winter approached. "The big coal operators had banded together,"
so Roosevelt has described the situation, "and positively refused
to take any steps looking toward an accommodation. They knew that
the suffering among the miners was great; they were confident
that if order was kept, and nothing further done by the
Government, they would win; and they refused to consider that the
public had any rights in the matter."

As the situation grew more and more dangerous, the President
directed the head of the Federal Labor Bureau to make an
investigation of the whole matter. From this investigation it
appeared that the most feasible solution of the problem was to
prevail upon both sides to agree to a commission of arbitration
and promise to accept its findings. To this proposal the miners
agreed; the mine owners insolently declined it. Nevertheless,
Roosevelt persisted, and ultimately the operators yielded on
condition that the commission, which was to be named by the
President, should contain no representative of labor. They
insisted that it should be composed of (1) an officer of the
engineer corps of the army or navy, (2) a man with experience in
mining, (3) a "man of prominence, eminent as a sociologist," (4)
a Federal Judge of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and (5)
a mining engineer. In the course of a long and grueling
conference it looked as though a deadlock could be the only
outcome, since the mine owners would have no representative of
labor on any terms. But it suddenly dawned on Roosevelt that the
owners were objecting not to the thing but to the name. He
discovered that they would not object to the appointment of any
man, labor man or not, so long as he was not appointed as a labor
man or as a representative of labor. "I shall never forget," he