The practical and patriotic course to pursue, as it seemed
to me, was to secure immediate peace by conceding the one thing in the
demands of the men which society itself and any arbitrators who
represented public sentiment were most likely to approve, and
immediately lay the foundations for securing arbitration with regard to
everything else involved. The event has confirmed that judgment.
I was seeking to compose the present in order to safeguard the future;
for I wished an atmosphere of peace and friendly cooeperation in which to
take counsel with the representatives of the nation with regard to the
best means for providing, so far as it might prove possible to provide,
against the recurrence of such unhappy situations in the future,--the
best and most practicable means of securing calm and fair arbitration of
all industrial disputes in the days to come. This is assuredly the best
way of vindicating a principle, namely, having failed to make certain of
its observance in the present, to make certain of its observance in the
future.
But I could only propose. I could not govern the will of others who took
an entirely different view of the circumstances of the case, who even
refused to admit the circumstances to be what they have turned out to
be.
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