His conferences with the managers were equally unproductive of result. Gathered about him in a semicircle in his office, they were grim and determined men, some of them even resentful of the President's attempt to suggest a settlement of any kind to prevent the strike. I shall never forget his last appeal to them. I sat in a little room off the Cabinet room and could hear what went on. Seated about him were the heads of all the important railroads in the country. Looking straight at them, he said: "I have not summoned you to Washington as President of the United States to confer with me on this matter, for I have no power to do so. I have invited you merely as a fellow-citizen to discuss this great and critical situation. Frankly, I say to you that if I had the power as President I would say to you that this strike is unthinkable and must not be permitted to happen. What I want you to see, if you will, is the whole picture that presents itself to me and visualize the terrible consequences to the country and its people of a nation-wide strike at this time, both as affecting our own people and in its effect upon the Allied forces across the sea. For a moment I wish you to forget that I am President, and let us as fellow-citizens consider the consequences of such action. A nation-wide strike at this time would mean absolute famine and starvation for the people of America. You gentlemen must understand just what this means. Will your interests be served by the passions and hatreds that will flow from such an unhappy condition in the country? If this strike should occur, forces will be released that may threaten the security of everything we hold dear. Think of its effect upon the people of this country who must have bread to eat and coal to keep them warm. They will not quietly submit to a strike that will keep these things of life away from them. The rich will not suffer in case these great arteries of trade and commerce are temporarily abandoned, for they can provide themselves against the horror of famine and the distress of this critical situation. It is the poor unfortunate men, and their wives and children, who will suffer and die. I cannot speak to you without a show of emotion, for, my friends, beneath the surface in America there is a baneful seething which may express itself in radical action, the consequences of which no man can foresee. In asking your cooperation to settle this dispute I am but striving, as we stand in the shadow of a great war, to keep these forces in check and under control."