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tending with each other as to the equable division of these profits.

This rivalry is back of strikes and revisions and arbitration conferences. And for many years labor and capital, watching Roosevelt's rulings, could not satisfy themselves as to how his sympathies ran. In truth he allowed no sympathies and predilections to govern his decisions. He fought down the impulsive nature with which he was born, and he learned to maintain a wonderful impartiality in the face of insistent divergent appeals. The story is told of a labor leader who had been invited to dine at the White House. Seated at the table he remarked expansively, "I'm glad that the doors of the White House can swing open to a labor union man." Instantly Roosevelt made reply, "Yes, but they can swing open just as easily to the capitalist."

Thus he maintained his intellectual and moral

poise. His one aim in all cases, was — putting it in trite, homely phrase to do what was right. And his elemental sincerity and honesty puzzled the worldlings of the legislatures and the countinghouses for many years.

His official duties ranged from high to low and from great to small. One of the most serious questions which arose during his seven and a half years in the Presidency was that of the Pennsyl

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vania coal strike. In a letter to Senator Lodge, after the strike had been settled, he wrote, "We are coming out of a situation as dangerous as any I ever dealt with."

I had the great pleasure of hearing him describe in detail this complicated experience, at one of our class dinners, only a few months after it happened. After the dinner was over, in place of the usual short speeches, Roosevelt was given the entire time and was asked to tell us whatever was on his mind and nearest the top in his memory, or what would be good for us to hear. So, after a few general remarks, he started upon the Pennsylvania coal strike. And his earnest, unreserved words made a deep impression upon us all.

First remarking that of course all that he said was to be regarded as confidential, he went rapidly through that eventful story, telling it with vivacity and even gaiety, his humorous vein coming to the surface again and again.

The miners struck, throughout all the anthracite tracts of the State, early in the spring of 1902. The usual strained relations between miners and owners or operators ensued. Little violence occurred while the warm weather lasted. But, as winter came on, alarm increased throughout the entire Atlantic seaboard. The need of coal was pressing, and still operators and miners would

make no concessions to each other. The Mayor of Boston, the Governor of New York, and other leaders wrote to Roosevelt, setting forth the disaster that impended, with this deadlock maintained in the great coal State.

Nothing in the Constitution provided for the duty of the President in such an emergency. But Roosevelt took the position that if the governor or the legislature of Pennsylvania appealed to him, he could send Federal troops into the State, to keep order. But no such request came, the deadlock did not loosen, and lawlessness and violence increased. A commission, a board of arbitration, seemed to be the only possible hope, and the President urged that. John Mitchell, labor leader, agreed to it, but stipulated that the President should name the members of that board, — a marked tribute to the high esteem in which Roosevelt was held by the miners.

The two points in my classmate's graphic narrative which most impressed me were his angry protest against the unyielding arrogance of the operators as negotiations for the conference went on, and his naïve joy at his discovery of the solution of the problem. The delegation from the owners, or operators, were insolent, no less, and offensive in their attitude to both labor leaders and the President. For a time no agreement was

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