[Graybeard58]

Truman did a similar thing, threatening to nationalize coal mines, fire striking workers and then draft them and put them back to work in the mines as soldiers. Miners must have believed him because they went back to work.

[bert]

or, the lewis fellow was paid off

[Pecos]

TR wasn't nearly the person that conservatives would like to believe he was. In addition to the coal strike, you have to add his creation of national parks and intervention in Cuba (based on wanting to believe that the Spanish had sunk the USS Maine) as parallels to G.W. Bush's invasion of Iraq. Just because a President can get away with something (legal or not), doesn't mean he should be doing it.

Thinking in terms of the Overton Window, I would make the argument that if TR had not forced permanent government ownership of 80% of the land west of the Rockies, we wouldn't have the EPA today.