United States Property! (1943), Ickes's order taking possession of coal mines

United States Property! is a 1943 Interior Department notice printing Harold L. Ickes's order taking possession of coal mines where a strike or stoppage "has occurred or is threatened." It names company presidents as operating managers for the United States and tells employees they are serving the government (NAID 515217).

What the sheet prints

A full-width American flag runs across the top, over the heading "United States Property!" and an eagle seal. Below is plain legal text in six paragraphs, signed by the Secretary of the Interior. It is a notice meant to be posted, and the order itself requires that a notice be posted at each mine.

By virtue of the authority vested in me by the President of the United States, I hereby find from the available information that a strike or stoppage has occurred or is threatened in each of the coal mines operated by the companies specified in Appendix A attached hereto, and therefore take possession of each such mine including any and all real and personal property, franchises, rights, facilities, funds, and other assets [...] for operation by the United States in furtherance of the prosecution of the war.

[...]

All of the officers and employees of the company are serving the Government of the United States and shall proceed forthwith to perform their usual functions and duties [...]

No person shall interfere with the operation of the mine by the United States Government, or the sale or distribution of the product thereof, in accordance with this order.

[...]

Harold L. Ickes,

SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR

What the order does

Read clause by clause, the order does four things. It takes possession of each listed mine and everything used to run it, down to funds and franchises. It makes the company's president the "Operating Manager for the United States," under rules the Secretary will write. It tells every officer and employee that they now serve the government and should keep working. And it forbids anyone to interfere. Possession ends when the Secretary decides it is no longer needed for the war. The appendix of companies is not part of the transcription, and the record gives no exact date beyond the 1943 printing.

The liberty question

The archive calls the persuasion faint, with the flag and seal lending state authority to the text. The larger point is the text. The trigger is a finding, by the Secretary alone, that a stoppage "has occurred or is threatened," made "from the available information." No hearing is described. Property passes to federal operation, and people who worked for a private company are told, by notice, that they serve the government.

The order ties itself to "the prosecution of the war" and rests on authority from the President. Even so, this is about as direct a use of state power over property and labor as a poster can record.

The labor organizing case study follows the campaigns run by unions and by employers. The Roosevelt administration essay sets out which war powers the government claimed. For a request made to workers by argument instead, see Oil Is Ammunition!