inside History”; George Cortelyou interviewed by N. W. Stephenson, Aug. 1927 (NWA).
17
Roosevelt, perhaps
Carroll Wright, the most unbiased man in the room, felt that the operators had some good reasons to be angry. Edward Hoyt to Harry Hoyt, 6 Oct. 1902 (PCK).
18
Roosevelt stared
New York
World
, 4 Oct. 1902.
19
For five months
Report of the Conference
, 6.
20
By now Baer’s
Ibid., 6.
21
The phrase
free
TR’s face was reportedly “a study” as Baer instructed him on his “duty.” Wellman, “Inside History.”
22
Baer concluded
Report of the Conference
, 6. Mitchell was gracious enough to acknowledge Baer’s offer in the days immediately following. Baer then went further, saying that the operators would accept adjudication by any court the President cared to specify. Cornell,
Anthracite Coal Strike
, 200.
23
Obliquely, Baer
Carroll D. Wright, “Memo for the President: Reasons for the Appointment of the Anthracite Coal Commission,” 19 Nov. 1903 (TRP); Wiebe, “Anthracite Coal Strike,” 243; Baer, “Statement”; Stuyvesant Fish to TR, 3 Oct. 1902 (TRP). The latter document, urging the President not to force a settlement, lest it prevent the “legitimate extension” of the soft-coal business, afforded TR much sardonic amusement. See Henry Cabot Lodge,
Selections from the Correspondence of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge, 1884–1918
(New York, 1925), vol. 1, 541.
24
Baer was a
National Cyclopaedia of American Biography
, vol. 14, 37; George Baer qu. in William N. Appel,
Addresses and Writings of George F. Baer
(privately printed, 1916), 252.
25
Mitchell, rising
Report of the Conference
, 7–8; TR to Seth Low, 4 Oct. 1902 (TRP).
26
E. B. Thomas specifically
Report of the Conference
, 8–9.
27
“This, Mr. President”
New York
Sun
, 4 Oct. 1902;
Report of the Conference
, 10. The cartoon, by Keppler, had appeared in
Puck, 1
Oct. 1902.
28
Roosevelt was fortunate
TR qu. by Thomas H. Watkins in Wood,
Roosevelt As We Knew Him
, 109 (“More amazing effrontery,” he said afterward, “I have never seen”); George Cortelyou to Walter Wellman, Chicago
Record-Herald
, 4 Oct. 1902, and interviewed by N. W. Stephenson, Aug. 1927 (NWA). White House telegraph operator Colonel Benjamin F. Montgomery, who was also in the room, remarked, “It truly made me sick to listen to those men,” qu. in Beer,
Hanna
, 584; see Willcox’s follow-up letter to TR, 8 Oct. 1902 (PCK).
29
It was a crucial
John Mitchell to Walter Wellman, Chicago
Record-Herald
, 4 Oct. 1902. He told the reporter that it had been the most trying ordeal of his life. TR, for his part, commented, “There was only one person there who acted like a gentleman, and it wasn’t I!” Qu. in Sullivan,
Our Times
, vol. 2, 432. See also George Cortelyou interviewed by N. W. Stephenson, Aug. 1927 (NWA).
30
“The truth of”
Report of the Conference
, 17. A mill owner in Pennsylvania commented sourly that this was because no local jury, given UMW intimidation, “will convict any of them.” Paul A. Oliver to John Bassett Moore, 21 Oct. 1902 (JBM); Cornell,
Anthracite Coal Strike
, 186–87.
31
The air in
Wellman, “Inside History”; New York
World
, 4 Oct. 1902.
32
OUTSIDE IN LAFAYETTE
The New York Times
, 4 Oct. 1902.
33
While doctors hovered
TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 342.
34
The bells of
The New York Times
, 4 Oct. 1902.
35
“WELL, I HAVE”
TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 337. Wiebe, “Anthracite Coal Strike,” 245, notes that TR, having “tried and failed,” was risking an intervention by Hanna, who, if successful, would loom even larger as his potential rival in 1904.
36
Aides were surprised
Beer,
Hanna
, 584; TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 337–38, 341. See also TR to Seth Low, 4 Oct. 1902 (unmailed) (TRP).
37
He wanted to see
Washington Times
, 4 Oct. 1902; TR,
Autobiography
, 488. See, e.g., nearly the entire front page of the
Chicago Tribune
, 4 Oct. 1902.
38
The national newspapers
Literary Digest, 11
Oct. 1902.
39
Roosevelt tended
Brooklyn
Eagle
, 4 Oct. 1902; Cornell,
Anthracite Coal Strike
, 207–8; Walter W. Ross to TR, 5 Oct. 1902 (PCK); Frederick Holls to TR, 2 Oct. 1902 (TRC); Dwight Braman to TR, 3 Oct. 1902, and Walter W. Ross to TR, 6 Oct. 1902 (PCK); TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 346.