The representatives of the miners included as their head and spokesman John Mitchell, who kept his temper admirably and showed to much advantage.

The representatives of the operators, on the contrary, came down in a most insolent frame of mind, refused to talk of arbitration or other accommodation of any kind, and used language that was insulting to the miners and offensive to me.
They were curiously ignorant of the popular temper; and when they went away from the interview they, with much pride, gave their own account of it to the papers, exulting in the fact that they had "turned down" both the miners and the President.
I refused to accept the rebuff, however, and continued the effort to get an agreement between the operators and the miners.

I was anxious to get this agreement, because it would prevent the necessity of taking the extremely drastic action I meditated, and which is hereinafter described.
Fortunately, this time we were successful.

Yet we were on the verge of failure, because of self-willed obstinacy on the part of the operators.
This obstinacy was utterly silly from their own standpoint, and well-nigh criminal from the standpoint of the people at large.

The miners proposed that I should name the Commission, and that if I put on a representative of the employing class I should also put on a labor union man.