His plain
duty was to keep the peace. If a strike resulted in violent
disorders he could send United States troops to quell them, but
only in case the Governor of the State in which the riots
occurred declared himself unable, by the State force at his
command, to keep the peace, and requested assistance from the
President. In the coal strike the Governor of Pennsylvania, for
reasons which I need not discuss here, refused to call for United
States troops, and so did the Pennsylvania Legislature. Roosevelt
acted as a patriotic citizen might act, but being the President,
his interference had immensely greater weight than that of any
private citizen could have. He knew the law in the matter, but he
believed that the popular opinion of the American people would
back him up.
In spite of the first rebuff, therefore, he persuaded the miners
and the operators to agree to the appointment of an arbitration
commission, and this suggested a settlement which both
contestants accepted. It ended the great coal strike of 1902, but
it left behind it much indignation among the American people, who
realized for the first time that one of the three or four great
industries essential to the welfare and even to the life itself
of the Nation, was in the hands of men who preferred their
selfish interests to those of the Nation.
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