QUICK WORK

the politics of the situation dreadfully. Mr. Roosevelt's answer contained this rather plain English: "Of course I will not for one moment submit to dictation by the labor unions any more than by the trusts, no matter what the effect on the presidential election may be. . . . I will proceed upon the only plan possible for a self-respecting American President, and treat each man on his merits as a man. The labor unions shall have a square deal, and the corporations shall have a square deal, and, in addition, all private citizens shall have a square deal. . . . If those labor-union men strike, not one of them will do another stroke of Government work while I am President."

The same spirit was shown in the case of the Arizona mining strike riots in 1903, when the Governor notified the President of the inability of the civil authorities to control the mob. Within thirty minutes from the receipt of this telegram a detachment of United States troops was on its way to the scene of disorder.

The anthracite-coal strike illustrated in still another fashion Mr. Roosevelt's method of meeting a labor crisis. That the crisis existed could not be doubted by any one who saw the letters and telegrams which came to

the White House from the Governor of Massachusetts, the Mayor of New York, the Mayor of Chicago, the Mayor of Detroit, the New York Board of Trade, the managers of mills and factories, and others. The remedies suggested were various. Not a few eminent men of usually sound and conservative judgment had been carried away by the idea of seizing the mines under the Government's right of eminent domain. Indeed, if the whole story were written, ex-Senator Hill's socialistic plank in the New York Democratic platform of 1902 would be found to have been no isolated freak of sentiment.

One man of means and influence wrote: "The coal strike must end at once. If the operators persist in refusing to arbitrate, they will strengthen the socialists in their efforts to secure Government control." Another telegraphed: "If the disputants will not themselves find some way of supplying, without delay, what is really a necessary of life, some way will have to be found to make them!" A prominent citizen of New York, whose name is known all over the world, said, in the course of a long written review of the situation: "Within a month coal will be as much of a

NO DEMAGOGUE

necessity for all the inhabitants of the States north of the Mason and Dixon line as food or milk or water, and the persons who stand in the way of its supply at reasonable rates will be the enemies of all the people, with a criminality nothing short of murder."

A demagogue in Mr. Roosevelt's place would have listened to only one side of the quarrel between the operators and the miners; if he had interfered at all, it would have been by convening Congress in extraordinary session in the midst of a political campaign. In these circumstances, clear thinking and unbiased action would have been well-nigh impossible, for every member of either house would have come to Washington charged with admonitions from the labor organizations at his home to stand by the coal-field workers in their struggle. A man who was not actually a demagogue, but merely timid, would have waited till Congress assembled and shifted to its shoulders the responsibility of dealing with the strike; but Congress would not assemble till December, and by that time the whole Northern country would have made its plunge into a winter without fuel.

The step taken by the President in this

crisis was a bold one. He had no more precedent for it than he had the next year for his Panama policy. It is an open secret that most of the lawyers and public men with whom he counseled advised him that his authority to organize a board of arbitration was at least doubtful, if indeed it had any foundation whatever. What assurance had he that Congress would sanction his action, and vote the money for the expenses of the arbitration? How could he so choose the membership of the board as to satisfy both sides, so that neither would refuse to submit its case? Finally, when the arbitrators had finished their work, how could he make certain that all parties would carry out their obligations under the award in good faith?

Instead of convening Congress, he called together the leaders of both the warring elements. He reasoned, and soundly, that whatever all these men agreed to, Congress could not refuse to ratify on any specious ground of partizanship, and he would have the sanction of the law after the fact if not in advance of it. The membership of the board should be described, even if not personally named, by the same gathering. And before the first decisive

"SOCIOLOGIST" DEFINED

move were made in any direction, he would pledge all the parties in interest to an honest fulfilment of the decree of the arbitrators, whether for or against themselves. This plan he carried out to the letter. Of course, he did not escape criticism. A part of the press which was already committed against any concession to the miners, right or wrong, charged him with the usurpation of extra-constitutional powers; others attacked, some humorously and some seriously, the personnel of the arbitration commission. For example, the representatives of the operators and of the miners had jointly decided that the commission should comprise an army or navy engineer, a mining engineer, a judge of a United States court, a sociologist, and a man who had been actively engaged in mining and selling coal and was familiar with the business. The rest of this descriptive list was easy enough to select, but the sociologist presented a puzzle. Who would come under that head? The Century Dictionary defined a sociologist as "one who treats of or devotes himself to the study of sociology," and sociology as "the science which investigates the laws regulating human society" and treats of "the progress of civilization."