Theodore Rex (149 page)
Authors: Edmund Morris
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 accompanied 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.
