Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [93]
I wish to call your attention to the fact that there are three parties affected by the situation in the anthracite trade—the operators, the miners, and the general public. I speak for neither the operators nor the miners, but for the general public.
A yard or two beyond the President’s propped-up leg, George Baer listened intently. Roosevelt admitted he had no “right or duty to intervene in this way upon legal grounds.” He was bound, however, to use what influence he could to end an “intolerable” situation. His guests must consider the consequences of further disagreement.
We are upon the threshold of winter, with an already existing coal famine, the future terrors of which we can hardly yet appreciate. The evil possibilities are so far-reaching, so appalling, that it seems to me that you [are] required to sink for the time being any tenacity as to your respective claims in the matter at issue between you. In my judgment the situation imperatively requires that you meet upon the common plane of the necessities of the public. With all the earnestness there is in me I ask that there be an immediate resumption of operations in the coal mines in some such way as will without a day’s unnecessary delay meet the crying needs of the people.
Laying down his typescript, Roosevelt added, “I do not invite a discussion of your respective claims and positions.” John Mitchell stood up in polite disobedience.
Mr. President, I am much impressed with what you say. We are willing to meet the gentlemen representing the coal operators to try to adjust our differences among ourselves. If we cannot adjust them that way, Mr. President, we are willing that you shall name a tribunal who shall determine the issues that have resulted in this strike. And if the gentlemen representing the operators will accept the award or decision of such a tribunal, the miners will willingly accept it—even if it is against their claims.
Roosevelt moved quickly to forestall any response from Baer. “Before considering what ought to be done, I think it only just … that you should have time to consider what I have stated as to the reasons for my getting you together.” He distributed copies of his opening declaration. “Give it careful thought and come back at three o’clock.”
THE OPERATORS RETURNED in frustration to their private train. They had expected a formal hearing, at which they could argue that John Mitchell did not represent the peculiar interests of anthracite labor. He was, in fact, president of a union whose membership was predominantly bituminous. Since soft coal was to a certain extent competitive with hard (and might become more so, with emergency conversion of home heating appliances), Mitchell was a walking conflict of interest.
Roosevelt had discouraged them from expressing this reasonable scruple, while weakly—or deliberately?—allowing Mitchell to pontificate in time for the evening papers. Then, adding insult to injury, he had announced a long recess, which meant they would be unable to make any headlines before the next morning.
A typist awaited Baer in his mobile office. Her fingers began to fly as he told her exactly what he thought of the whole proceeding.
A BOWL OF WHITE roses replaced the asters in Roosevelt’s window that afternoon, but it stimulated no feelings of truce. The operators were in a mood of heavy, postprandial truculence. “Do we understand you correctly,” Baer asked over the President’s foot, “that we will be expected to answer the proposition submitted by Mr. Mitchell this morning?”
Roosevelt would have preferred a reply to his own statement. “It would be a pleasure to me,” he said, “to hear any answer that you are willing to make.”
“You asked us to consider the offer of Mr. Mitchell … to go back to work if you will appoint a commission to determine the questions at issue.”
“I did