Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [379]
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