Roosevelt’s Labor Letters
Appeal to Reason, May 18, 1907
The letter of President Roosevelt to the Moyer and Haywood conference of New York is in strange contrast with the one previously addressed by him to the Chicago conference on the same subject. The two letters are so entirely dissimilar in spirit and temper that they seem to have been written by different persons. In the first the President bristles with defiance, in the last he is the pink of politeness.
The first letter utterly failed of its purpose. Organized labor did not lie down and be still at the command of the President. On the contrary, it growled more fiercely than before; in fact, showed its teeth to the President, who has become so used to exhibiting his own. And lo—what a change! The President receives a labor committee, talks over matters for an hour and then addresses a letter to the conference through the chairman, beginning “My Dear Mr. Henry,” explaining that he is ready to perform his duty if only the conference will point it out to him, and putting the whole blame on “Debs and the Socialists,” whom he charges with using “treasonable and murderous language,” but not a word of explanation does he vouchsafe in regard to his denunciation of Moyer and Haywood, the real, and in fact the only, point at issue.
Again has the President vindicated his reputation as one of the smoothest of politicians and one of the most artful and designing of demagogues.
We hope the lesson here taught as to what workingmen can accomplish by the power of united effort is not lost upon the working class. The first letter of the President was an insult to labor, and had labor submitted, the President’s contempt for it would have been intensified by its cravenness.
The second letter was a virtual apology and nothing less than the firm attitude of labor extorted it.
The President’s position, however, is not less enviable than before. Since he seeks escape from castigation for his outrageous attack upon Moyer and Haywood upon the ground that Debs had used “treasonable and murderous language” and that it was his duty as President to denounce it, a few questions will be in order and when the President has answered these we have a few more to which answers are also desired.
Did the President ever hear of one Sherman Bell?
Is it not a fact that said Sherman Bell is a personal friend of the President and that in a letter written in the President’s own hand he commends said Sherman Bell in the most exalted terms?