570 Chapter 21 The Age of Reform
holding company owned by the two groups. Since
Harriman already controlled the Union Pacific and
the Southern Pacific, the plan resulted in a virtual
monopoly of western railroads. The public had been
alarmed, for the merger seemed to typify the rapa-
ciousness of the tycoons.
The announcement of the suit caused consterna-
tion in the business world. Morgan rushed to the
White House. “If we have done anything wrong,” he
said to the president, “send your man to my man and
they can fix it up.” Roosevelt was not fundamentally
opposed to this sort of agreement, but it was too late
to compromise in this instance. Attorney General
Philander C. Knox pressed the case vigorously, and in
1904 the Supreme Court ordered the dissolution of
the Northern Securities Company.
Roosevelt then ordered suits against the meat
packers, the Standard Oil Trust, and the American
Tobacco Company. His stock among progressives
rose, yet he had not embarrassed the conservatives in
Congress by demanding new antitrust legislation.
The president went out of his way to assure
cooperative corporation magnates that he was not
against size per se. At a White House conference in
1905, Roosevelt and Elbert H. Gary, chairman of the
board of U.S. Steel, reached a “gentlemen’s agree-
ment” whereby Gary promised “to cooperate with
the Government in every possible way.” The Bureau
of Corporations would conduct an investigation of
U.S. Steel, Gary allowing it full access to company
records. Roosevelt in turn promised that if the inves-
tigation revealed any corporate malpractices, he
would allow Gary to set matters right voluntarily,
thereby avoiding an antitrust suit. He reached a simi-
lar agreement with the International Harvester
Company two years later.
There were limits to the effectiveness of such
arrangements. Standard Oil agreed to a similar
détente and then reneged, refusing to turn over vital
records to the bureau. The Justice Department
brought suit against the company under the Sherman
Act, and eventually the company was broken up at
the order of the Supreme Court. Roosevelt would
have preferred a more binding kind of regulation,
but when he asked for laws giving the government
supervisory authority over big combinations,
Congress refused to act.
Roosevelt and the Coal Strike
Roosevelt made remarkable use of his executive
power during the anthracite coal strike of 1902. In
June the United Mine Workers (UMW), led by John
Mitchell, laid down their picks and demanded higher
wages, an eight-hour day, and recognition of the
union. Most of the anthracite mines were owned by
railroads. Two years earlier the miners had won a
10 percent wage increase in a similar strike, chiefly
because the owners feared that labor unrest might
endanger the election of McKinley. Now the coal
companies were dead set against further concessions;
when the men walked out, they shut down the mines
and prepared to starve the strikers into submission.
The strike dragged on through summer and early
fall. The miners conducted themselves with great
restraint, avoiding violence and offering to submit
their claims to arbitration. As the price of anthracite
soared with the approach of winter, sentiment in their
behalf mounted.
The owners’ spokesman, George F. Baer of the
Reading Railroad, proved particularly inept at public
relations. Baer stated categorically that God was on
the side of management, but when someone sug-
gested asking an important Roman Catholic prelate
to arbitrate the dispute, he replied icily: “Anthracite
mining is a business and not a religious, sentimental
or academic proposition.”
Roosevelt shared the public’s sympathy for the
miners, and the threat of a coal shortage alarmed him.
Early in October he summoned both sides to a con-
ference in Washington and urged them as patriotic
Americans to sacrifice any “personal consideration”
for the “general good.” His action enraged the coal
owners, for they believed he was trying to force them
to recognize the union. They refused even to speak to
the UMW representatives at the conference and
demanded that Roosevelt end the strike by force and
bring suit against the union under the Sherman Act.
Mitchell, aware of the immense prestige that
Roosevelt had conferred on the union by calling the
conference, cooperated fully with the president.
The attitudes of management and of the union
further strengthened public support for the miners.
Even former president Grover Cleveland, who had
used federal troops to break the Pullman strike, saidTable 21.1 Major Supreme Court Rulings during the Progressive Era
Northern Securities Case^1904 Upheld antitrust ruling against railroad conglomerate
Lochner v. New York 1905 Overturned (progressive) New York law restricting the hours bakers could work; invoked
the Fourteenth Amendment to protect bakers’“right” to work as long as they wished
Muller v. Oregon 1908 Affirmed the right of Oregon to limit the hours worked by women in laundries