Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/365

 that institution invited me to deliver the oration on the 22d of February. It gave me the opportunity to present the thought which had never before been suggested, but which I then and have since emphasized, that the public career of George Washington was essentially a Pennsylvania career, beginning and ending in this state, though he was born and died in Virginia. At the same time that the University conferred upon me the degree of Doctor of Laws, it conferred degrees upon the Baron von Sternberg, Ambassador from Germany to the United States, a slightly built, sandy and affable German with whom, through a number of occasions of meeting, I established an acquaintance; Chief Justice Mitchell and James Whitcomb Riley, the Hoosier Poet, whom I then encountered for the only time, a small man with a bald head, a big mouth, a genial smile, and who wore glasses.

A vicious system had grown up in the state of providing for the maintenance of the peace by the appointment of what were called “Coal and Iron Police.” It began with the railroads and mining corporations, but had gradually extended so as to include corporations in various sorts of business. These police were selected, paid and discharged by the corporations, but were commissioned by the state and exercised its authority to make arrests. This most delicate power of the state had to a great extent been transferred to the officials of one of the parties to the controversies which every once in a while arose. With entire propriety, the working men engaged in struggles with their employers, resented the intrusion of these police and their interference was more likely to cause than to prevent violence. During the last year of Stone's administration 4,512 of these police had been appointed, and, while during my first year they had been lessened to 186, the situation was still bad enough. The commissions had been issued for indefinite periods of time and there were unknown numbers of men within the state who, after being Rh