AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PENNSYLVANIAN
mistress of Meridian and held the office as long as Quay lived. The women were tearful and we had a long talk.
Then came the inevitable coal strike, of which Roosevelt told me that he had information and which as he indicated he had planned to come into Pennsylvania and manage as he had done during the administration of Governor Stone. At once, without consultation with him or anybody else, I wrote this letter to George F. Baer, the president of the Philadelphia and Reading Railway Company, and to John Mitchell of Indianapolis, the head of the labor organization which had control of the strike:
Dear Sir:
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania expects that every reasonable effort will be made by the parties interested to accommodate the differences between coal operators and coal miners and to avert the strike which is now threatened.
- Yours very truly,
- Samuel W. Pennypacker.
- Yours very truly,
This was simply intended as notice to both of them that the interests of the commonwealth were to be considered and that she did not propose to sit idly by and permit them to involve her in difficulty. They were holding conferences, each side resolute, and in the meantime the anthracite region lay idle. Coal is a public necessity, and to deprive the people of it was to inflict great suffering. The New York Sun read the letter correctly. In an editorial, April 6th, it said: “Between the lines of this timely message we think an intimation can be read that the present governor of Pennsylvania will be prepared to employ the last resource of his authority to keep the peace and preserve to all men their rights.”
On the 12th I sent forth this announcement:
