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 York Times, 4 Oct. 1902.
33 While doctors hovered TR, Letters, vol. 3, 342.
34 The bells of The New York Times, 4 Oct. 1902.
35 “WELL, I HAVE” TR, Letters, vol. 3, 337. Wiebe, “Anthracite Coal Strike,” 245, notes that TR, having “tried and failed,” was risking an intervention by Hanna, who, if successful, would loom even larger as his potential rival in 1904.
36 Aides were surprised Beer, Hanna, 584; TR, Letters, vol. 3, 337–38, 341. See also TR to Seth Low, 4 Oct. 1902 (unmailed) (TRP).
37 He wanted to see Washington Times, 4 Oct. 1902; TR, Autobiography, 488. See, e.g., nearly the entire front page of the Chicago Tribune, 4 Oct. 1902.
38 The national newspapers Literary Digest, 11 Oct. 1902.
39 Roosevelt tended Brooklyn Eagle, 4 Oct. 1902; Cornell, Anthracite Coal Strike, 207–8; Walter W. Ross to TR, 5 Oct. 1902 (PCK); Frederick Holls to TR, 2 Oct. 1902 (TRC); Dwight Braman to TR, 3 Oct. 1902, and Walter W. Ross to TR, 6 Oct. 1902 (PCK); TR, Letters, vol. 3, 346.
40 “the most awful” TR, Letters, vol. 3, 343–44, 592.
41 As if to reassure Grover Cleveland to TR, 4 Oct. 1902 (TRP).
42 This was that Ibid.
43 “Your letter was” TR, Letters, vol. 3, 338–39. Cleveland’s letter was indeed such a “help” that TR immediately leaked it to Robert Bacon at the House of Morgan.
44 “I think I” Ibid. TR’s decision to continue negotiating split his Cabinet into two, with Root, Knox, Moody, and Payne supporting him, and Hay, Hitchcock, Wilson, and Shaw preserving a disapproving silence. Walter Wellman in Review of Reviews, Nov. 1902.
45 Roosevelt did not Cornell, Anthracite Coal Strike, 211; TR, Letters, vol. 3, 339.
46 JOHN MITCHELL RECEIVED John Mitchell to TR, 8 Oct. 1902, and Carroll D. Wright to TR, 6 Oct. 1902 (TRP).
47 “Dear Mr. Putnam:” TR, Letters, vol. 3, 343.
48 Putnam obliged Ibid., 344.
49 WHILE ROOSEVELT READ Mrs. George Dewey diary, 12 Nov. 1902 (GD); Culin, Trooper’s Narrative, 78, 70; Edward Hoyt to Harry Hoyt, 6 Oct. 1902 (PCK); Literary Digest, 18 Oct. 1902; TR, Letters, vol. 3, 361.
50 “He literally ran” George H. Gordon to John Mitchell, 7 Oct. 1902 (JM). Public leaders were beginning to talk seriously of nationalizing the anthracite industry (Carroll D. Wright to TR, 15 Nov. 1903 [TRP]).
51 “We believe that” John Mitchell to TR, 8 Oct. 1902 (TRP), bluntly pointed out that the President did not have the power to enforce the findings of his own commission. See Cornell, Anthracite Coal Strike, 196–98, for more details of TR/Mitchell negotiations at this time.
52 His statement was Commons, History of Labor, 46; New York Tribune, 10 Oct. 1902.
53 “I must not be” Lodge, Selections, vol. 1, 537–38; Foulke, Hoosier Autobiography, 129. TR was now reading E.H.R. Tatham’s life of John Sobieski. See TR, Letters, vol. 3, 347, for the cast list of his commission.
54 Congress was entitled Cornell, Anthracite Coal Strike, 208–9; Bishop, Theodore Roosevelt, vol. 1, 210. Ignoring an opinion from Knox that he had no constitutional power to act, TR drafted a “posterity letter” explaining that he might invade anyway. “The first principle of civilization is the preservation of order” (TR to Carroll D. Wright, 8 Oct. 1902 [TRP]). See also his angry remark to the Washington correspondent of The Times of London, “If they think I am going to tolerate mob law, they will find out their mistake five minutes after they have begun” (George Washburn Smalley, Anglo-American Memories [New York, 1911], 376). Something about the President’s smiling inscrutability at this time caused John B. Jackson, appointed envoy to Greece on 13 Oct. 1902, to feel that TR was “the most dangerous man the United States have ever seen.” Jackson to Andrew D. White, 27 Mar. 1912 (ADW).
55 “In all the” TR, Letters, vol. 3, 346–47.
56 Cleveland was Robert McElroy, Grover Cleveland: The Man and the Statesman (New York, 1923), vol. 2, 310–11; Grover Cleveland to TR, 13 Oct. 1902 (TRP).
57 Anticipating an early This sacrifice cost the former President $2,500. McElroy, Grover Cleveland, vol. 2, 310–11.
58 IT WAS ELIHU Elihu Root to J. P. Morgan, 9 Oct. 1902 (ER); Cornell, Anthracite Coal Strike, 33–36. “Morganized” railroads controlled almost 70 percent of the region’s coal output (Walter Wellman, “Inside History”). Mark Hanna had asked Morgan to help settle the strike in June. Barkis was willing, but Baer and Mitchell clung so desperately to their respective positions that the effort failed. Mark Hanna to J. P. Morgan, 3 June 1902 (GWP); Cornell, Anthracite Coal Strike, 124; J. P. Morgan to Mark Hanna, ca. 9 Sept. 1902 (GWP).
59 Root told the Elihu Root to Philip C. Jessup, 26 Oct. 1935 (PCJ).
60 He would use TR legal deposition, 27 May 1914, qu. in Cornell, Anthracite Coal Strike, 211; TR, Letters, vol. 3, 362; TR, Autobiography, 480.
61 Far from dissenting New York Tribune, 12 Oct. 1902. See Satterlee, J. Pierpont Morgan, 392–93, for details of Root’s trip.
62 When Mitchell Warne, “John Mitchell.”
63 THE WEATHER TURNED TR, Letters, vol. 3, 348; TR, Autobiography, 489, 491. TR has sometimes been accused of exaggerating fears of a coming catastrophe in Oct. 1902. But see the common terror of, e.g., Judge Gray in Ferdinand C. Iglehart, Theodore Roosevelt: The Man As I Knew Him (New York, 1919), 387; Governor Crane in Lawrence, Memories, 156; Charles G. Dawes, A Journal of the McKinley Years (Chicago, 1950), 325; and James C. Cortelyou to George Cortelyou, 7 Oct. 1902 (GBC).
64 “I bid you” TR deposition, qu. in Cornell, Anthracite Coal Strike, 211. This conversation took place at 10:00 A.M., 13 Oct. 1902. White House appointment book (TRP).
65 Schofield must TR had arranged through Senator Quay a means whereby Governor Stone, in response to an anonymous telegram, THE TIME FOR THE REQUEST HAS COME, would instantly “ask” for federal military help. Bishop, Theodore Roosevelt, vol. 1, 212.
66 The old soldier Wood, Roosevelt As We Knew Him, 111–12. TR, pace the opinion of his Attorney General, considered himself empowered to send in troops by the Railroad Arbitration Act of 1888. TR to Carroll D. Wright (draft), 8 Oct. 1902 (TRP); Sullivan, Our Times, vol. 2, 437–38, and Dawes, Journal of the McKinley Years, 327–28.
67 Then, late on Washington Times, 14 Oct. 1902. Morgan was acco
mpanied by Robert Bacon.
68 WALTER WELLMAN Walter Wellman, “The Settlement of the Coal Strike,” Review of Reviews, Nov. 1902. The ubiquitous reporter was functioning as an unofficial conduit among TR, Mitchell, and the House of Morgan. White House appointment book, 4 Oct. 1902 (TRP); Walter Wellman to John Mitchell, 6 Oct. 1902 (JM); George Cortelyou to TR, 9 Oct. 1902 (TRP).
69 a document capable Beautifully bound and preserved as “Original draft of the Coal Agreement Made on Board S. Y. Corsair in the Autograph of Secretary Root, 11 Oct. 1902” in the Morgan Library, New York City.
Chronological Note: Not coincidentally, Attorney General Knox was at that moment addressing the subject of Capital v. Government before the Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce. His speech, entitled “The Commerce Clause of the Constitution and the Trusts,” was the sharpest warning yet that the Roosevelt Administration would use the Sherman Act against any corporate combination that sought to evade regulation by Congress. He made clear that a certain coal combination was practically asking to be so disciplined. The speech caused a sensation, as TR expected. He regarded it as “the most important” one that any member of the Administration would deliver in 1902, and had personally arranged for it to be delivered on 13 Oct. Of course, TR had no advance knowledge that the operators would begin to crack that same day, but his insistence that Knox heap further propaganda on them just then illustrates his uncanny sense of political timing. TR to W. H. Keach, 7 Oct. 1902 (TRP); Keach to TR, same date (PCK).
70 At first, Roosevelt TR, Letters, vol. 3, 350, 363; Corsair Agreement, copy in ER.
71 “An officer of” Qu. in TR, Letters, vol. 3, 365.
72 Anyone could TR, Autobiography, 482–84; TR, Letters, vol. 3, 352; Cornell, Anthracite Coal Strike, 230–31.
73 Nevertheless, Roosevelt Wiebe, “Anthracite Coal Strike,” 248, says that Morgan was responsible for including in the final published Agreement “a statement of the operators’ case that excluded the possibility of recognition of the union.” But the identical statement appears in the original, in Root’s hand. It was, in fact, the “powerful incentive” that Root said produced “a sudden change of front” on the part of the operators (Root to Mark Sullivan, 14 July 1927 [ER]). Wiebe further accuses TR of sabotaging the UMW’s primary objective—recognition—by quoting this statement in his instructions to the Commission. John Mitchell had already withdrawn recognition as a strike demand.
74 It was also calculated TR, Letters, vol. 3, 351; Bishop, Theodore Roosevelt, vol. 1, 205.
75 He stopped under The Washington Post, 14 Oct. 1902.
76 THE “CORSAIR AGREEMENT” George Cortelyou to John Mitchell, 14 Oct. 1902 (TRP); TR, Letters, vol. 3, 365, 351.
77 Mitchell was sure Cornell, Anthracite Coal Strike, 226; TR, Letters, vol. 3, 353.
78 Temptingly, he TR, Letters, vol. 3, 365.
79 Roosevelt cautioned Ibid. TR wrote a detailed memorandum of his conversation with Mitchell to send to Morgan, but did not send it, probably because he was more confident of persuading the financier’s deputies orally than Morgan himself in black and white. See ibid., 351–53.
80 GEORGE PERKINS Lodge, Selections, vol. 1, 540.
81 While they conferred The lightening of TR’s mood is palpable after 13 Oct. 1902 in TRP, passim; Hay, Letters, vol. 3, 258.
82 THE STRIKE, HOWEVER Lodge, Selections, vol. 1, 540; TR, Letters, vol. 3, 366.
83 Roosevelt privately TR, Letters, vol. 3, 357, 366; Lodge, Selections, vol. 1, 539–40. Bacon, a former all-star athlete, had recently suffered a complete nervous and physical collapse. On doctor’s orders he was soon to resign from the House of Morgan. Strouse, Morgan, 443.
84 “I found” TR, Autobiography, 483 (italics added).
85 With a straight TR, Letters, vol. 3, 366.
86 Suspecting, perhaps TR, Autobiography, 484; TR, Letters, vol. 3, 366.
87 Morgan’s men TR, Letters, vol. 3, 366; Elihu Root to TR, 29 June 1903, and TR to Winthrop Murray Crane, 16 Oct. 1902 (TRP). “May Heaven preserve me from ever again dealing with so wooden-headed a set,” TR wrote his sister. Letters from Theodore Roosevelt to Anna Roosevelt Cowles (New York, 1926), 254.
88 SOME WEEKS AFTER Wister Roosevelt, 193.
Chronological Note: It was years before Baer met Wister again and conceded, in milder mood, “About the best thing your friend ever did was to appoint the Coal Strike Commission.” By that time memories of the great strike had mellowed, if not into nostalgia, then at least to mutual forgiveness.
The operators got a 10 percent increase in the price of anthracite, plus permission to go on assessing output the way they always had. The union got its 10 percent wage hike, and a reduction of one to two hours per day in its work quota. Anthracite Coal Commission, Report to the President, 80–87. For a summary of findings, see Cornell, Anthracite Coal Strike, 236–59. For a negative view of the settlement from the point of view of Mitchell and the UMW, see Joe Gowaskie, “John Mitchell and the Anthracite Mine Workers: Leadership Conservatism and Rank-and-File Militancy,” Labor History, winter 1985–1986. The most balanced account of the arbitration is Wiebe, “The Anthracite Coal Strike,” showing that on the whole it profited management more than it did labor.
The UMW had to wait more than a decade for the formal recognition it so desperately traded away, but was compensated by general public recognition. George Baer was to die rich but mocked, unable to expiate his self-anointment as God’s personal representative in eastern Pennsylvania. John Mitchell could look forward to a few years of such idolatry as no labor leader had yet known in the United States, but the strain of the great strike, afflicting his heart and mind, was to lead progressively through melancholy to insomnia to alcoholism (Glück, John Mitchell, 92, 197ff.; Charles A. Madison, American Labor Leaders [New York, 1950], 171–72). He, too, would die rich—having discovered that he was by nature more a capitalist than a populist.
89 The rest of Toward the end of his career, the AFL leader Samuel Gompers described the anthracite strike of 1902 as “the most important single event in the labor movement of the United States.” Finley Peter Dunne, “Remembrances,” unfinished autobiographical manuscript in FPD, 26.
90 “In a most quiet” “Each one of the procedures [TR] used, and even those he planned to use … have been utilized by later Presidents confronted with similar situations,” William M. Goldsmith writes. “The country waited almost fifty years for the Supreme Court to consider the full implications of such a power, and to establish limits in its application.” The Growth of Presidential Power: A Documented History (New York, 1974), vol. 2, 1168.
91 At home, Roosevelt TR to Benjamin Odell, 22 Mar. 1903 (unsent) (ER).
CHAPTER 12: NOT A CLOUD ON THE HORIZON
1 In this palace “Mr. Dooley,” in Collier’s Weekly, ca. Nov. 1902 (HH).
2 “THE PRESIDENT” Memorandum to John Hay, 23 Oct. 1902, in TR, Letters, vol. 3, 367.
3 Harper’s Weekly Qu. in Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., and Fred L. Israel, eds., History of American Presidential Elections, 1789–1968 (New York, 1971), vol. 3, 2009–10. See also “President Roosevelt’s Influence in the Election,” Literary Digest, 15 Nov. 1902. Significantly, no prominent Democrat campaigner in the current congressional elections challenged TR’s Philippines policy. Welch, Response to Imperialism, 72.
4 Tributes, in the James Wilson to TR, 21 July 1902 (TRP).
5 At latest count New York Commercial Advertiser, 4 Oct. 1902. Actually, TR now had sixteen states, Rhode Island having pledged to him on 9 Oct. See also Rixey, Bamie, chap. 23; Willis Van Devanter to F. E. Warren, 13 May 1903 (WVD).
6 “come to the front” Willis Van Devanter to F. E. Warren, 13 May 1903 (WVD).
7 Roosevelt’s long-term TR, Letters, vol. 3, 372; Kehl, Boss Rule, 240; Douglas, Many-Sided Roosevelt, 89.
8 A guest at Helen Nicolay qu. in Morris, Edith Kermit Roosevelt, 251.
9 Edith was busy Ibid., 245.
10 ON 4 NOVEMBER TR, Letters, vol. 3, 374. TR blamed the
Philippines scandal for the erosion of his popular support. “The court-martial of General Smith cost me votes—votes!” he growled to Herbert Welsh. Welsh to Carl Schurz, 2 Nov. 1902 (CS).
11 Even so Gould, Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, 71–72; Literary Digest, 15 Nov. 1902; Kenneth J. Martis, ed., Historical Atlas of Political Parties in the U.S. Congress, 1789–1989 (New York, 1989), 157.
12 Roosevelt’s hopes TR, Letters, vol. 3, 373–74; Merrill, Republican Command, 126–33. LaFollette was re-elected Governor with a large majority. TR could not have welcomed this result, having earlier congratulated Congressman Joseph W. Babcock for fighting to prevent LaFollette’s nomination. LaFollette sourly quotes this letter in LaFollette’s Autobiography (Madison, 1913), 312. TR did, however, arrest the insurgency somewhat by persuading Governor Cummins of Iowa to abandon his “Iowa Idea” for a tax policy less hostile to big business. Gould, Reform and Regulation, 35–36.
13 A SIGNBOARD READING The date was 13 Nov. 1902. Except where otherwise indicated, the following two sections are based on eyewitness reporting by an unnamed correspondent of the Associated Press and Lindsay Denison of the New York Sun. TR granted both men exclusive permission to accompany him. The former’s coverage appeared in The Washington Post, 14–19 Nov. 1902, and Denison’s daily reports were subsequently republished (with photographs) as “President Roosevelt’s Mississippi Bear Hunt” in Outing, Feb. 1903. Supplementary details from Holt Collier interview, Saturday Evening Post, 10 Apr. 1909, and Presidential scrapbook (TRP).
14 On one side TR to John L. McIlhenny, 21 Oct. 1902 (TRP); Washington Evening Star, 15 and 12 Nov. 1902.
Theodore Rex Page 84
