Now
Roosevelt was both sincere and wise. He left no doubt in the
strikers' minds that he sympathized with their sufferings and
grievances and with their attempts to better their condition, so
far as this could be achieved without violence, and without
leaving a permanent state of war between Labor and Capital. In a
word, he did not aim at merely patching up a temporary peace, but
at finding, and when found, applying, a remedy to the deep-rooted
causes of the quarrel.
In his first message to Congress, the new President said: "The
most vital problem with which this country, and, for that matter,
the whole civilized world, has to deal, is the problem which has
for one side the betterment of social conditions, moral and
physical, in large cities, and for another side the effort to
deal with that tangle of far-reaching questions which we group
together when we speak of 'labor.'"
By his settlement of the coal strike, Roosevelt showed the
workers that he would practice towards them the justice which he
preached, but this did not mean that he would be unjust towards
the capitalists.
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