THEODORE ROOSEVELT AND THE LABOR MOVEMENT A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of California State University, Hayward In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in History By Peter R. Perry June, 1991 THEODORE ROOSEVELT AND THE LABOR MOVru~ENT By Peter R. Perry Approved: Date: ~J ~. /qCj/ :2 \ ~~ \CUL-­ \ ii PREFACE Theodore Roosevelt was an important Progressive symbol. Many saw him as the quintesser!tial reformer of his age. An inherent conflict between the desire for humanitarian social reforms and the need for orderly change sometimes left Progressives at odds with labor. Roosevelt's stand on labor issues perhaps best exemplifies this paradox. At times he championed workers' struggles for decent working conditions. At others, he quickly dispatched federal troops to quell labor disturbances. I will examine thre~ separate incidents that help reveal Roosevel t's attitude toward the workers' movement. The anthracite coal .strike of 1902 shows Roosevelt at his best. In that crisis, he seized the initiative by bringing )abor and capital to the negotiating table. He proved to be a successful mediator in what contemporaries saw as the most significant strike in American history. Scarcely one year later, Roosevelt rejected labor's appeals and effectively ended the closed shop in the Government Printing Office. At the same time, he still defended the union's right to exist in the government service. Finally, the Goldfield miners strike of 1907­ 1908 offers a less flattering view of the President. 111 Here, Roosevelt quickly dispatched federal troops to maintain order at the request of the Nevada governor before determining whether they were actually needed. The troops strengthened the operators' hand. The strike was broken and the miners union was destroyed in the process. It is easy to see that Roosevelt had an ambiguous relationship with labor. Despite his disparate stands, I will attempt to demonstrate that there was an ideological consistency to Roosevelt's actions. He supported a worker's right to join a union and hoped that employers would recognize that unions could play a responsible role in society. To him, this was merely a matter of justice and fair play. However, Roosevelt could never tolerate unions that challenged his authority. Like many other Progressives, the President feared militant sectors of the labor movement. He was convinced that they were violence­ prone and could never act in a responsible manner. This conviction guided Roosevelt's actions, since the maintenance of order was paramount to the President. Perhaps Roosevelt's comment to Labor Commissioner Carroll wright expresses this thought best: liThe first principle of civilization is the preservation of order. without order there can be no liberty and the foe of order is the foe of liberty."1 Roosevelt's activities during the iv anthracite strike, the Government Printing Office dispute, and the Goldfield conflict need to be seen in this context. Only then can we truly understand the paradoxica 1 relationship between Rooseve 1t and the labor movement. v TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE: iii CHAPTER ONE: THE ANTHRACITE COAL STRIKE OF 1902 1 CHAPTER TWO: THE GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE AND THE OPEN SHOP 26 CHAPTER THREE: THE GOLDFIELD STRIKE, 1907-1908 49 CONCLUSION: 72 NOTES: 77 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY: 91 vi CHAPTER 1 THE ANTHRACITE COAL STRIKE OF 1902 The origins of the 1902 coal strike can be traced to the settlement of a dispute in the anthracite mines two yearsear1i er. In the fall of 1900, one hundred thousand miners walked off their jobs in the anthracite regions of Pennsylvania and Wyoming. This was unsettling news to Senator Mark Hanna. He feared the strike would jeopardize McKinley's re-election campaign. Hanna worked feverishly to settle tne dispute before November, using the good offices of the National Civic Federation (NCF). Dangling the spectre of a William Jennings Bryan presidency, which presumably would be hostile to business, in front of a reluctant group of coal operators, Hanna convinced them to grant some concessions in exchange for a temporary labor peace. The miners receiveu a ten percent wage increase, a promise of arbitration on local issues, and other nominal improvements. However, the operators refused to recognize the miners' union, the United Mine Workers (UMW).l The crlsis was averted, but the underlying problem remained unsolved. Seventy to eighty percent of all anthracite fields were owned by six railroad corporations. 2 To a man, the presidents of these companies were in no mood for further 1 2 compromise when the agreement expired in April, 1901. The UMW looked forward to the expiration as an opportunity to gain further improvements in working conditions and win formal recognition from the operators. They had reason to be confident. During the strike, their ranks had swelled from 8,000 to 100,000 members. 3 UMW president John Mitchell also hoped that his ties with Hanna and the NCF would payoff again. But the repeated efforts of Mitchell and the NCF to arrange negotiations with the operators failed. The operators consented only to extending the wage scale for another year but adamantly refused to deal directly with the union. The stage was set for a showdown in 1902. In March, 1902 the union attempted again to meet with the operators to negotiate over wages and conditions. It demanded a twenty percent pay increase, an eight-hour day, and universal recognition of 2,240 pounds of coal as a basis for pay.4 (Miners were paid based on tons of coal mined, but the operators had different definitions of what constituted a ton of coal). Hanna stepped in to finally secure a meeting between Mitchell and the operators, but the result was merely a thirty-day cooling-off period. The UMW called a meeting in Hazelton, Pennsylvania on May 14, 1902 to determine whether to strike. Mitchell did not want the miners to go out. He feared a strike would be 3 long, hard and difficult to Wln. He also hoped that: ...the operators would see the folly of their course and make concessions, which woul d have preserved the mineworkers and their famil ies, as well as the general public, f~om the hardships and horrors of a protracted conflict. But Mitchell failed to convince the rank and file, who no longer shared his optimism that the operators would come to their senses. They voted to strike on May 15 if an agreement was not reached. Mitchell and Hanna tried desperately to make a breakthrough. The UMW reduced its wage demand to ten percent, its work day to nine hours, and offered to submit all remaining issues to arbitration. 6 Such flexibility had absolutely no effect on the operators. They were supremely confident that a strike would be easily crushed, and they looked forward to the opportunity to break the union. Theodore Roosevelt, ascending to the presidency upon McKinley's assassination in September, 1901, observed the situation. There is no evidence in Rooseve 1t's personal papers to indicate any alarm at the onset of the strike. Further, newspaper reports carried no comments from the President about the dispute. Nevertheless, his speeches and writings from the period demonstrate that Roosevelt hac many opinions on the proper relationship between labor and capital. His perspective was common to many middle class reformers of the time. He mistrusted 4 the very wealthy and feared the great masses. Great corporations, he thought, needed to behave in a more rational manner, reflecting a responsibility to the greater society. Roosevelt felt this was essential to stop the spread of socialism. Workers had legitimate rights, and one of them was to join unions. However, if unions were to occupy their rightful place in society, they must moderate their demands and avoid violence at all costs. Roosevelt often tended to place unions and business on the same plane, treating both as though they had similar power and responsibilities. For example, in a speech before Congress in 1902, he specified the roles of labor and capital in the following manner: Each must refrain from arbitrary or tyrannous inter­ ference with the rights of others. Organized capital and organized labor alike should remember that in the long run the interest of each must be brought into harmony with the interest of the general public; and the conduct of each must conform to the fundamental rules of obedience to the law, of individu~l freedom, and of justice and fair dealing toward all. Roosevelt was serious about these guidelines. During the course of the 1902 anthracite strike, he would come to judge the combatants by applying this framework. John Mitchell was a labor leader who fit beauti- fully into the Rooseveltian mold. While he wanted workers to have a more equitable share of the pie, Mitchell never challenged existing social relations. He saw labor and capital as mutually dependent partners in production. fhe 5 UMW leader wanted little more than formal recognition for his union and yearly collective bargaining arrangements with the operators. 8 He prefered the quiet methods of the NCF to the raucous tactics of labor militants. He stood in stark contrast to the radical Big Bill Haywood of the Western Federation of Miners, who called for revolutionary change In the system of production. 9 On the other hand, the operators came to represent all the things Roosevelt detested in big business. They were greedy, narrow-minded, and cared little how their actions might affect the country. They consistently rebuffed all of Mitchell's and the NCF's efforts to negotiate reasonable so I utions. Their condescension and arrogance eventually isolated them from nearly the entire nation and earned Roosevelt's wrath as well.