s and the Mayor of New York both notified me, as
the cold weather came on, that if the coal famine continued the misery
throughout the Northeast, and especially in the great cities, would
become appalling, and the consequent public disorder so great that
frightful consequences might follow. It is not too much to say that the
situation which confronted Pennsylvania, New York, and New England, and
to a less degree the States of the Middle West, in October, 1902, was
quite as serious as if they had been threatened by the invasion of a
hostile army of overwhelming force.

The big coal operators had banded together, and positively refused
to take any steps looking toward an accommodation. They knew that the
suffering among the miners was great; they were confident that if order
were kept, and nothing further done by the Government, they would win;
and they refused to consider that the public had any rights in the
matter. They were, for the most part, men of unquestionably good private
life, and they were merely taking the extreme individualistic view of
the rights of property and the freedom of individual action upheld in
the _laissez-faire_ political economics. The mines were in the State
of Pennsylvania. There was no duty whatever laid upon me by the
Constitution in the matter, and I had in theory the power to act
directly unless the Governor of Pennsylvania or the Legislature, if
it were in session, should notify me that Pennsylvania could not keep
order, and request me as commander-in-chief of the army of the United
States to intervene and keep order.

As long as I could avoid interfering I did so; but I directed the head
of the Labor Bureau, Carroll Wright, to make a thorough investigation
and lay the facts fully before me. As September passed without any sign
of weakening either among the employers or the striking workmen,
the situation became so grave that I felt I would have to try to do
something. The thing most feasible was to get both sides to agree to a
Commission of Arbitration, with a promise to accept its findings; the
miners to go to work as soon as the commission was appointed, at the old
rate of wages. To this proposition the miners, headed by John Mitchell,
agreed, stipulating only that I should have the power to name the
Commission. The operators, however, positively refused. They insisted
that all that was necessary to do was for the State to keep order, using
the militia as a police force; although bot