History That Doesn't Suck - 112: A Square Deal (pt. 1): Corp. Regulation—a coal strike, a trust, & Teddy’s Frenemy J.P. Morgan

Episode Date: May 23, 2022

“If we have done anything wrong, send your man to my man and they can fix it up.” This is the first story of President Theodore Roosevelt’s Square Deal: “corporate regulation.” J. Pierpont Morgan hates economic volatility. He’s determined to eliminate that plaguing element from some of his railroad lines by making the competing Union Pacific a friend. He’ll do so by creating a stockholding company called “Northern Securities.” But is this an illegal trust? Or just good business? Teddy and his Attorney General are determined to make the courts figure it out. At the same time, a massive coal strike in Pennsylvania threatens to plunge the nation into a deadly fuel shortage this winter. Protests and riots are sure to come if this isn’t resolved. In an ironic twist, Teddy finds there’s only one man who can help him solve the situation … the very man his administration is taking to court, J.P. Morgan. Can these two powerful New Yorkers push past the lawsuit to solve a national crisis? We shall see. ____ Connect with us on HTDSpodcast.com and go deep into episode bibliographies and book recommendations join discussions in our Facebook community get news and discounts from The HTDS Gazette  come see a live show get HTDS merch or become an HTDS premium member for bonus episodes and other perks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Red One... We're coming at you. ...is the movie event of the holiday season. Santa Claus has been kidnapped? You're gonna help us find him. You can't trust this guy. He's on the list. Is that Naughty Lister? Naughty Lister?

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Let's save Christmas. There it is. Only in theaters November 15th. How can you be sure you're making the right decision when choosing a university? The smart approach is to look at the facts. Like the fact that York U graduates have a 90% employer satisfaction rate. That's because across its three GTA campuses, York U's programs are strategically designed to prepare you for a meaningful career

and long-term success. Join us in creating positive change at yorku.ca slash write the future. Welcome to History That Doesn't Suck. I'm your professor, Greg Jackson, and as in the classroom, my goal here is to make rigorously researched history come to life as your storyteller. Each episode is the result of laborious research with no agenda other than making the past come to life as you learn. If you'd like to

help support this work, receive ad-free episodes, bonus content, and other exclusive perks, I invite you to join the HTDS membership program. Sign up for a seven-day free trial today at htdspodcast.com slash membership, or click the link in the episode notes. It's a beautiful, unspecified afternoon, May 1908, in Washington, D.C., and President Theodore Teddy Roosevelt is out for a walk. But before we accompany the Rough Rider today, let me fill you in on what TR means by a walk. Teddy doesn't stick to sidewalks or paths. No, no. He finds the most rugged terrain possible, creeks, cliffs, iron drain pipes, you name it. And assails them.

He climbs, he swims, he conquers. Nor does Teddy walk on these quote-unquote walks. He's booking it. You know what? I'm just going to let British Ambassador Sir Mortimer Durand give a brief description of his walk with the president. We drove out to Rock Creek, a wooded valley with a stream running through it,

and he then plunged down the cud and made me struggle through bushes and over rocks for two hours and a half at an impossible speed till I was so done I could hardly stand. His great delight is rock climbing, which is my weak point. I disgraced myself completely,

and my arms and shoulders are still stiff. At one place, I fairly struck and could not get over the top till he caught me by the collar and hauled at me. He is certainly a strenuous man all through. He was dripping with sweat, his clothes frayed, but happy as a schoolboy. Basically, TR's doing what future generations will call going for a jog or a run, mixed with an obstacle course along, near, and in Rock Creek and the larger Potomac River. He, personally, is the predecessor of the triathlon, the godfather of parkour, the hipster of obstacle course racing. That is what it means to walk with Theodore Roosevelt. So let's follow along.

That is, assuming we can keep up. Five men have merited and accepted an invitation to join TR on today's walk. Tour visitors unknown to our chief chronicler, the dapper yet athletic French ambassador, Jean-Jules Jusson. But beyond these two, Jean himself and, of course, Teddy,

we also have the lifelong military man, General Thomas Henry Berry, and T.R.'s old college buddy from Harvard, the tall, handsome Assistant Secretary of State, Robert Bacon. Moving swiftly along the banks of the Potomac, somewhere in the vicinity of the chain bridge, the group of six soon confronts a steep, slippery rock face. All right, no backing down. Up we go. An old, thinning rope dangles down from the tree above. One at a time, each adventurer takes the precarious cord

in hand and mounts the small cliff. There's a bit of risk in this to be sure, but Teddy wouldn't have it any other way. As our frequent TR Walk participating French diplomat tells us, a walk with no trace of danger would have seemed to the president like food without salt. But not to worry. Despite having to grasp in thorn-filled crevices that have cut up their hands so much, Jean has put on his black kit gloves. I'll make it up safe and sound. Everyone is dripping with sweat. It's not hard to

imagine. While I can't tell you exactly how far they've walked very rapidly, they've been on the move for a while, scaled a cliff, and done so on a warm, late spring day. So TR has a suggestion. They should cool off with a swim in the Potomac. All six men strip. Completely. That's right. Only miles from the capital, the current president of the United States and five of his distinguished colleagues are skinny-dipping in broad daylight in one of the nation's most storied rivers. As Jean will later write, a passerby with a camera might have taken a picture worth having. But as the exposed gentleman entered the cool, refreshing river, Teddy gives Jean a look of

curiosity and inquires. Uh, Mr. Ambassador, have you not forgotten your gloves? Jean looks at his hands. Sure enough, he's still wearing the black leather gloves he put on amid their hand-slicing climb. Jean completely

forgot he had them on. Not failing to see the humor in his standing, buck naked, save for these gloves, the Frenchman with a magnificently manicured beard plays it off as an intentional fashion choice. He shrugs his shoulders and jokingly replies to the completely nude president, We might meet ladies.

The impromptu swim is followed by another climb, this time without the aid of a rope and of such difficulty that only two can even pull it off. Assistant Secretary of State Robert Bacon, who shreds one leg of his pants from hip to ankle in the process, and of course, the rough riding president. But with that, the day is over. The sweat-soaked men return to their carriages to go their separate ways. Running, climbing, swimming, risking life and limb, then calling it all a walk.

That's Theodore Allwright. And it's no surprise that the progressive Republican is bringing that same oversized energy and zeal to the presidency. Teddy fears no one and is willing to risk it all, even confronting his own party and party's supporters, including the powerful banker J.P. Morgan, to give the American people the one thing he believes to his bones every citizen should have. A square deal. Welcome to History That Doesn't Suck.

I'm your professor, Greg Jackson, and I'd like to tell you a story. We've met a lot of presidents over the course of more than 100 HTDS episodes. Some left smaller imprints, looking at you, William Henry Harrison. Others left bigger imprints. It's in this latter group that we find President Theodore Roosevelt. Teddy oversees so much change and reform in this next stage of U.S. history, called the Progressive Era, that it's going to take us a few episodes to get through it all. Particularly, what Teddy calls his Square Deal, which historians will later break down as the Three C's. One, corporate regulation.

Two, consumer protection. And three, conservationism. Today, we're biting off the first of those, corporate regulation, and we'll bear witness as the unexpectedly new president challenges the legality of banker J.P. Morgan's newly created Northern Securities Company. The question at hand, is this holding company of stock for erstwhile

competing railroads just good business or an illegal trust? We'll see what the courts say. But as this case moves along, a massive Pennsylvania coal strike threatens to bring a fuel-starved nation to its knees in the winter of 1902. Not only will Teddy make history as the first president not to support capital over labor, ironically, TR just might need help managing this mess from the very banker his attorney general is prosecuting, J. Pierpont Morgan. Yeah, awkward. Challenging a trust, a nation-threatening strike, J.P. Morgan as both the president's friend and foe, I can't think of a better way to kick off the progressive era. And we begin by heading several years back to witness the creation

of the Northern Securities Company. Rewind. It's a moonless night, November 11th, 1901, and we're across the street from where, over a century ago, George Washington took the oath of office as the nation's first president at what is perhaps the most famous address in the world of finance, 23 Wall Street, New York City. But don't picture the irregularly shaped seven-sided bank that will so famously come to occupy this lot in the near future. No, tonight we are in its predecessor, a six-story Italian Renaissance-style edifice named after J. Pierpont Morgan's deceased partner, the Drexel Building. But regardless of the current building's name or shape, it is already the House of Morgan. And inside, three gentlemen are just sitting down for a midnight meeting. Let's join them.

Allow me to introduce the trio. First, we have Edward H. Harriman. This balding, bespectacled 53-year-old with a massive, drooping walrus mustache controls and has breathed new life into one of the original transcontinental lines, the Union Pacific, or UP. Next is the older and balder, white-haired and white-bearded James J. Hill of the Great Northern. Finally, we have George W. Perkins. Younger than the other two, George and his full head of hair represent the lord of this house, King of Finance, J. Pierpont Morgan, who, along with James, holds a controlling interest in the Northern

Pacific. There are so many weeds we could get into here, but suffice it to say that, one, James Hill and Pierpont Morgan's shared line, the Northern Pacific, recently acquired the Illinois-based line called the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy, or CB&Q. Two, this acquisition hurt Edward Harriman's Union Pacific, which, as a competitor, also needs that connection, so he responded by trying to take control of the Northern Pacific through a stock-buying practice known as corporate raiding. And three, this battle has produced financial volatility, and Pierpont Morgan does not suffer financial volatility.

Thus, this meeting to hash out the details of Pierpont's solution. November 11th gives way to the 12th, as George Perkins goes over the details of his boss's plan with the two railroad men. The proposal is the formation of a new holding company, Northern Securities. It will hold the majority stock in and thus control three railroads, the Great Northern, the Northern Pacific,

as well as the CB&Q. Further, Edward and his crew will join the new company's board of directors and see their Union Pacific enjoy free access to the CB&Q. Uh-huh. That would completely kill their incentive to engage in corporate raiding. In short, Northern Securities will swallow up three major lines to create one massive

32,000-mile, 17-state-spanning railroad while also making an ally of its current competitor, the Union Pacific. This competition-eliminating $400 million company will be, as Theodore Roosevelt biographer Edmund Morris will later put it, the greatest combination in the world, second only to U.S. Steel. The conversation continues. 2 a.m. comes and goes, but finally, Edward Harriman is satisfied and accepts this new, stabilizing path forward with his former financial foes. They're a cord made. The trio steps out into the cold November night, hop into their separate carriages, and ride off their separate ways. 36 hours later, at 12 noon, November 13th, the one state in the union that permits the creation of corporations

that merely hold stock in other corporations, New Jersey, gladly accepts J. Pierpont Morgan's $80,000 check. The Northern Securities Company has been born. News of Northern Securities creation strikes terror into the heart of average Americans. Many in the middle class are already sick of and feel controlled by the Gilded Ages recently formed massive corporations, and this competition-killing monopoly on transportation in several states is another log on a roaring fire. It means JP and his colleagues can dictate much of the economic lives of millions of citizens. But Pierpont doesn't see the problem. From his perspective, he's just stabilizing a part of the

economy. Again, just like when he bailed out the nation's gold standard back in 1895 by creating a syndicate that used actual gold to purchase $60 million worth of U.S. bonds. Sure, he made a nice profit, but he sees no sin in that. You're still welcome, Grover Cleveland. J.P. Morgan views Northern Securities in a similar light. He's profiting, but also helping. As for those questioning its legality, well, the mustachioed financial and physical giant is not overly concerned. True, the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 authorizes the federal government

to break up trusts that restrain trade, but the Supreme Court effectively took the teeth out of this law the very same year Pierpont bailed out the gold standard, 1895. SCOTUS ruled that the EC Knight Company's command of over 98% of all sugar refining in the U.S. did not equate to control of trade. Thus, Pierpont thinks everything's fine, and so do many powerful politicians.

The aging Republican kingmaker and U.S. Senator, Mark Hanna, is happy to buy Northern Securities stock at $110 per share. But there is at least one in Washington who shares the concerns of average citizens about JP's new holding company, President Theodore Teddy Roosevelt. It's been two months since the September assassination of William McKinley unexpectedly elevated Teddy from VP to president. A transition of power under such circumstances is always fraught with fears, but it's been particularly terrifying to party-loyal Republicans. It's just hard to know if they can fully trust TR to stay the course. Republican he

is, but from New York Assemblyman to NYC Police Commissioner and on, Teddy's shown himself a wild card. He'll break with the party when something strikes him as immoral. That's exactly why Senator Mark Hanna didn't like the idea of running TR as VP in the first place and why the old guard Republican exclaimed with consternation only days after the assassination, now look, that damned cowboy is president of the United States.

Huh. You know, I have to say, invoking the elite New Yorker president's Badlands-ranching Wild West alter ego to express concerns that Teddy's too individualistic to toe the party line? That's well done, Mark. Also, those fears are well-founded. As hints of the newly formed Northern Securities Company makes their way to Washington only hours after that early morning November 12th meeting at 23 Wall Street, TR is having conversations with Attorney General Philander Knox. But what is it exactly about this combination, okay, this one and others, that has the moralistic, rough-rider, cowboy president so upset? The answer to that question can be found in his State of the Union address, or, as it's known in this era, his annual message to Congress.

It's around 12 noon, December 3rd, 1901. The aging assistant secretary to the president, Octavius L. Pruden, is walking into the U.S. Capitol. Carrying two massive manila envelopes in his hands, he makes his way to the House of Representatives chamber. Upon entering, he announces loudly for all to hear, a message from the president of the United States. Octavius then continues forward and hands one envelope to Speaker David B. Henderson. Opening it, the Speaker finds an 80-page leather-bound book. This is the President's roughly 20,000-word address to Congress. Octavius needs to take the other copy to the Senate,

but let's just stay here with the House. The first of a few rotating clerks is about to begin reading it aloud. The clerk bellows out, The Congress assembles this year under the shadow of a great calamity. On the 6th of September, President McKinley was shot by an anarchist while attending the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo and died in that city on the 14th of that month. Okay, so Teddy isn't going with dry and dull. No surprise,

a prolific writer of history who's authored several books, TR can turn a good phrase. Still, Congress isn't used to engaging pros. The representatives are completely sucked in as they listen to Teddy's denunciation of his predecessor's assassin and the ideology of anarchy. But soon, the reading clerk comes to TR's paragraphs on trusts. Here, TR acknowledges the rapid growth of the Gilded Age, new cities, industrial centers, and the rise of unprecedented in-size corporations. All of this growth brings good and bad, but he won't blame the wrongs of the world on industry uniformly.

In fact, he has some praise for industry. It is not true that as the rich have grown richer, the poor have grown poorer. On the contrary, never before has the average man, the wage worker, the farmer, the small trader, been so well off as in this country at this present time. The captains of industry who have driven the railway systems across this continent, who have built up our commerce, who have developed our manufacturers, have, on the whole, done great good to our people. Without them, the material development of which we are so justly proud could never have

taken place. But eventually, Teddy delivers his scalpel-precise critique. Yet, it is also true that there are real and grave evils, one of the chief being overcapitalization because of its many baleful consequences, and a resolute and practical effort must be made to correct these evils. And Teddy is ready to explain what resolute and practical efforts look like to him. It doesn't mean preventing big business, but it does mean government supervision. The clerk continues to read, Combination and concentration should be not prohibited, but supervised and within reasonable limits controlled.

And in my judgment, this conviction is right. It is no limitation upon property rights or freedom of contract to require that when men receive from government the privilege of doing business under corporate form, which frees them from individual responsibility and enables them to call into their enterprises the capital of the public,

they shall do so upon absolutely truthful representations as to the value of the property in which the capital is to be invested. And there we have it. Teddy's still a fan of captains of industry and property rights. So a far cry from a socialist or radical. Yet he's worried about what he calls overcapitalization

and wants the government to shine a light on dishonest practices. From TR's view, if the government is granting corporations privileged protections, it is certainly fair that the government should have the authority to regulate their commerce. And if any congressman thinks that exceeds their authority, TR suggests that, quote, a constitutional amendment should be submitted to confer that power,

close quote. So he's not down on capitalism, but the morally driven president still can't abide dishonesty or bullies and isn't okay with all powerful corporations that can push people around or deny them a square deal in life. And in Teddy's mind, that newly formed Northern Securities Company looks well poised to be one such bully. That's why TR has his attorney general going after it. It's a frigid Sunday, February 23rd, 1902 in Washington, D.C., and J. Pierpont Morgan is livid. The gargantuan, mustachioed banker, a confident yet private man, and very sensitive about the rosacea-caused purple-reddish hue of his nose,

can hardly believe the week he's having. Only days earlier, the Roosevelt administration announced that it's prosecuting his railroad stock holding company, Northern Securities. What nerve! From Pierpont's perspective, he wonders, who is this president to disrupt the economy? And his AG philander Knox, aka Sleepy Phil, who built his career in no small part by building combinations, who is he to prosecute? And under the toothless, all-but-forgotten Sherman Antitrust Act, a boot? This is unreal. But fine. J. Pierpont talked sense into Grover Cleveland over the gold issue in 1895. He'll make TR see reason today.

JP enters the White House. He greets President T. Roosevelt and AG Sleepy Phil as pleasantly as he can. Flanked by two powerful supporters, Republican Senators Mark Hanna and Chauncey DePue, Pierpont comes across less bitter and more curious as he asks if he's done something wrong. Why didn't the president just tell him so it could be fixed? Cool as a cucumber, Teddy answers. That is just what we did not want to do. All the more puzzled, Pierpont replies. If we have done anything wrong, send your man to my man and they can fix it up.

That can't be done. The attorney general now breaks in, backing his boss. We don't want to fix it up. We want to stop it. Are you going to attack my other interests, the Steel Trust and others? The president replies, Certainly not, unless we find out that, in any case, they have done something that we regard as wrong. The meeting concluded.

Teddy turns to his loyal attorney general, Sleepy Phil, and shares his big takeaway. That is the most illuminating illustration of the Wall Street point of view. Mr. Morgan could not help regarding me as a big rival operator who either intended to ruin all of his interests or could be induced to come to an agreement to ruin none. And so, a showdown is set between two incredibly powerful men with very different views. The one, a god among bankers who's sure he knows what's best for the nation's economy. The other, the U.S. president, who's sure a government granting corporations the privilege of existing should maintain oversight and ensure competition remains in the market. To Teddy, that's a more just and

safer bet, a square deal that any American should be able to count on. But the banker and the president won't get relief from one another as Northern Securities Company v. United States winds its way through the legal system. As the year 1902 presses on, another issue connecting the two combatants is rising in Pennsylvania. Left unchecked, it has the potential to disrupt the economy

and leave an untold number of Americans exposed to deadly temperatures this winter. That issue is a close strike. Growth is essential for every entrepreneur. At BDC, we get that. And the businesses we support grow at double the average rate. Accelerating the pace. We're on it. BDC. Financing. Advising. Know-how.

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Schuylkill County Sheriff's Deputy Thomas Bettel and two or three other men are walking through the eastern Pennsylvania borough of Shenandoah. Their path leads them right up to a picket line of striking coal miners. Soon, some of the men picketing start eyeing this apparently police-escorted group. A few strikers approach the deputy and his companions. They seize at the bundle each escorted man is carrying, and from their hands spill work shirts, overalls, tools, and lunch pails. In short, the opened bundles prove that, despite the strike,

these men are working for the Pennsylvania and Redding Railroad. Enraged at this discovery, a striking miner screams, son of a bitch scab. The strikers move in as the deputy whips out his revolver and fires a warning shot into the air, but to no good effect. The officer and escorted workers are swarmed as this evening's 5,000 primarily Slav strikers advance on them undeterred. The now violent picketers kick, hit, and throw stones, driving the group to retreat into the train's depot. While rocks crash through the windows, the deputy's brother, Joseph, who sees his sibling under attack, takes up arms and rushes to help. But the strikers intercept Joseph, and they beat him to a bloody pulp.

A small locomotive chugs up to the depot. It stops, and the strikers can see the engineers trying to help their prey escape. Now a mob, the strikers pour onto the tracks to block the train as borough policemen cover for the fleeing employees boarding the train. As the last worker climbs aboard, one of the picketers seizes his foot. An officer, possibly the original deputy,

shoots the picketer in the leg. His hull breaks and the employee clambers aboard, but not without all hell breaking loose first. Lead flies in both directions as police and armed strikers alike exchange fire. Hundreds of rounds are discharged. Twenty minors and five officers, minimum, are injured, some so gravely they'll never fully recover. As for Joseph Bettle, trying to save his deputy brother costs him his life. After languishing for two days in a hospital,

his broken body and cracked skull can hang in there no longer. He passes away. This injurious, deadly day in Shenandoah, known as the bloody First Ward Riot, didn't happen spontaneously or in a vacuum. It is a part of this year's decades-in-the-making labor strike, the coal strike of 1902. Let me give you the background on how we got here. Life isn't easy for eastern Pennsylvania's coal miners. While the minimum working age is supposed to be 12, everyone looks the other way when impoverished families send their sometimes 8-year-old sons to 10-hour shifts,

breaking and sifting coal from impurities as breaker boys. The hours are no shorter for the teens and grown men, going as deep as 2,000 feet into the dark, damp, dreary earth in pursuit of the hard, energy-dense black rock that powers locomotives and heats homes. Anthracite coal. Down there, danger lurks around every corner as they blast away in poorly ventilated tunnels. Death is just one undetected vapor, cave-in, or flooded tunnel away. But despite these risks, wages haven't risen in two decades, not since 1880. Perhaps that's why the heavily Eastern and Southern European immigrant miners are listening when John Mitchell says

it's well past time for working conditions and pay to improve. Growing up in Illinois, John was both an orphan and one of those kids working in coal mines before he even reached his teens. He turned to unions when his own wages got cut. And despite being shy and non-confrontational by nature, his proclivity for reading and analyzing

turned him into one of their leaders. Indeed, he became a founding member of the United Mine Workers of America, or UMW, in 1890, and eight years later, its president. John grew UMW membership in Pennsylvania and saw modest gains in the smaller strike of 1900, as Senator Mark Hanna and other Republicans leaned on railroad executives to make peace with their employees amid the presidential election. But shortly after the ballot boxes disappeared, so did those temporary 10% raises. Thus, on May 12, 1902, most of PA's nearly 150,000 anthracite coal miners began striking against the railroads. And yes, I know we're talking about coal. So why on earth am I mentioning railroads? Well, I can't say this nor bring us full circle

better than Susan Burfield does in her most excellent history of J.P. Morgan and Teddy Roosevelt, The Hour of Fate. Quote, By 1874, most of the coal land in northeastern Pennsylvania was controlled by the railroads. By 1900, most of the railroads were controlled by Pierpont Morgan. Close quote.

Ah, so that's how the powerful New York-dwelling, book-collecting, northern securities founding banker connects to this Pennsylvania coal strike. But hang on to that thought. We aren't quite ready to bring him back into the story yet. We are, however, ready for the powerful, New York-raised, book-writing, Northern Securities prosecuting president. So how does he connect?

He doesn't initially. Not legally, at least. In turn-of-the-century America, this is a state-level affair and therefore none of his business. Those rare strikes in which a president has intervened always reached the federal level in a specific, even if questionably so, sort of way. Either governors of any involved states requested federal assistance, as was the case when Andrew Jackson sent troops to end a strike at the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal in Maryland in 1834, and when Rutherford B. Hayes more famously did so amid

the Great Railroad Strike in 1877, or the strike directly touched a federal nerve. This happened in 1835 when, to bring up Andy once more, federal employees struck at Washington, D.C.'s Naval Yard. It also occurred half a century later, in 1894, during the far larger and better-known Pullman Strike, when railroad owners purposely brought train cars with U.S. mail into the mix to make it a federal issue, thereby pressing Grover Cleveland to take action. Action that invariably favors the companies, not the strikers. Bearing all of that in mind, the coal strike of 1902 isn't directly touching anything federal. This actually frustrates the president who,

rather than siding with the railroad owners, is figuring there's blame on both sides here and took it upon himself in June to ask Commissioner of Labor Carol D. Wright to investigate. Yet, TR's going to have to keep sitting on his hands. Violent as July 30th's bloody First Ward riot was, Pennsylvania Governor William Stone says no federal intervention is wanted or needed. His National Guard is now patrolling the streets of Shenandoah, and everything's fine. The strike will now work itself out.

Looks like this strike is following the usual pattern. Workers refuse to labor, they try to prevent those willing to accept the status quo from working, Looks like this strike is following the usual pattern. Workers refuse to labor. They try to prevent those willing to accept the status quo from working. Troops of some sort or hired guns come to back the company's owners and keep the railroad, mill, etc. running. Violence ensues and, justly or unjustly, the workers get blamed for that bloodshed. But then Philadelphia and Reading Railroad President George Baer does something really, really stupid. After receiving a letter urging him to be a good Christian and look out

for his workers, he goes to the newspapers with an open letter. They publish his public response on August 21st. It contains the following assertion, quote, the rights and interests of the laboring man will be protected and cared for, not by the labor agitators, but by the Christian men to whom God, in his infinite wisdom, has given the control of the property interest of the country

and upon the successful management of which so much depends. Close quote. You heard that right. George just asserted that it is the will of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ that he and his fellow Christian railroad barons dictate terms to the American working man. Damn. Hey, George, your ancestors' former monarchs are calling.

They'd like their divine rights of kings back. And I wish I could take credit for that wisecrack, but the era's journalists and political cartoons very much beat me to the punch. Joking aside, George Baer just turned public opinion strongly against himself and his friends. This is one Reading Railroad exec who desperately needs some media training. Teddy is frustrated. After all, the president just told a crowd in Lynn, Massachusetts, that he wants, quote, a square deal for every man, great or small, rich or poor, close quote. Ah, there's the phrase. It's not a Teddy original, but he's going to use a square deal so much

that Americans will see it as his tagline by 1903. Anyhow, the real point here is that bully-hating Teddy doesn't view the coal business in Pennsylvania as a square deal. Again, TR asks Attorney General Phil Knox why he can't go after these railroads and make them negotiate with labor. Once more, the unfortunately nicknamed Sleepy Phil shows his value by explaining that,

outraged as he might feel, the president has no legal path to act. Maybe they'll have a leg to stand on if they can strengthen the Sherman Antitrust Act by winning the Northern Securities case. That's still up in the air, though. But things are getting dire. Thanks to dues and donations, the union members of the UMW have the funds to keep holding out, and as the strike continues, anthracite coal is becoming scarce. There's hoarding and profiteering amid skyrocketing prices. People are turning to wood and inferior black smoke creating soft coal

for fuel. As winter approaches, how long, Teddy wonders, until the rioting starts? Until people literally freeze to death in their homes? This strike has gone too far for TR. He may lack official power here, but surely no American would deny an invitation to meet the president. Thus, for the first time in U.S. history, the president doesn't sit out or otherwise side with company owners. Instead, TR asks both sides, capital and labor, to join him for a sit-down in Washington, D.C. It's 11 a.m., Friday, October 3rd, 1902.

With the White House in the midst of renovation, including a thought-to-be temporary addition known as the West Wing, President Theodore Roosevelt's summoned group has gathered at his nearby interim Washington, D.C. home, a beautiful four-story red brick row house located at 22 Jackson Place in Lafayette Square. There are ten men here, six executives from Pennsylvania's most powerful railroads and one independent mine, including their nominal leader who writes terrible op-eds, Reading Railroad President George Baer, and United Mine Workers President John Mitchell, who's joined by his three aides.

Soon enough, the time has come. The president's personal secretary, George Cordelieu, leads the guests in. Entering the room, the group sees three more faces. Commissioner of Labor, Carol Wright, AG Phil Knox, and of course, the president. He's wearing a blue striped robe and is seated in a wheelchair. True, his still a child, fifth cousin, FDR, is the commander in chief we usually think of leading the nation in a wheelchair. True, his still-a-child fifth cousin FDR

is the commander-in-chief we usually think of leading the nation from a wheelchair. But Teddy's recovering after a trolley slammed into his carriage last month in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. The accident killed a Secret Service agent, and Teddy's left leg is still worse for wear. Thus, the president apologizes for the irregular welcome. You have to excuse me, gentlemen.

I can't get up to greet you. With everyone seated, Teddy gets to the issue at hand. He considers this such an important matter, he's written down what he'd like to say. To quote in part, TR reads the following in a clear, slow, punctuating cadence. I wish to call your attention to the fact that there are three parties affected by the situation in the anthracite trade. The operators, the miners, and the general public. I speak for neither the operators nor the miners, but for the general public. I disclaim any right or duty to intervene in this way upon legal grounds, but the urgency and the terrible nature of the catastrophe impending

over a large portion of our people in the shape of a winter fuel famine impel me to use whatever influence I personally can to bring to an end a situation which has become intolerable. With all the earnestness there is in me, I ask that there be an immediate resumption of operations in the coal mines. T.R. looks up from his notes as he closes. I do not invite a discussion of your respective claims and positions. I appeal to your patriotism,

to the spirit that sinks personal considerations and makes individual sacrifices for the general good. UMW's young, dark-haired, handsome president, John Mitchell, is excited. Open to dialogue and compromising, he stands and answers. Mr. President, I am much impressed with what you say. I am impressed with the gravity of the situation.

We are willing to meet the gentleman representing the coal operators to try to adjust our differences. Fact is, this is all John ever wanted, and he further suggests, if we cannot adjust them that way, Mr. President, we are willing that you shall name a tribunal who shall determine the issues. The minors will willingly accept it, even if it's against their claims.

Sensing that the bearded Redding Railroad president, George Baer, is ready to shut this down, Teddy interjects again. I should like you to think over what I have stated, not to decide now, but give it careful thought and return at three o'clock. When the group reassembles that afternoon, George Baer wastes no time. He tells the president that they will not negotiate. They will not be subject to some tribunal. They are happy to offer jobs. In fact, at least 15,000 minors would gladly go to work if John Mitchell's men weren't violently terrorizing them. Further, a 10% raise across the board

would in fact threaten to end their operations. And so, George concludes sarcastically, quote, we decline to accept Mr. Mitchell's considerate offer to let our men work on terms he names. Close quote. This meeting has failed. The already five-month-long strike will continue. Days later, Theodore calls on General John M. Schofield.

The Septuagenarian Civil War veteran dutifully reports to 22 Jackson Place. Teddy gives John command of 10,000 men and says he must be ready to lead this force to Pennsylvania at a moment's notice. TR is considering sending John to seize the mines and forcibly open and operate them as a state-run receivership. Congressman James Watson confronts the president. He demands, What about the Constitution of the United States? What about seizing private property without due process of law? Flustered, the commander-in-chief grabs the congressman's shoulder as he fires back,

The Constitution was made for the people, not the people for the Constitution! Good God. TR is at his wit's end. This coal shortage will soon become a deadly national emergency. There must be an answer. Someone who can bring these railroad executives to the negotiation table. And there is. But will he help this administration?

The same president currently seeking to dismantle his massive new holding company, Northern Securities? That's right. Teddy's last hope is J. Pierpont Morgan. When Johann Rall received the letter on Christmas Day 1776, he put it away to read later. Maybe he thought it was a season's greeting and wanted to save it for the fireside. But what it actually was, was a warning delivered to the Hessian colonel, letting him know that General George Washington was crossing the Delaware and would soon attack his forces. The next day, when Rawl lost the Battle of Trenton and died from two colonial Boxing Day musket balls, the letter was found, unopened, in his vest pocket. As someone with 15,000 unread emails in his inbox,

I feel like there's a lesson there. Oh well, this is The Constant, a history of getting things wrong. I'm Mark Chrysler. Every episode, we look at the bad ideas, mistakes, and accidents that misshaped our world. Find us at constantpodcast.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Was the Sphinx 10,000 years old?

Were there serial killers in ancient Greece and Rome? What were the lives of transgender, intersex, and non-binary people like in the ancient world? We're Jen and Jenny from Ancient History Fangirl. We tell you true stories and tall tales of the ancient world. Sometimes we do it tipsy. Sometimes we have amazing guests on our show. Historians like Barry Strauss, podcasters like Liv Albert, Mike Duncan, and authors like Joanne Harris and Ben Aronovich. We take you to the top of Hadrian's Wall to watch the Roman Empire fall at the end of the world. We walk the catacombs beneath the Temple of the Feathered Serpent under Teotihuacan. We walk the sacred spirals of the Nazca Lines in search of ancient secrets. And we explore mythology from ancient cultures around the world.

Come find us at ancienthistoryfangirl.com or wherever you get your podcasts. It may well be that none of the industrial titans slash robber barons is shrouded in more myth and legend than J. Pierpont Morgan. This is due in no small part to his loathing of publicity and tendency to hold his cards close. He truly lives up to the French adage on a plaque he keeps in his study. Pense moule, parle peu, écrit rien. Meaning, think much, speak little,

write nothing. But if anyone can offer a quick yet accurate summation of Pierpont, it's his biographer, Jean Strauss. She'll later explain in her book, entitled Morgan, that J.P. is a walking contradiction. Quote, sociable and shy, deliberate and impulsive, domineering and flexible, extravagant and frugal, worldly and religious, inscrutably reserved and deeply sentimental, close quote. Strauss goes on to illustrate these contradictions. She notes that while Pierpont is born into wealth, he nonetheless has an incredible work ethic that makes still more wealth. Yet, this hard-nosed king of finance is no money-hoarding

Ebenezer Scrooge either. 50% of his value is tied up in art and book collections, and he believes the wealthy have obligations toward the poor. Finally, Strauss tells us that although Pierpont is and will often be cast as a high priest of modern capitalism, this banker is no fan of the free market. He sees the market more as a potentially volatile beast that must be tamed and brought under control. His control. As he takes over financially troubled companies and brings them back to life,

a process known as Morganization. He is the master of powerful trusts. Not just Northern Securities, but U.S. Steel and the international mercantile Marine Company. J.P. also holds the purse strings over Pennsylvania's obstinate railroad and coal mine executives. Thus, this contradictory financier, whose relationship with Teddy is already on the rocks due to the Northern Securities case, now stands as Teddy's best, if not last hope, for staving off a national coal crisis. It's about 10 in the morning, October 11, 1902. With a hearty breakfast in his stomach, Elihu Root is traveling the few blocks that lie between the Union League Club

and New York City's 35th Street Pier. He's here in an unofficial capacity. True, Elihu is the Secretary of War, but this is a diplomatic mission. The mustachioed 57-year-old public servant threads what is a difficult needle these days. He has the trust of both President Theodore Roosevelt and the King of Finance, J. Pierpont Morty. Given that unique position, it falls to Elihu to try to represent the president to his financial enemy with hopes of relieving a coal-starved nation. Arriving at the dock, the war secretary climbs into a small launch. He's whisked through the Hudson River's waters to J. Pierre Pont's

beloved privacy-protecting yacht, Corsair. Well, Corsair III, as the banker never tires of the pirate-invoking name and keeps it with every upgrade. Elihu now steps onto the 304-foot-long black yacht and is soon face-to-face with JP. Bad as things are between Teddy and Pierpont, the financial guru is likewise fed up with his underling Pennsylvanians. Ever filled with his sense of noblesse oblige, Pierpont has already set up a depot where New Yorkers can buy coal under the current exorbitant costs. He also supported the talks back in 1900 that led to temporary raises and knows more must be done now. But beyond any sense of fairness or goodness, let's also remember that Pierpont sees the American economy as a thing to be reined in, to be controlled. And right now, this is not controlled.

The Secretary of War spends five hours that afternoon with J.P. on the Corsair. By the time they're done, the duo have produced an eight-page statement. Written in the voice of the Pennsylvania executives, it blasts the violent, awful strikers for bringing this coal shortage, this travesty to the nation. Yet as it does so, the carefully crafted document also proposes that the U.S. president create a commission that will arbitrate between the two sides. In other words, it takes what UMW president John Mitchell had suggested and Teddy had already agreed to at the October 3rd meeting and presents it as the executive's idea.

In doing so, it gives these hard-headed company presidents who've long lost the support of the American public a way to backpedal and save face. In that regard, it's brilliant. The following day, October 12th, Pierpont presses the railroad and coal presidents to accept his and Elihu's document. They squabble over the finer points, including not wanting to recognize the union officially, but get on board with arbitration. That's serious movement.

The day after, October 13th, Pierpont travels to Washington, D.C., where he and still-recovering Teddy ignore their Northern security's differences, sit down together, and hammer out further details. The public breathes a sigh of relief with the announcement of the yacht-named Corsair Agreement on October 14th. We aren't out of the woods yet, though. UMW President John Mitchell can let official recognition of the union slide, but it looks like the company presidents want to stack this commission. They've called for it to consist of five commissioners and specified that it shall consist of a military engineer, a mining engineer, an eastern Pennsylvania federal judge,

a businessman with expertise in coal, and, I quote, a man of prominence, eminent as a sociologist, close quote. This is too much for John. He's still down with arbitration, and many of those categories are fine. But come on, if the executives can flat out put a businessman on the commission, surely, John tells Teddy on October 15th, labor should get a guy on there too. They kick around a specific name. Railroad Conductor's

Union Leader, Edgar E. Clark. Perhaps a Catholic bishop would be good as well, since so many of the immigrant miners are of that faith. Teddy takes John's point. He tells John to hang tight. We'll see what he can do. Around 10 p.m. that night, T.R. sits down with two railroad-slash-coal company representatives. He knows both well, George Perkins and his old college buddy whom we heard about in this episode's opening, Robert Bacon. Teddy will later recall them as being entirely reasonable. But his flort to find the executives they represent won't even entertain adding a labor representative to the commission. Says Teddy, they were prepared to sacrifice everything and see civil war in the country rather than back down and acquiesce in the appointment of a representative of labor. Hours pass. Midnight comes and goes. Situation is looking hopeless. But finally, Teddy sees an

opening. His old friend Robert says the executives could be flexible on who is appointed so long as they fit the categories. The wheels turn in TR's head. He now suggests that the labor rep he wanted to add, Railroad Conductor's Union Leader E.E. Clark, is an eminent man who has certainly thought hard on social questions. Therefore, isn't he also an eminent sociologist? To T.R.'s shock, George and Robert tell him,

that should work. T.R. can hardly believe it. I mean, he's elated, but let's just say his esteem for the intellect of these businessmen just dropped a rung or two, as evidenced by his later sarcasm-dripping recollection of this night in his autobiography. I found that they did not mind my appointing any man, whether he was a labor man or not, so long as he was not appointed as a labor man or as a representative of labor. They did not object to my exercising any latitude I chose in the appointments so long as they were made under the headings they had given.

I shall never forget the mixture of relief and amusement I felt when I thoroughly grasped the fact that while they would heroically submit to anarchy rather than have Tweedledum, yet if I would call it Tweedledee, they would accept it with rapture. It gave me an illuminating glimpse into one corner of the mighty brains of these captains of industry. And so, it all comes together. The executives even allow Catholic Bishop L. Spalding as a sixth commissioner and the actual

sociologist, Commissioner of Labor Carol Wright, to serve as a recorder and thus de facto seventh. In short order, the commission lands in the middle. The union wanted a 20% pay increase and the workday cut from 10 hours to 8. They get a 10% wage increase and a 9-hour workday. John Mitchell's content. His union members are content. After 164 days of striking, they return to the coal mines on October 23, 1902. The nation won't freeze to death this winter. Teddy knows none of this could have happened without unlikely allies. Especially his, shall we say, frenemy, J. Pierpont Morgan. TR writes to JP, My dear Morgan, it really does begin to look as if there was light ahead.

Let me thank you for the service you have rendered the whole people. If it had not been for your going into the matter, I do not see how the strike could have been settled at this time, and the consequences that might have followed upon its being unsettled when the cold weather set in are in fact dreadful to contemplate. I thank you and congratulate you with all my heart. To our knowledge, Pierpont never replies. Think much, speak little, write nothing, you know? Or he could still be upset at the president for prosecuting his Northern Securities Company for having possibly violated the Sherman Antitrust Act.

We've seen this conflict festering in the background throughout the whole coal strike, but little more of substance has happened since the Roosevelt administration's February 1902 announcement that it would prosecute this gigantic railroad stockholding company. The following year, though, in April 1903, the U.S. 8th Circuit Court shocks the nation. It hands down a unanimous 4-0 ruling against the Northern Securities Company, calling it an illegal trade restraining combination. Whether or not the company had abused its power is a moot question. The merger of railroad interests, quote, destroyed every motive for competition between the two roads, close quote.

Stunned, the defendants appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Meanwhile, their hopes are buoyed that September by a Minnesota judge who, ruling in a separate state lawsuit, concludes Northern Securities does not violate any state laws. Good grief. Thus, as the case goes to that final arbiter of U.S. law, the Supreme Court, both have reason to keep hope alive. The case is heard that December. The court comes back with a decision in March of the following year.

It's Monday, March 14, 1904. We're in a domed, two-story, semi-circular chamber at the U.S. Capitol. This impressive space housed the U.S. Senate prior to the Civil War, but at the U.S. Capitol. This impressive space housed the U.S. Senate prior to the Civil War, but now the U.S. Supreme Court calls it home. And this home is packed. Word has spread that the justices will give their decision today on Northern Securities, and the knowledge that this decision will either confirm or set new legal precedent with far-reaching effects on the world of business has drawn a standing room only crowd, including the likes of Attorney General Sleepy Phil Knox, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, and newly appointed Secretary of War Howard Taft. Deeply interested, but not in the room,

are President Teddy Roosevelt and banker J.P. Morgan. At noon, a clerk cries out, Oh, yay! Oh, yay! God save this honorable court! The crowd quiets down as the nine silk-robed judges take their seats. From his place in the middle, the massively mustached, long-haired Chief Justice Melville Fuller looks to Associate Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. To the disappointment of the audience, Oliver proceeds to read about another case.

But it's not long before the Chief Justice looks to his Kentucky-born colleague, Associate Justice John Marshall Harlan. The Southerner calls out, Case number 277. John proceeds to set up the case. The question, is Northern Securities a combination of a conspiracy and restraint of trade or commerce among the states or with foreign states? Does it monopolize any part of such trade or commerce?

After recounting much of the history we already know, John finally lets the cat out of the bag. The court has found that in its reading of the Sherman Antitrust Act, quote, no scheme or device could more effectively and certainly suppress free competition between the constituent companies. The decision came down to the wire. Five justices against four.

But the matter is settled. Northern Securities is deemed an illegal competition-killing monopoly. J.P. Morgan and his associates have 30 days to dismantle it or face criminal charges. Teddy and many on Main Street USA celebrate victory, while Wall Street, aware that this sets new legal precedent, trembles. The chronologically overlapping tales of the Northern Security Company and the coal strike of 1902 is, as the saying goes, stranger than fiction. How odd that banker J.P. Morgan became Theodore Roosevelt's simultaneous antagonist and ally. It truly is, as historian Richard Hofstadter will later note of J.P. and Senator

Mark Hanna's roles in Pennsylvania's coal strikes, quote, ill accorded with the stereotypes of progressive thinking that Dollar Mark Hanna and J.P. Morgan should have attended as midwives at the birth of the neutral state, close quote. Now let's pause on Hofstadter's final three words there. The neutral state. That sums up well Teddy's intent with his square deals first C, corporate regulation. As we heard TR make clear in his 1901 address to Congress, he is not opposed to business. He does not see himself as the enemy of the captains of industry. Teddy sees himself as saving the U.S. from both Gilded Age-born competition-killing corporations and the radicals their excess inspires.

To quote a letter TR will later write in his second term to his, at that point, Attorney General Charles Joseph Bonaparte, we seek to control law-defying wealth in the first place to prevent its doing evil, and in the next place to avoid the vindictive and dreadful radicalism which, if left uncontrolled, it is certain in the end to arouse. Sweeping attacks upon all property, upon all men of means, without regard to whether they do well or ill, would sound the death knell of the republic. And such attacks become inevitable if decent citizens permit rich men whose lives are corrupt and evil to domineer in swollen pride, unchecked and unhindered over the destinies of this country. We seek to stop wrongdoing. We are the staunch upholders of every honest man, whether businessman or wage worker.

In brief, Teddy's more interested in following his moral compass than giving himself to any ideology. For him, it's just about giving everyone a fair shake. Or again, as he puts it, a square deal. And yes, I did say that letter comes from his second term. Between negotiating the coal strike and winning the case against Northern Securities, Democratic challenger Judge Alton Parker doesn't have a prayer. In 1904, Teddy mops the floor with him, taking 56.4% of the popular vote and 336 electoral college votes to the judge's 140. The only states to vote Democrat are the South.

Even J.P. Morgan begrudgingly contributes $150,000 to TR's re-election campaign. But there are so many other trusts to challenge. And we haven't even begun to talk about the consumer protection and conservationism aspects of the Square Deal, nor have we observed as Teddy speaks softly while carrying that big stick of his around the globe. Sounds like TR and his famous grin aren't going anywhere anytime soon. His presidential story has just begun. Thank you. Dougal, John Boovey, John Keller, John Oliveros, John Radlavich, John Schaefer, John Sheff, Jordan Corbett, Joshua Steiner, Justin M. Spriggs, Justin May, Kristen Pratt, Karen Bartholomew, Cassie

Koneko, Kim R., Kyle Decker, Lawrence Neubauer, Linda Cunningham, Mark Ellis, Matthew Mitchell, Matthew Simmons, Melanie Jan, Nick Seconder, Nick Caffrel, Noah Hoff, Owen Sedlak, Paul Goringer, Randy Guffrey, Reese Humphreys-Wadsworth, Rick Brown, Sarah Trawick, Samuel Lagasa, Sharon Thiesen, Sean Baines, Steve Williams, The Creepy Girl, Tisha Black, and Zach Jackson.

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