George Frederick Baer
BUILDING IS TRIBUTE TO
PROMINENT BERKS ATTORNEY WHO
ONCE BATTLED CLARENCE DARROW
T
here is a building standing in
the shadow of the Berks County
Courthouse in the City of
Reading that has been named for one of
the most prominent attorneys this area
has ever seen and one of the most famous
members to ever belong to the Berks Bar
Association. The meaning behind its name
10 | Berks Barrister
By Ali Bechtel
has been buried in the history books and
largely forgotten, but the Baer Building
has housed many attorneys in the past and
has a famous history.
George Frederick Baer was born in
Somerset County, Pennsylvania in 1842,
and began his long and illustrious career
at age fifteen as a student at Franklin
and Marshall College. After a few years
of studying, Baer raised a company of
volunteers and served as Captain of the
133rd Pennsylvania Volunteers for the
Union Army at Antietam, Fredericksburg
and Chancellorsville during the Civil
War.1
Following his time in the service Baer
began to practice law and was admitted to
the Bar of Berks County in 1868. In 1872
he was appointed local counsel for the
Philadelphia and Reading Railway and
after 33 years of practice he was
named President of the company in 1896.
During this time, he earned a reputation
as a powerful advocate distinguished by
his spirit and self-confidence during his
many public addresses. Many said he was
invincible, and few attorneys were willing
2
to stand opposite him in a court of law.
Baer was one of the most eminent
lawyers to come to the local bar, and
during his tenure he mentored a number
of prominent and successful attorneys
and claimed many victories in the
courtroom. However, his most famous
accomplishment was his showdown with
Clarence Darrow following the Anthracite
Coal Strike in 1902.
The strike began in May of 1902
when more than 100,000 coal miners
walked out, demanding higher wages,
shorter work days and recognition of the
United Mine Workers union (UMW).
This strike would be the largest in the
history of the UMW and as it continued
it threatened to create a coal famine for
the approaching winter months. Initially,
Baer, on behalf of the owners of the
railroad and mining companies that
employed the striking workers, refused
to put down the strike or to speak to the
strikers. He labeled the workers anarchists
and saw negotiation as a waste of time.
However, as the strike continued and
winter approached, President Theodore
Roosevelt sought to intervene.
He asked his Commissioner of
Labor to investigate the strike,
but an investigation into or
talks with the strikers created
the appearance that the federal
government was siding with the
workers, so the report was never
released.
As the situation grew worse,
with riots erupting amongst
the striking and non-striking
workers resulting in nearly 20
deaths, Roosevelt summoned
Baer to Washington in an
effort to settle the strike. Baer
again refused to negotiate. It
was not until October when
the Secretary of War contacted
J.P. Morgan, majority owner of
the Philadelphia and Reading
Railway and one of the most
affected company owners by
the strike, and urged him to attempt to
settle the strike. Morgan finally suggested
a compromise proposal providing
for arbitration before a government3
appointed commission.
The strike ended with the Morgan
compromise 163 days after it began, and
the following day the commissioners
began a weeklong tour of the mines to
survey the state of the working conditions
in dispute. Following the tours of the
mines the commissioners endured three
months of hearings, taking testimony
from nearly 600 witnesses, culminating in
the closing arguments, George Baer for
the owners and Clarence Darrow for the
workers.4
The two attorneys pontificated on the
working conditions, hours and wages of
the coal miners and recognition of their
union for nearly eight hours each, Darrow
to a standing room only crowd regularly
erupting in applause, Baer to a noticeably
smaller and more subdued audience.
Throughout the strike Baer made himself
known for his blunt Social Darwinist
ideals, his quotes often becoming the
rallying cries of the union organizers.
On the issue of shorter working hours
Baer stated, “To limit the right of exertion,
of work, is to limit production. It is not
only a wrong done to the individual,
but it is a violation of sound economic
principles, and, therefore, an injury to
5
society.” Darrow countered Baer’s strictly
economic principles by accusing him of
being unable to understand the danger
and hard work involved in mining as a
result of his lofty position. Darrow spent
hours pleading the dangers of mine work
and fighting for higher wages, accusing
Baer of inflating the meager wages his
company paid the workers by as much
as 50% when he gave his figures to the
arbitrators.
“You have seen the miners come here
day after day, whether called by them or
us, and there was scarcely one of them
who had not been seriously injured,
bones broken, eyes lost, some blind, some
maimed forever, almost all of them more
or less disabled, and six out of every 1,000
every year do not come out at all...What
do [the miners] get? I will show you what
they get. I have had a computation made...
from their books, not from our payrolls,
but from their books, and in Mr. Baer’s
company only about a third of them got
6
over $400 in the year 1901.”
Throughout his argument he made
regular jabs at Baer for carrying his head
too high to hear the work going on in the
mines under his feet and for taking wages
he believed he had earned but not giving
the same consideration to his workers.
In addition to seeking higher wages for
the workers, Darrow fervently chastised
Baer, on behalf of the owners, for the
employment of children in and around
the mines and silk mills dotting the mine
regions. He called Baer and the owners
evil men for making a living off of the
abominably disgraceful evil of child labor
and the suffering of the children who
were forced to work while their fathers
risked life and limb for a pittance in the
mines. One of the witnesses before the
commission related “he went into one of
these mines where one of the boys, 8 or 9
years old, was working, and he asked him
if he knew anything about God. The boy
replied, ‘I don’ t think he works in this
chamber. He must work in the next.’ ”7
Continued on page 12
Berks Barrister | 11
face of the current surplus and claiming,
“I want to say that this strike, from first
to last, was due to the blind, autocratic,
stupid spirit of these operators, that their
men should not organize-nothing else.”10
Enduring relationships are built on
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Amidst the banter and personal attacks
by both parties the arguments turned away
from a discussion on hours and wages and
boiled down to who should be in control
of the industry. Baer staunchly believed
the control belonged to the owners.
He espoused the idea that conflict in
groups in society lead to social progress
as superior groups outcompete and gain
control of inferior ones. As Judge Calvin
Smith notes in his history of the Bench
and Bar, Baer is infamously quoted, “The
rights and interests of the laboring man
will be protected and cared for, not by the
labor agitators, but by Christian men to
whom God in His infinite wisdom has
given the control of the property interests
11
of this country.” Baer denied making this
statement but it became one of the most
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As to recognition of the union, Baer
and the owners adamantly refused to do
so fearing it would then be able to control
the industry by manipulating strikes. He
stated, “we do not admit the right of an
organisation, the moment we exercise the
power of discipline, to coerce us, before
inquiry, by strike, or interference with
our management.”8 He further argued
that in organizing and forcing the owners
of companies to recognize their union
the UMW created a monster monopoly,
12 | Berks Barrister
which allowed them to shut down the
mines for months, ceasing production
and creating a demand which meant
less availability and higher prices for
the consumers. Blaming the strikers for
the impending coal famine he stated,
“It is seldom that the violation of sound
economic business rules so quickly brings
with it such a series of disasters.”9
Darrow countered this position by
accusing the owners of perpetuating the
strike in order to increase demand in the
The boys would bend over the chutes of coal
and pick out the worthless slate and rock. It
was not unusual for one to lean too far and
fall into the moving chute. An overseer stood
behind them with a stick to lash out at a
slacker. They worked ten hour days, six days
a week.
Breaker Boys
famous quotes of the coal strike, and one
Darrow used to demonstrate his point
regarding Baer’s inability to comprehend
the plight of the mine workers in his
employ.
“Mr. Baer and all of his friends ought to
understand that the people of the United
States do not believe in any such absolute
ownership of the earth on which we live
as will allow them to hold all the coal
that the Lord has placed in it and make
the rest of us freeze, unless they give the
word [...].”12 He further accused Baer and
the owners of precipitating “the greatest
conflict between capital and labor which
the world has ever seen, the most gigantic
strike in history, because in their minds it
was a question of mastery-nothing else;
because they felt and they believed that
upon this contest depended the question
of whether they should be the masters or
13
whether the men should be the masters.”
Darrow argued hard and long that Baer's
real grievance was that someone disputed
his authority and that the strike was the
frivolous outcome of the same.
The two men’s arguments continued
vehemently in this way for hours on
end, each man peppering their legal and
The settlement was an important step
in Progressive Era reforms, and it
provided a "square deal" for both parties,
a motto President Roosevelt took for his
administration
“Mr. Baer and all of his
friends ought to understand
that the people of the United
States do not believe in any
such absolute ownership of
the earth on which we live
as will allow them to hold
all the coal that the Lord has
placed in it and make the
rest of us freeze, unless they
give the word.”
moral arguments with personal attacks
and accusations against the other. Baer
maintained his strict Socialist ideals
throughout the course of the hearings.
After these arguments, the commission
spent over a month examining the 10,000
pages of typewritten testimony from the
previous three months, finally publishing
their findings and putting an end to one
of the largest labor conflicts in history on
March 21, 1903, nearly one full year after
the laborers struck.
Despite the verbose closing arguments
the commission settled right between the
demands of the workers and the status
quo. They held that, with few exceptions,
the working conditions in the mines
were suitable and the miners were judged
as being only partially justified in their
claims that their wages were insufficient
to maintain an “American standard of
living.”14 The miners had demanded a
20% increase in wages, an eight hour work
day and official recognition of the UMW.
They were granted a 10% wage increase on
a sliding scale that Baer proposed, a nine
hour work day and a six-man arbitration
board to settle any future disputes. The
union did not earn official recognition.
The settlement was an important step
in Progressive Era reforms, it was the
first labor dispute in which the federal
government acted as a neutral arbitrator
and it provided a “square deal” for both
parties, a motto Roosevelt took for his
administration. There were no further coal
strikes until the 1920s.
George Baer practiced law for many
years after he earned his infamy as
“Divine Right Baer”15 in the courtroom
opposite Clarence Darrow. In addition to
his legal career and his presidency with
the Philadelphia and Reading Railway
Company, he was also a family man
and President of Franklin and Marshall
College, a post he retained until his
death in 1914. It is said that, despite his
boisterous Socialist convictions, he was
very well liked in his personal relationships
and was a highly respected member of
the local Bar. The Baer Building on Court
Street in the City of Reading stands as a
memorial to one of the most prominent
and successful legal minds in the city's
history.
Editor’s Note: Ali Bechtel is a freelance writer
and a paralegal in the City of Reading.
1 "George Frederick Baer." Wikiepedia.com. N.p.,
11 Mar 2013. Web. 29 March 2013. <http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Baer>.
2. Smith, Calvin E. A History of Berks County’s
Bench, Bar and Bar Association. Reading: The
Berks County Bar Association, 1981. 57-64, 92,
133. Print.
3. " Coal Strike of 1902." Wikiepedia.com. N.p.,
11 Mar 2013. Web. 29 March 2013. <http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_Strike_of_1902>.
4. "Coal Strike of 1902"
5. Baer, George F. "Echoes from the Recent
Pennsylvania Coal Strike, on Behalf of the Mine
Owners and Operators." Cassier's Magazine. 23
Apr 1903: 727-735. Web. 10 Apr. 2013. <http://
eshistory.osu.edu.
6.Weinberg, Arthur, Ed.. Attorney for the Damned
Clarence Darrow in the Courtroom. Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1989. 341-342. Print.
7. Weinberg, Arthur, Ed., 346-349.
8. Baer, George F., 727-735.
9. Baer, George F., 727-735.
10. Weinberg, Arthur, Ed., 357.
11. Smith, Calvin E., 84.
12. Weinberg, Arthur, Ed., 364-5.
13. Weinberg, Arthur, Ed., 358.
14. "Coal Strike of 1902"
15. Smith, Calvin E., 84.
Berks Barrister | 13