So great was that public interest in the Coal Strike of 1902, so deeply and strongly did I feel the wave of indignation which swept over the whole country that had I not succeeded in my efforts to induce the operators to listen to reason, I should reluctantly but none the less decisively have taken a step which would have brought down upon my head the execrations of many of “the captains of industry,” as well as of sundry “respectable” newspapers who dutifully take their cue from them.  As a man should be judged by his intentions as well as by his actions, I will give here the story of the intervention that never happened.

While the coal operators were exulting over the fact that they had “turned down” the miners and the President, there arose in all parts of the country an outburst of wrath so universal that even so naturally conservative a man as Grover Cleveland wrote to me, expressing his sympathy with the course I was following, his indignation at the conduct of the operators, and his hope that I would devise some method of effective action.  In my own mind I was already planning effective action; but it was of a very drastic character, and I did not wish to take it until the failure of all other expedients had rendered it necessary.  Above all, I did not wish to talk about it until and unless I actually acted.  I had definitely determined that somehow or other act I would, that somehow or other the coal famine should be broken.  To accomplish this end it was necessary that the mines should be run, and, if I could get no voluntary agreement between the contending sides, that an Arbitration Commission should be appointed which would command such public confidence as to enable me, without too much difficulty, to enforce its terms upon both parties.  Ex-President Cleveland’s letter not merely gratified me, but gave me the chance to secure him as head of the Arbitration Commission.  I at once wrote him, stating that I would very probably have to appoint an Arbitration Commission or Investigating Commission to look into the matter and decide on the rights of the case, whether or not the operators asked for or agreed to abide by the decisions of such a Commission; and that I would ask him to accept the chief place on the Commission.  He answered that he would do so.  I picked out several first-class men for other positions on the Commission.

Meanwhile the Governor of Pennsylvania had all the Pennsylvania militia in the anthracite region, although without any effect upon the resumption of mining.  The method of action upon which I had determined in the last resort was to get the Governor of Pennsylvania to ask me to keep order.  Then I would put in the army under the command of some first-rate general.  I would instruct this general to keep absolute order, taking any steps whatever that was necessary to prevent interference by the strikers or their sympathizers with men who wanted to work.  I would also instruct him to dispossess the operators and run the mines