In consequence, the coal famine became a National menace as the winter approached.

In most big cities and many farming districts east of the Mississippi the shortage of anthracite threatened calamity.

In the populous industrial States, from Ohio eastward, it was not merely calamity, but the direct disaster, that was threatened.

Ordinarily conservative men, men very sensitive as to the rights of property under normal conditions, when faced by this crisis felt, quite rightly, that there must be some radical action.

The Governor of Massachusetts and the Mayor of New York both notified me, as the cold weather came on, that if the coal famine continued the misery throughout the Northeast, and especially in the great cities, would become appalling, and the consequent public disorder so great that frightful consequences might follow.