Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [98]
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:
1. An officer of the Engineer Corps of either military or naval service of the United States.
2. An expert mining engineer, experienced in the mining of coal and other minerals, and not in any way [still] connected with coal mining properties either anthracite or bituminous.
3. One of the judges of the United States court of the eastern district of Pennsylvania.
4. A man of prominence, eminent as a sociologist.
5. A man, who by active participation in mining and selling coal is familiar with the physical and commercial features of the business.
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