The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1902-10-07
AND JUST STATEMENT
OF TIE COAL STRIKE AND
THE CONFERENCE WITH
THE PRESIDENT.

The coal situation interests every per-
son in America. AS the first breath of
frost calls for fire, the interest becomes
deep and personal. Coal that sold one
year ago in Raleigh for seven to eight
dollars a ton yesterday brought fifteen
dollars. Such an advance must Of ne
cessity bring the question Of the coal
strike to the personal attention of every
consumer.
What are the merits of the question
at issue between the striking miners
on the one hand and the owners and cp-
orators of the mines on the other? That
is question that every minded man
is asking himself as he shivers in pros
pect of paying fifteen dollars for coal.
The clearest, fairest, most judicial and
complete answer to this question, which
naturally arises in every mans mind,
appears in a loaded, three column editor
ial in Sundays North American, lead
ing Republican paper published at Phil
adelphia, owned by Wanamaker, ex-
Postmaster General under Harrison. 1t
is so lucid, so just SO plain, so exhaust
i've that we give it in full below:
THE PRESIDENT AND THE COAL
BARONS.
Although the presidents of the rail
roads which mine and carry anthracite
coal and thus constitute the Coal Trust
assured President Roosevelt that they
realize the grave responsibility resting
upon them, the spirit and form of their
response to his appeal to their patriot
ism to abate the tenacity of their claims
and make sacrifices of Individual inter-
ests for the general good reveal their
utter inability to comprehend the stu
alton or to recognize their Obligations
to the public.
1t is plain that the coal barons went
to the conference filled with underlined
apprehensions that the President had
discovered way to bring the power or the
Federal government to bear upon them
and that the alternative of peace through
compromise or the summary exercise OF
executive authority would be presented
to them. They went to Washington in
unwilling and trembling obedience to a
command issued by the people of the
United States through their highest rep
resentatiye.
"A request from the President is
equivalent to a command" said the
spokesman Of the Trust. He expected to
be brought face to face with the indig-
nant wrath of an outraged people con-
centrated in the person of Rough Rider
and blazing from his eyes, and he was
prepared to bow to the storm and yield
with such show of grace as he might to
orders thundered at him by the Man on
Horseback.
Instead of the impulsive, strenuous,
domineering soldier, it was quiet earn
est statesman who received the ccal bar
ons and pleaded with them to consider
the welfare of the people and make
peace When he said to them: II dis
claim any right or duty to intervene in
this way upon legal grounds or upon any
official relation that l bear TO the stu
ation," they mistook the words for con-
fession of weakness and an admission
that they were masters of the field.
"Oho." laughed the coal barons: $50
this is what we were afraid of. Here is
that terrible Public Opinion down on its
knees to us to forego our advantage for
the sake of the people. The people be
damned. We are the direct representa-
tives of the Almighty on earth; infinite
wisdom made us trustees of vast and
important interests and knew what 1T
was about when it selected us. Well
show the people and this presumptuous
President that they are flying in the face
of Providence when they undertake to
call us to account"
And so these infinitely little men,
blinded by their conceit, bursting with
insolent pride and made doubly arrogant
by the reaction from fear to elation.
threw common courtesy to the winds and
We'd with one another in insulting the
American people in the person OF the
President and trampling viciously upon
public opinion and public rights. All
men have read the story of their insen-
safe folly, and retribution is afoct.
In the answer of the Coal Trust to the
demand of the nation that the war cease
at once there is one strong point, and
only one. The only weapon in the hands
of the Trust was placed there by the
miners, and it was welded by the trust
with vigor and no small skill That the
| representations
barons were grossly exaggerated there
can be no doubt. They contradicted one
another Several of them drew lurid pic
lures of unrestrained anarchy, of murder,
arson and universal social chaos in the
coal district for the obvious purpose OF
convicting the President of failure to do
his duty, which they pointed out to him
with venomous vehemence. MIR. Baer,
less crudely discourteous than the 9TH
ers and more regardful of the truth, ad-
mitted that 1.-The power of the law is as
serting ITSELF and affirmed that order
will soon be restored"
But there has been enough violence
and lawlessness to injure materially the
cause of the strikers. They We're told at
the start that every lawless act COM
mitted by one of their number would
weaken them and would be scored against
them in the balancing of accounts be-
tween them and the Trust. Whatever of
strength there is in the position of the
coal barons was contributed by the strik-
ers themselves Had the miners respect
ed the law scrupulously and restrained
the passions of their more ignorant COM