It should go without saying that Roosevelt was vigorously and deeply
concerned with the relations between capital and labor, for he was
interested in everything that concerned the men and women of America,
everything that had to do with human relations. From the very beginning
of his public life he had been a champion of the workingman when the
workingman needed defense against exploitation and injustice. But his
advocacy of the workers' rights was never demagogic nor partial. In
industrial relations, as in the relations between business and the
community, he believed in the square deal. The rights of labor and
the rights of capital must, he firmly held, be respected each by the
other--and the rights of the public by both.
Roosevelt believed thoroughly in trade unions. He realized that one of
the striking accompaniments of the gigantic developments in business
and industry of the past few generations was a gross inequality in the
bargaining relation between the employer and the individual employee
standing alone.
Speaking of the great coal strike which occurred while he was President,
he developed the idea in this way:
"The great coal-mining and coal-carrying companies, which employed
their tens of thousands, could easily dispense with the services of any
particular miner. The miner, on the other hand, however expert, could
not dispense with the companies. He needed a job; his wife and children
would starve if he did not get one. What the miner had to sell--his
labor--was a perishable commodity; the labor of today--if not sold today
was lost forever. Moreover, his labor was not like most commodities--a
mere thing; it was a part of a living, human being. The workman saw, and
all citizens who gave earnest thought to the matter saw that the labor
problem was not only an economic, but also a moral, a human problem.
Individually the miners were impotent when they sought to enter a wage
contract with the great companies; they could make fair terms only by
uniting into trade unions to bargain collectively. The men were forced
to cooperate to secure not only their economic, but their simple human
rights. They, like other workmen, were compelled by the very conditions
under which they lived to unite in unions of their industry or trade,
and those unions were bound to grow in size, in strength, and in power
for good and evil as the industries in which the men were employed grew
larger and larger." *
* Autobiography (Scribner), pp. 471-78.
He was fond of quoting three statements of Lincoln's as expressing
precisely what he himself believed about capital and labor. The first of
these sayings was this: "Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital.
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if
labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and
deserves much the higher consideration."
This statement, Roosevelt used to say, would have made him, if it had
been original with him, even more strongly denounced as a communist
agitator than he already was! Then he would turn from this, which the
capitalist ought to hear, to another saying of Lincoln's which the
workingman ought to hear: "Capital has its rights, which are as worthy
of protection as any other rights.. .. Nor should this lead to a war
upon the owners of property. Property is the fruit of labor;... property
is desirable; it is a positive good in the world."
Then would come the final word from Lincoln, driven home by Roosevelt
with all his usual vigor and fire: "Let not him who is houseless pull
down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one
for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from
violence when built."
In these three sayings, Roosevelt declared, Lincoln "showed the proper
sense of proportion in his relative estimates of capital and labor, of
human rights and property rights." Roosevelt's own most famous statement
of the matter was made in an address which he delivered before the
Sorbonne in Paris, on his way back from Africa: "In every civilized
society property rights must be carefully safeguarded. Ordinarily, and
in the great majority of cases, human rights and property rights are
fundamentally and in the long run identical; but when it clearly appears
that there is a real conflict between them, human rights must have the
upper hand, for property belongs to man and not man to property."
Several times it happened to Roosevelt to be confronted with the
necessity of meeting with force the threat of violence on the part of
striking workers. He never refused the challenge, and his firmness never
lost him the respect of any but the worthless among the workingmen.
When he was Police Commissioner, strikers in New York were coming into
continual conflict with the police. Roosevelt asked the strike leaders
to meet him in order to talk things over. These leaders did not know
the man with whom they were dealing; they tried to bully him. They
truculently announced the things that they would do if the police
were not compliant to their wishes. But they did not get far in that
direction. Roosevelt called a halt with a snap of his jaws. "Gentlemen!"
he said, "we want to understand one another. That was my object in
coming here. Remember, please, that he who counsels violence does the
cause of labor the poorest service. Also, he loses his case. Understand
distinctly that order will be kept. The police will keep it. Now,
gentlemen!" There was surprised silence for a moment, and then smashing
applause. They had learned suddenly what kind of a man Roosevelt was.
All their respect was his.
It was after he became President that his greatest opportunity occurred
to put into effect his convictions about the industrial problem. In
1909 there was a strike which brought about a complete stoppage of work
for several months in the anthracite coal regions. Both operators and
workers were determined to make no concession. The coal famine became
a national menace as the winter approached. "The big coal operators
had banded together," so Roosevelt has described the situation, "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 was 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."
As the situation grew more and more dangerous, the President directed
the head of the Federal Labor Bureau to make an investigation of the
whole matter. From this investigation it appeared that the most feasible
solution of the problem was to prevail upon both sides to agree to a
commission of arbitration and promise to accept its findings. To this
proposal the miners agreed; the mine owners insolently declined it.
Nevertheless, Roosevelt persisted, and ultimately the operators
yielded on condition that the commission, which was to be named by the
President, should contain no representative of labor. They insisted that
it should be composed of (1) an officer of the engineer corps of
the army or navy, (2) a man with experience in mining, (3) a "man
of prominence, eminent as a sociologist," (4) a Federal Judge of the
Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and (5) a mining engineer. In the
course of a long and grueling conference it looked as though a
deadlock could be the only outcome, since the mine owners would have
no representative of labor on any terms. But it suddenly dawned on
Roosevelt that the owners were objecting not to the thing but to the
name. He discovered that they would not object to the appointment of any
man, labor man or not, so long as he was not appointed as a labor man
or as a representative of labor. "I shall never forget," he says in
his "Autobiography", "the mixture of relief and amusement I felt when I
thoroughly grasped the fact that while they would heroically submit to
anarchy rather than have Tweedledum, yet if I would call it Tweedledee
they would accept with rapture." All that he needed to do was to "commit
a technical and nominal absurdity with a solemn face." When he realized
that this was the case, Roosevelt announced that he was glad to accept
the terms laid down, and proceeded to appoint to the third position
on the Commission the labor man whom he had wanted from the first
to appoint, Mr. E. E. Clark, the head of the Brotherhood of Railway
Conductors. He called him, however, an "eminent sociologist," adding in
his announcement of the appointment this explanation: "For the purposes
of such a Commission, the term sociologist means a man who has thought
and studied deeply on social questions and has practically applied his
knowledge."
The Commission as finally constituted was an admirable one. Its report,
which removed every menace to peace in the coal industry, was an
outstanding event in the history of the relations of labor and capital
in the United States.
But the most interesting and significant part of Roosevelt's relation
to the great coal strike concerned something that did not happen. It
illustrates his habit of seeing clearly through a situation to the end
and knowing far in advance just what action he was prepared to take in
any contingency that might possibly arise. He was determined that work
should be resumed in the mines and that the country should have coal. He
did not propose to allow the operators to maintain the deadlock by sheer
refusal to make any compromise. In case he could not succeed in making
them reconsider their position, he had prepared a definite and drastic
course of action. The facts in regard to this plan did not become
public until many years after the strike was settled, and then only when
Roosevelt described it in his "Autobiography".
The method of action which Roosevelt had determined upon in the last
resort was to get the Governor of Pennsylvania to appeal to him as
President to restore order. He had then determined to put Federal troops
into the coal fields under the command of some first-rate general,
with instructions not only to preserve order but to dispossess the mine
operators and to run the mines as a receiver, until such time as the
Commission should make its report and the President should issue further
orders in view of that report. Roosevelt found an army officer with the
requisite good sense, judgment, and nerve to act in such a crisis in the
person of Major General Schofield. Roosevelt sent for the General and
explained the seriousness of the crisis. "He was a fine fellow," says
Roosevelt in his "Autobiography", "a most respectable-looking old boy,
with side whiskers and a black skull-cap, without any of the outward
aspect of the conventional military dictator; but in both nerve and
judgment he was all right." Schofield quietly assured the President that
if the order was given he would take possession of the mines, and would
guarantee to open them and run them without permitting any interference
either by the owners or by the strikers or by any one else, so long as
the President told him to stay. Fortunately Roosevelt's efforts to bring
about arbitration were ultimately successful and recourse to the novel
expedient of having the army operate the coal mines proved unnecessary.
No one was more pleased than Roosevelt himself at the harmonious
adjustment of the trouble, for, as he said, "It is never well to take
drastic action if the result can be achieved with equal efficiency in
less drastic fashion." But there can be no question that the drastic
action would have followed if the coal operators had not seen the light
when they did.
In other phases of national life Roosevelt made his influence equally
felt. As President he found that there was little which the Federal
Government could do directly for the practical betterment of living and
working conditions among the mass of the people compared with what the
State Governments could do. He determined, however, to strive to make
the National Government an ideal employer. He hoped to make the Federal
employee feel, just as much as did the Cabinet officer, that he was one
of the partners engaged in the service of the public, proud of his work,
eager to do it efficiently, and confident of just treatment. The Federal
Government could act in relation to laboring conditions only in the
Territories, in the District of Columbia, and in connection with
interstate commerce. But in those fields it accomplished much.
The eight-hour law for workers in the executive departments had become
a mere farce and was continually violated by officials who made their
subordinates work longer hours than the law stipulated. This condition
the President remedied by executive action, at the same time seeing
to it that the shirk and the dawdler received no mercy. A good law
protecting the lives and health of miners in the Territories was passed;
and laws were enacted for the District of Columbia, providing for the
supervision of employment agencies, for safeguarding workers against
accidents, and for the restriction of child labor. A workmen's
compensation law for government employees, inadequate but at least a
beginning, was put on the statute books. A similar law for workers on
interstate railways was declared unconstitutional by the courts; but a
second law was passed and stood the test.
It was chiefly in the field of executive action, however, that Roosevelt
was able to put his theories into practice. There he did not have to
deal with recalcitrant, stupid, or medieval-minded politicians, as he so
often did in matters of legislation. One case which confronted him found
him on the side against the labor unions, but, being sure that he was
right, he did not let that fact disturb him. A printer in the Government
Printing Office, named Miller, had been discharged because he was a
non-union man. The President immediately ordered him reinstated.
Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor, with
several members of its Executive Council, called upon him to protest.
The President was courteous but inflexible. He answered their protest by
declaring that, in the employment and dismissal of men in the Government
service, he could no more recognize the fact that a man did or did not
belong to a union as being for or against him, than he could recognize
the fact that he was a Protestant or a Catholic, a Jew or a Gentile,
as being for or against him. He declared his belief in trade unions and
said that if he were a worker himself he would unquestionably join a
union. He always preferred to see a union shop. But he could not allow
his personal preferences to control his public actions. The Government
was bound to treat union and non-union men exactly alike. His action in
causing Miller to be reinstated was final.
Another instance which illustrated Roosevelt's skill in handling a
difficult situation occurred in 1908 when the Louisville and Nashville
Railroad and certain other lines announced a reduction in wages. The
heads of that particular road laid the necessity for the reduction at
the door of "the drastic laws inimical to the interests of the railroads
that have in the past year or two been enacted." A general strike,
with all the attendant discomfort and disorder, was threatened in
retaliation. The President wrote a letter to the Interstate Commerce
Commission, in which he said:
"These reductions in wages may be justified or they may not. As to this
the public, which is a vitally interested party, can form no judgment
without a more complete knowledge of the essential facts and real merits
of the case than it now has or than it can possibly obtain from the
special pleadings, certain to be put forth by each side in case their
dispute should bring about serious interruption to traffic. If the
reduction in wages is due to natural causes, the loss of business being
such that the burden should be, and is, equitably distributed, between
capitalist and wageworker, the public should know it. If it is caused by
legislation, the public and Congress should know it; and if it is caused
by misconduct in the past financial or other operations of any railroad,
then everybody should know it, especially if the excuse of unfriendly
legislation is advanced as a method of covering up past business
misconduct by the railroad managers, or as a justification for failure
to treat fairly the wage-earning employees of the company."
The letter closed with a request to the Commission to investigate the
whole matter with these points in view. But the investigation proved
unnecessary; the letter was enough. The proposed reduction of wages was
never heard of again. The strength of the President's position in a case
of this sort was that he was cheerfully prepared to accept whatever an
investigation should show to be right. If the reduction should prove to
be required by natural causes, very well--let the reduction be made. If
it was the result of unfair and unwise legislation, very well--repeal
the legislation. If it was caused by misconduct on the part of railroad
managers, very well--let them be punished. It was hard to get the better
of a man who wanted only the truth, and was ready to act upon it, no
matter which way it cut.
In 1910, after his return from Africa, a speaking trip happened to
take him to Columbus, Ohio, which had for months been in the grasp of a
street railway strike. There had been much violence, many policemen had
refused to do their duty, and many officials had failed in theirs. It
was an uncomfortable time for an outsider to come and make a speech. But
Roosevelt did not dodge. He spoke, and straight to the point. His speech
had been announced as on Law and Order. When he rose to speak, however,
he declared that he would speak on Law, Order, and Justice. Here are
some of the incisive things that he said:
"Now, the first requisite is to establish order; and the first duty of
every official, in State and city alike, high and low, is to see that
order obtains and that violence is definitely stopped .... I have the
greatest regard for the policeman who does his duty. I put him high
among the props of the State, but the policeman who mutinies, or
refuses to perform his duty, stands on a lower level than that of the
professional lawbreaker.... I ask, then, not only that civic officials
perform their duties, but that you, the people, insist upon their
performing them... . I ask this particularly of the wage-workers, and
employees, and men on strike.... I ask them, not merely passively, but
actively, to aid in restoring order. I ask them to clear their skirts
of all suspicion of sympathizing with disorder, and, above all, the
suspicion of sympathizing with those who commit brutal and cowardly
assaults.... What I have said of the laboring men applies just as
much to the capitalists and the capitalists' representatives.... The
wage-workers and the representatives of the companies should make it
evident that they wish the law absolutely obeyed; that there is no
chance of saying that either the labor organization or the corporation
favors lawbreakers or lawbreaking. But let your public servants trust,
not in the good will of either side, but in the might of the civil arm,
and see that law rules, that order obtains, and that every miscreant,
every scoundrel who seeks brutally to assault any other man--whatever
that man's status--is punished with the utmost severity.... When
you have obtained law and order, remember that it is useless to have
obtained them unless upon them you build a superstructure of justice.
After finding out the facts, see that justice is done; see that
injustice that has been perpetrated in the past is remedied, and see
that the chance of doing injustice in the future is minimized."
Now, any one might in his closet write an essay on Law, Order, and
Justice, which would contain every idea that is here expressed. The
essayist might even feel somewhat ashamed of his production on the
ground that all the ideas that it contained were platitudes. But it is
one thing to write an essay far from the madding crowd, and it was
quite another to face an audience every member of which was probably
a partisan of either the workers, the employers, or the officials, and
give them straight from the shoulder simple platitudinous truths of this
sort applicable to the situation in which they found themselves. Any one
of them would have been delighted to hear these things said about his
opponents; it was when they were addressed to himself and his associates
that they stung. The best part of it, however, was the fact that those
things were precisely what the situation needed. They were the truth;
and Roosevelt knew it. His sword had a double edge, and he habitually
used it with a sweep that cut both ways. As a result he was generally
hated or feared by the extremists on both sides. But the average citizen
heartily approved the impartiality of his strokes.
In the year 1905 the Governor of Idaho was killed by a bomb as he was
leaving his house. A former miner, who had been driven from the State
six years before by United States troops engaged in putting down
industrial disorder, was arrested and confessed the crime. In his
confession he implicated three officers of the Western Federation of
Miners, Moyer, Haywood, and Pettibone. These three men were brought from
Colorado into Idaho by a method that closely resembled kidnaping, though
it subsequently received the sanction of the United States Supreme
Court. While these prominent labor leaders were awaiting trial,
Colorado, Idaho, and Nevada seethed and burst into eruption. Parts of
the mining districts were transformed into two hostile armed camps.
Violence was common. At this time Roosevelt coupled the name of a giant
among American railroad financiers, with those of Moyer and Haywood,
and described them all as "undesirable citizens." The outbursts of
resentment from both sides were instantaneous and vicious. There was
little to choose between them. Finally the President took advantage of
a letter of criticism from a supporter of the accused labor leaders to
reply to both groups of critics. He referred to the fact that certain
representatives of the great capitalists had protested, because he had
included a prominent financier with Moyer and Haywood, while certain
representatives of labor had protested on precisely the opposite
grounds. Then Roosevelt went on to say:
"I am as profoundly indifferent to the condemnation in one case as in
the other. I challenge as a right the support of all good Americans,
whether wage-workers or capitalists, whatever their occupation or creed,
or in whatever portion of the country they live, when I condemn both the
types of bad citizenship which I have held up to reprobation.... You ask
for a 'square deal' for Messrs. Moyer and Haywood. So do I. When I
say 'square deal', I mean a square deal to every one; it is equally a
violation of the policy of the square deal for a capitalist to protest
against denunciation of a capitalist who is guilty of wrongdoing and for
a labor leader to protest against the denunciation of a labor leader who
has been guilty of wrongdoing. I stand for equal justice to both; and so
far as in my power lies I shall uphold justice, whether the man accused
of guilt has behind him the wealthiest corporation, the greatest
aggregations of riches in the country, or whether he has behind him the
most influential labor organizations in the country."
It should be recorded for the sake of avoiding misapprehension that
Roosevelt's denunciation of Moyer and Haywood was not based on the
assumption that they were guilty of the death of the murdered Governor,
but was predicated on their general attitude and conduct in the
industrial conflicts in the mining fields.
The criticisms of Roosevelt because of his actions in the complex
relations of capital and labor were often puerile. For instance, he
was sternly taken to task on one or two occasions because he had labor
leaders lunch with him at the White House. He replied to one of his
critics with this statement of his position: "While I am President I
wish the labor man to feel that he has the same right of access to me
that the capitalist has; that the doors swing open as easily to the
wageworker as to the head of a big corporation--AND NO EASIER."