reconsider their position, he had prepared a definite and drastic
course of action. The facts in regard to this plan did not become
public until many years after the strike was settled, and then
only when Roosevelt described it in his "Autobiography".

The method of action which Roosevelt had determined upon in the
last resort was to get the Governor of Pennsylvania to appeal to
him as President to restore order. He had then determined to put
Federal troops into the coal fields under the command of some
first-rate general, with instructions not only to preserve order
but to dispossess the mine operators and to run the mines as a
receiver, until such time as the Commission should make its
report and the President should issue further orders in view of
that report. Roosevelt found an army officer with the requisite
good sense, judgment, and nerve to act in such a crisis in the
person of Major General Schofield. Roosevelt sent for the General
and explained the seriousness of the crisis. "He was a fine
fellow," says Roosevelt in his "Autobiography", "a most
respectable-looking old boy, with side whiskers and a black
skull-cap, without any of the outward aspect of the conventional
military dictator; but in both nerve and judgment he was all
right." Schofield quietly assured the President that if the order
was given he would take possession of the mines, and would
guarantee to open them and run them without permitting any
interference either by the owners or by the strikers or by any
one else, so long as the President told him to stay. Fortunately
Roosevelt's efforts to bring about arbitration were ultimately
successful and recourse to the novel expedient of having the army
operate the coal mines proved unnecessary. No one was more
pleased than Roosevelt himself at the harmonious adjustment of