The operators positively declined to accept the suggestion.
They insisted upon my naming a Commission of only five men, and specified the qualifications these men should have, carefully choosing these qualifications so as to exclude those whom it had leaked out I was thinking of appointing, including ex-President Cleveland.

They made the condition that I was to appoint one officer of the engineer corps of the army or navy, one man with experience of mining, one "man of prominence," "eminent as a sociologist," one Federal judge of the Eastern district of Pennsylvania, and one mining engineer.
They positively refused to have me appoint any representative of labor, or to put on an extra man.

I was desirous of putting on the extra man, because Mitchell and the other leaders of the miners had urged me to appoint some high Catholic ecclesiastic.

Most of the miners were Catholics, and Mitchell and the leaders were very anxious to secure peaceful acquiescence by the miners in any decision rendered, and they felt that their hands would be strengthened if such an appointment were made.

They also, quite properly, insisted that there should be one representative of labor on the commission, as all of the others represented the propertied classes.