ersuading people to do what they should have done in the first place, saw the next events as illustrating the limits of a President's power in a free society. No one took his advice, and by the end of January, 1946, there were 1,000,000 workers out on strike. Before the end of the year, the public would have to endure no less than 5,000 strikes (Truman, 1973, p. 306). While Truman was not that concerned about labor and management disputes at the smaller manufacturers, he was concerned about the strikes in the basic industries--coal, oil, steel, the railroads--because these strikes imperiled the country. In these disputes, Truman believed the President must act as the guardian of the people's welfare.
The worst strike was the railroad strike of May, 1946. During his years as senator, he had demonstrated deep sympathy for the railroad workers--who supported him in elections. However, the railroad strike threatened to come after a coal strike, and that would force a shutdown of thousands of industries and create chaos in the country. Twenty railroad unions had been negotiating with management for months. A fact-finding board offered a settlement which management accepted and the unions rejected. At Truman's urging, 18 of the railroad unions agreed to continue negotiating, but the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, headed by Alvanley Johnston, and the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, head by A.F. Whitney, both old friends of Truman's, refused to go along with it. Truman told Whitney that he had 48 hours to reach a settlement or the railroads would be taken over in the name of the government. Under the Smith-Connally
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