They did not see that both their interests and the interests of the workers must be accommodated, and if need be, subordinated, to the fundamental permanent interests of the whole community.

No man and no group of men may so exercise their rights as to deprive the nation of the things which are necessary and vital to the common life.

A strike which ties up the coal supplies of a whole section is a strike invested with a public interest.
So great was that public interest in the Coal Strike of 1902, so deeply and strongly did I feel the wave of indignation which swept over the whole country that had I not succeeded in my efforts to induce the operators to listen to reason, I should reluctantly but none the less decisively have taken a step which would have brought down upon my head the execrations of many of "the captains of industry," as well as of sundry "respectable" newspapers who dutifully take their cue from them.
As a man should be judged by his intentions as well as by his actions, I will give here the story of the intervention that never happened.
While the coal operators were exulting over the fact that they had "turned down" the miners and the President, there arose in all parts of the country an outburst of wrath so universal that even so naturally conservative a man as Grover Cleveland wrote to me, expressing his sympathy with the course I was following, his indignation at the conduct of the operators, and his hope that I would devise some method of effective action.

In my own mind I was already planning effective action; but it was of a very drastic character, and I did not wish to take it until the failure of all other expedients had rendered it necessary.

Above all, I did not wish to talk about it until and unless I actually acted.