He was without legal or
constitutional power to interfere, but his position as President of the
United States gave him an influence, a leadership, as first citizen
of the republic, that enabled him to appeal to the patriotism and good
sense of the parties to the controversy and to place upon them the moral
coercion of public opinion to agree to an arbitrament of the strike then
existing and threatening consequences so direful to the whole country.
He acted promptly and courageously, and in so doing averted the dangers
to which I have alluded.
"So far from interfering or infringing upon property rights, the
Presidents' action tended to conserve them. The peculiar situation, as
regards the anthracite coal interest, was that they controlled a natural
monopoly of a product necessary to the comfort and to the very life of a
large portion of the people. A prolonged deprivation of the enjoyment of
this necessary of life would have tended to precipitate an attack upon
these property rights of which you speak; for, after all, it is vain
to deny that this property, so peculiar in its conditions, and which
is properly spoken of as a natural monopoly, is affected with a public
interest.
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