President Roosevelt's philosophy of life, of its obligations and its opportunities, is that each individual should develop as perfectly as is possible whatever his native talent may be. To do that, in his view, involves struggle, and struggle always entails leadership. And it has seemed to him that in this process of high development of native gifts the man who is obliged to work for wages, whether he be a skilled artisan or a humble mechanic, must look to his fellows for help. Therefore, inevitably, there have sprung up associations of those who are engaged in the production of like articles.
Roosevelt and the Mine-Workers.
Of all the addresses and writings in which the President has expounded his philosophy of labor, he probably best epitomized his opinions when he delivered his speech to the miners at Wilkes-Barre, last October.
"I strongly believe," he said, "in trade-unions wisely and justly handled, in which the rightful purpose to benefit those connected with them is not accompanied by a desire to do injustice or wrong to others. I believe in the duty of capitalists and wage-workers to try to seek one another out, to understand one another's point of view, and to endeavor to show broad and kindly human sympathy one with the other."
That philosophy is entirely consistent with the President's strong faith in what may be called individualism. In his view, the labor-union serves its chief purpose when it makes possible the highest development of the gifts bestowed upon each individual by his Creator.
With this understanding it is easy to explain the personal interest President Roosevelt has in all of those who are leaders in labor organizations. The energy, the far-reaching understanding, the tact, and the frequent use of somewhat imperious power, all of which were necessary to bring the army of mine-workers into one compact organization, and all of which have been exemplified by John Mitchell, were sure to appeal very strongly to Theodore Roosevelt.
Twice since he became President he has had executive opportunity for showing, not merely by word but in deed, exactly what is his understanding of labor organizations and of their rights and limitations. To this day the world does not accurately measure Roosevelt's action at the time of the portentous struggle between the anthracite coal-miners and their employers. At that crisis, when there was danger of something like civil war, or at least of industrial anarchy and suffering, he seemed to be impelled by precisely the same motives as those that actuated him in bringing about the conference for peace between Russia and Japan. After confidential communication with ex-President Cleveland, who warmly approved his proposed plan, he offered to open the door for a settlement of the desperate struggle between the miners and the mine-owners. As his correspondence with ex-President Cleveland shows, he did not consider, except incidentally, the rights and limitations of the labor organizations on the one hand, or, upon the other, the legal position of those who control capital, credit, transportation, and mines. He spoke for the much-suffering public. He realized that no other than he could with any prospect of success offer to serve as mediator.
No Respecter of Persons.
When the representatives of capital first met the President, they were under the delusion that he had invited them to meet him because he fully sympathized with the miners' labor organization. But at that first meeting these kings of finance and of transportation and of the mining industry perceived that Roosevelt gloried in his sense of manhood, and that his courtesy to John Mitchell, and his recognition of John Mitchell's leadership, were in no way diminished by the presence of men possessed of immense capital and consequently of great power.
Capital was mistaken, however, in its presumption that Roosevelt was its enemy. It was learned in the course of the several interviews with the President that he had as firm a conviction of the necessity of combinations of capital and credit as he had in the imperative need that those who work with the hand should also combine for common benefit.