Theodore Rex (40 page)

Anticipating an early call, Cleveland sold his coal shares and waited for the President to tell him when he should report for work. But the call never came. Roosevelt’s attention had been diverted by the magic name of J. P. Morgan.

IT WAS ELIHU ROOT
who suggested that “Pierpontifex Maximus” might be able to succeed where reason had failed. Morgan was, after all, the financial gray eminence behind the mine operators. Their coal roads slotted into his greater northeastern railway combination, and he had a seat on several of their boards.

Root told the President that he had “some ideas” that Morgan might persuade the operators to accept. Without saying what they were, he requested a temporary leave of absence, so that he could visit New York unofficially. “I don’t want to represent you; I want entire freedom to say whatever I please.”

One of the things Roosevelt liked about Root was his utter self-confidence. He granted leave, but first summoned Philander Knox and made his own attitude clear to both men: as soon as it became necessary for him to send the Army into Pennsylvania, he would do so without consulting them.
He would use full force to reopen the mines, so that “the people on the eastern seaboard would have coal and have it right away.” Root and Knox were welcome to submit formal, written protests, but he intended to act as if the nation were in a state of siege.

Far from dissenting, the Secretary of War put a force of ten thousand
Army regulars on instant alert. Then Elihu Root, private citizen, took the midnight sleeper to New York.

WHILE ROOT AND MORGAN
conferred aboard the yacht
Corsair
, anchored off Manhattan, John Mitchell sat in his Wilkes-Barre digs, chewing on a cigar and snipping at the Sunday paper. A visitor saw that he was sinking into one of his frequent attacks of depression. All around him lay trashy piles of newsprint and dime novels; on his knees, a child’s magazine cutout was gradually forming.

When Mitchell finished his scissor-work, he propped it on the mantelpiece. It depicted Abraham Lincoln and two unshackled black slaves, with a caption reading: “A Race Set Free, And The Country At Peace.”

THE WEATHER TURNED
dry and mild, but Roosevelt (semimobile now, on crutches) felt no release of tension. On the contrary, he began to hear rumors of a general strike. That, combined with a sudden frost, would certainly deliver him the greatest crisis faced by any President since April 1861.

Like Lincoln before him, he chose his military commander with care. General John M. Schofield, a veteran of the Pullman strike, was secretly summoned to 22 Jackson Place, and put in charge of Root’s reserves. The President did not mince words. “
I bid you pay no heed to any other authority, no heed to a writ from a judge, or anything else excepting my commands.”
Schofield must be ready to move at a half hour’s notice, invade Pennsylvania, dispossess the operators, end the strike, and run the mines as receiver for the government.

The old soldier received these orders with equanimity. But Congressman James E. Watson, the House Republican Whip, was aghast when Roosevelt confided the details of his plan. “What about the Constitution of the United States? What about seizing private property without due process of law?” Exasperated, Roosevelt grabbed Watson by the shoulder and shouted, “The Constitution was made for the people and not the people for the Constitution.”

Then, late on the evening of 13 October, Elihu Root and J. Pierpont Morgan crossed Lafayette Square and knocked on Roosevelt’s door.

WALTER WELLMAN
, as usual the only journalist in town who knew what was going on, watched the door close behind Morgan. He knew the financier was carrying
a document capable of ending the strike overnight—a document Root could have proclaimed from the deck of the
Corsair
. Yet here was the great J.P. coming south “to place the fruit of his power and labor before the
young President.” Capital, it would seem, was tacitly acknowledging the supremacy of Government.

At first, Roosevelt was disappointed with Morgan’s “agreement,” which was addressed to the American people and bore the signatures of all the operators. It began with several pages of familiar complaints, followed by an arbitration offer not much different from the one George Baer had floated at the conference. There was a stated willingness to accept, alternatively, Roosevelt’s commission. But the operators sounded as arrogant as ever in dictating what kind of commissioners he should choose:

Anyone could see there was no place for labor here. The word
sociologist
introduced a note of jargon, yet signaled a clear preference: Carroll D. Wright was the author of
Outline of Practical Sociology
. Morgan added verbally that Judge George Gray, of the Third Judicial Circuit, and Thomas H. Watkins, a retired anthracite executive, would be acceptable candidates for slots 3 and 5. Three places on the proposed commission were thus earmarked for conservatives, and union sympathizers were unlikely to qualify for the first two.

Nevertheless, Roosevelt began to see a legal beauty in the document he held in his hands—beauty perfected by Elihu Root via many scratched-out sheets of
Corsair
stationery. Alone among his advisers, Root understood that the coal-strike conference had foundered not on the shoals of arbitration, but on the rock of recognition. The main element in Baer’s and Markle’s tirades had been their refusal to accredit a union, three fourths of whose members worked outside the anthracite field.

Thus, the language of the agreement pretended that the operators had never been against arbitration per se, only arbitration with the UMW. Their list of desirable commissioners took advantage of Mitchell’s willingness to accept any board the President chose.
It was also calculated to make Roosevelt seem to be taking their advice, whereas in fact Root’s syntax left him plenty of room to negotiate each candidate. Ultimately, the operators hoped to boast that
they
had proposed arbitration, and were making the commission’s decision
their
victory. A Pyrrhic one, perhaps—but Mitchell would surely concede it.

As Grover Cleveland remarked, “When quarreling parties are both in the wrong, and are assailed with blame … they will do strange things to save their faces.”

ROOT AND MORGAN
remained closeted with Roosevelt for one and a half hours. At last, the financier came down alone, and emerged into the night. Reporters surged around him. Usually, when confronted by the press, Morgan flinched, or cursed. Sometimes he even struck out with his cane. But now he smiled. A voice called, “Has the strike been settled?”

He stopped under a tree and relit his half-burned cigar, as if pondering an answer. Then, still smiling, he walked wordlessly off.

THE “CORSAIR AGREEMENT”
was announced on 14 October. Roosevelt invited John Mitchell to discuss it with him the following day. As he feared, the labor leader objected on the ground that it constrained free power of presidential appointment. Roosevelt asked if, “in view of the very great urgency of the case,” the miners would perhaps “defer to the operators’ views.”

Mitchell was sure they would not—unless the commission was expanded to seven members, with at least two chosen freely. He would “do his best” to sell that notion to the UMW. Roosevelt said that if so, he would push for former President Cleveland in slot 1, instead of the Army engineer. The next four commissioners could be typecast as per the Agreement, while the last two would be selected by Mitchell and himself: a high Catholic ecclesiastic and a representative of labor.