Roosevelt by Brett Harper

Author:Brett Harper [Brett Harper]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography and Memoirs/Presidents and Heads of State
ISBN: 9781612308173
Publisher: New Word City, Inc.
Published: 2014-10-28T00:00:00+00:00

FOR YEARS, REPUBLICANS had advocated high protective tariffs on imported goods and had credited the levies with producing the nation’s prosperity. But the tariffs had come under Democratic attack for raising consumer prices, and the issue was dividing Republicans, splitting those representing Eastern manufacturers, who depended on the tariffs, from Western legislators clamoring for lower prices on goods their constituents needed to run ranches, mines, and factories. Roosevelt favored lowering tariffs, but he knew the issue was explosive. When he called a group of prominent senators to Oyster Bay to discuss the problem, his ally Cabot Lodge could give him no reassurance when Aldrich and Hanna warned, “You will never touch a schedule of the tariff act.” Roosevelt bowed to what he saw as reality. “I do not wish to split my own party wide open on the tariff question,” he said, “unless some good is to come.”

The three-week trip through the West and Midwest, where the president spoke to uncharacteristically quiet crowds, was an uncomfortable journey because of more than party tensions. Roosevelt was suffering increasing leg pain due to the trolley accident in Pittsfield. When his physicians realized he had an abscess that required immediate surgery, Roosevelt refused anesthetic, underwent the operation, and was told to rest for several weeks. The trip west was cut short.

Roosevelt reveled in the relief from his daily flood of visitors, but his recuperation was cut short by a strike of 140,000 Pennsylvania coal miners - the country’s worst-ever industrial deadlock. The five-month strike had caused little damage over the summer, but by the end of September, due to the shortage of coal, schools began closing, with hospitals and government buildings preparing to follow suit. In some cities, mobs plundered coal-carrying railroad cars. Clashes between striking miners and non-union replacements were growing more violent. By the mine owners’ count, hundreds of non-striking miners had been killed for breaking the strike line and continuing to work.

The mine owners represented a coal trust, which had emerged after coal-carrying railroads began buying mines and using their control over freight rates to put independent coal operators out of business. Before the strike, the union, the United Mine Workers of America, offered to accept a wage increase of 5 percent, which would have cut $3 million from the industry’s profit of $75 million. The owners refused. The union president, John Mitchell, had offered to take the dispute to arbitration, but the owners’ spokesman, George Baer of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad, refused to meet Mitchell. If the strike continued, Baer calculated, public outcry and demand for coal would crush the union and drive the miners back to work.

Roosevelt said he was “at my wits’ end how to proceed.” He had no responsibility for the emergency and no authority to take a hand in it. But knowing the public would demand presidential leadership, he invited the owners and Mitchell to the White House to discuss the crisis.

Mitchell was one of the most popular and charismatic labor leaders in the country’s history.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.