A strike
which ties up the coal supplies of a whole section is a strike invested
with a public interest.
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.
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