Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [99]
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.
Temptingly, he dropped the names of Bishop L. Spalding, a Baltimore patrician and industrial scholar, and Edgar E. Clark, chief of the Railway Conductors Union. Mitchell showed interest, and allowed that the latter would make an “excellent” commissioner. The first whiff of settlement gathered in the air.
Roosevelt cautioned that he could only “try” to get management to agree to all this. After Mitchell left, he ordered Root to get somebody from the House of Morgan to come south as quickly as possible. Then, feeling a need for fresh air, he laid aside his crutches and went for a long drive out of town.
GEORGE PERKINS AND Robert Bacon reached 22 Jackson Place at seven o’clock, as the President was dressing for dinner with John Hay. They said they had “full power” to represent both Morgan and the operators. He showed them his expanded list of commissioners, then limped the hundred yards to Hay’s house. Perkins and Bacon remained behind to huddle on the telephone with Morgan and Baer.
While they conferred, Roosevelt celebrated. He obviously believed the strike was over. Pride in his skills as mediator, and joy in his returning health, bubbled up inside him. “He began talking at the oysters, and the pousse-café found him still at it,” Hay reported to Henry Adams. “When he was one of us, we could sit on him—but who except you, can sit on a Kaiser?”
THE STRIKE, HOWEVER, was