The Pullman Boycott Part 14

Mr. Lovejoy: "Strikes often fail to accomplish the particular end in view, but I believe on the whole their tendency is toward a betterment of the conditions of the men. The strike we have just pa.s.sed through has demonstrated to the working people of this country that they must get together as one solid body before they can win. They have found out that when they undertake to a.s.sert their rights they have no friends but themselves. The press, the judiciary, the ministers and office holders are all against them."

Secretary Kelliher of the American Railway Union was next to testify. He promised to furnish the commissioners with certified copies of any of the proceedings of the convention, and the correspondence which occurred during the strike. In answer to questions by the commissioners he considered government owners.h.i.+p of railways the only solution to strikes. While he favored arbitration, he did not think compulsory arbitration would be satisfactory to the men.

Thomas J. Heathcoat, a resident of Pullman, and one of the strikers, was the next witness examined. He testified to the condition of Pullman prior to and at the time of the strike and gave a full account of the strike and the causes that brought it about. He gave in detail the scale of wages paid prior to June, '93, and the constant reductions since.

Mr. Heathcoat, in answer to Commissioner Kernan asking him to explain the mode adopted by the Pullman Company in cutting wages for piece work, said:

"Take, for instance, that desk behind which you sit. Suppose it were given to me to make. I figured that I could do the work for $20.00, and took it at that price. As a good mechanic I could make $4.00 per day at it. For the next one the foreman would allow me $18.00. Being anxious to make good wages, and being a good mechanic, I would use extra effort and still make $4.00 per day. The next one the foreman would allow me only $16.00 for. Yet, by extraordinary effort I could still make $4.00 daily.

The next one the foreman would allow me $12.00 for, and with my utmost endeavors I could make only $3.00 per day. As a good mechanic I would refuse to take any more at that price and the work would be given to an inferior workman who could make only $1.25 per day. This is the way the Pullman Company has worked its piece work system."

Commissioner Wright: "Did the cuts in other departments average as much as in yours?"

Mr. Heathcoat: "They averaged the same though they were not alike. The new men in the freight car department suffered more than we did and there were others in some of the departments that were making pretty good wages at the time of the strike."

Commissioner Wright: "You have spoken of asking the company for a reduction in rent. What rent do you pay, and what did you get for it?"

Mr. Heathcoat: "Up to the beginning of the strike I paid $17 a month rent and 71 cents per month for water. Gas I did not use. Could not afford it. The company charged $2.25 per 1,000 feet. My house had five rooms, cellar and back yard." Commissioner Wright: "What would similar houses rent for elsewhere?"

Mr. Heathcoat: "I know of eight and nine room cottages with front and back yards, in every way more desirable than the house I live in, that can be rented for $8.00 and $9.00 per month."

Commissioner Worthington: "What, in your opinion, would it cost to build houses such as you live in?"

Mr. Heathcoat: "I should like to take the contract for building them at $600 apiece."

Commissioner Kernan: "What other accommodations do you get for the rent you pay, say in the way of paved streets?"

Mr. Heathcoat: "There are cheap wooden sidewalks in front of the house and the company keeps a force of men on the street picking up paper and hauling away garbage. That's all I know."

Commissioner Wright: "Have you applied to the Pullman company for work since the strike?"

Mr. Heathcoat: "No, sir. I understand that I am blacklisted. They have a blacklist, you know. I have one in my pocket now."

Commissioner Wright: "Will you let me see it?"

Mr. Heathcoat: "Yes, sir. Here it is."

Commissioner Wright: "Have you any objection to telling us where you got this?"

Mr. Heathcoat: "Yes, sir. I got it from a friend of one of the clerks in the Pullman office and I would not like to tell the name of either, as it would cost the clerk his position."

Commissioner Wright: "Have you any other evidence of the existence of a blacklist?"

Mr. Heathcoat: "Yes, sir. One of the men who applied to Mr. Childs at the Rock Island shops for work. He was asked his name and the same being found on one of their lists he was told that he was a Pullman striker, consequently could not get work. I understand the Pullman company's blacklist was sent to all the railroads so that others besides myself can never get work in the railroad shop again."

Commissioner Wright: "Do labor unions ever blacklist non-union men?"

Mr. Heathcoat: "The American Railway Union does not. That is the only labor union I ever belonged to."

Commissioner Wright: "What was the feeling of the employes toward Mr.

Pullman previous to the strike?"

Mr. Heathcoat: "As a rule I think the employes had a high regard for Mr.

Pullman until Harry Middleton took charge two and a half years ago. He is not a practical car builder. He wastes material for which we are charged. He displaces men who have earned their positions by good work and promotes his favorites. He makes arbitrary and tyrannical shop rules which deprive us of part of our pay. For instance, suppose a car carpenter be given a lot of cars, the work to be finished in a certain time. Within a day of the time limit it is seen that there is still six days work for one man. He will put on five extra men, regardless whether that many can work to advantage, and pay them by the hour charging the same to the man who took the job as piece work."

Commissioner Kernan: "Is not time enough allowed to finish the work so that such instances would be due to the neglect of the man who took the job?"

Mr. Heathcoat: "No, sir. It is not, except in rare cases. It is misjudgment on the part of the manager, Mr. Middleton, as I said before, who is not a practical car builder. As an instance of a waste of material--There was a set of car sashes, made of mahogany. Care was not taken to see that the mahogany picked out was all of the same color.

Instead of picking out those of the set that were alike in color and completing the set with new ones and using the off color ones in another set with wood picked out to match, Middleton had the whole set smashed and charged the men with the cost of the material and refused to pay them for their time when it was not their fault at all."

Mr. Wright: "Referring now to the committee appointed to wait on Mr.

Pullman--tell us what you said and what was said to you."

Mr. Heathcoat: "We asked Mr. Wickes and Mr. Pullman to adjust our wages so that we could support our families. We wanted either the wages of June, 1893, or a reduction in rent and some increase in wages. Mr.

Pullman said he could not reduce rents as he was making only 3-1/2 or 2-1/2 per cent., I don't know which now, on his investment. He said he could not increase wages because he was losing money on his contract work. But he did not say what was a fact that nine tenths of the work that had been done since the cut began was Pullman and not contract work."

Commissioner Kernan: "What do you mean by Pullman work?"

Mr. Heathcoat: "Work on cars owned and operated by the Pullman Company and not work on cars sold to railroads. One result of this was that the company was getting work from us for $1.90 for which it paid the railroads when they did this work $2.50 and $2.70. Two days after he told us the company was losing money on its contract work, a quarterly dividend of 2 per cent. was declared."

Commissioner Kernan: "That might have been paid from acc.u.mulations and not from earnings."

Mr. Heathcoat: "Mr. Pullman did not make any such explanation to us when we spoke to him afterward. If he had, perhaps we would not have felt so badly about it. But it did seem hard that when men were working and not getting enough from the company to buy enough to eat that it should pay out $600,000.00 in dividends."

Commissioner Wright: "Were there those not getting enough to eat?"

Mr. Heathcoat: "I have seen men faint by the side of cars on which they were working because they had not had enough to eat. After the cuts, while working as hard as I could to earn enough to support my family, I have been obliged to sit down in the middle of the forenoon to rest because I had not had enough food to enable me to do such hard work and there were hundreds worse off than I. If rents had been reduced I believe there would have been no strike. We wanted to submit the question of rent and wages to a board of arbitration, we to choose one, the Pullman company one, and the two a third. We would have abided by any decision the arbitrators made."

Commissioner Wright: "Did not Mr. Pullman offer to let you look over the company's books to convince you that what he said was true?"

Mr. Heathcoat: "Yes. But what would we know about them? Besides, we did not believe that the books would show the real facts. I have been told that there is only one accountant in the city who understands the company's books and we did not have money enough to buy bread let alone to hire an accountant. I have seen men crying at the paymaster's window when their pay checks for two weeks would be eight cents or 35 cents, or one dollar or two dollars over their rent and the company expected them to support their families on that 'till next pay day. You see the men got two pay checks, one for just the amount of rent owed and the other for the balance of their two weeks pay. The rent checks they are expected to indorse and turn over at once to the town agent in payment of rent. The law will not allow the company to deduct the rent from the pay and retain it, but the check must be turned over just the same for you cannot cash it unless you can persuade the agent that you cannot possibly live unless you are allowed to retain it. Then perhaps you will be allowed to retain a part or all of it. I have been insulted by the clerks in the agent's office because I told them I could not get along without the money for my rent check. Yet such was the case for there was one time when my pay after the rent was deducted left only eight cents a day for each member of my family to live on until the next pay day."

Mr. Worthington: "Are the Pullman employes required to live in Pullman?"

Mr. Heathcoat: "Yes, sir. As long as there are any houses in Pullman vacant the men must live there, unless they own houses somewhere else or are favorites of the shop bosses. In fact during last winter I knew of people who owned houses in Roseland leaving them unrented and moving to Pullman so they could get work. When you apply for work you are required to make application if you are a man of family."

Mr. Worthington: "Are there any lots in Pullman bought and sold so that you could form an idea of the value, for instance, of the lot on which the house you live in stands?"

Mr. Heathcoat: "No, sir. No lots are sold but I know of a house and lot over in Roseland on the boulevard near One hundred and eleventh street which were bought two years ago for $2,500 and can be rented for $12 a month. The house is better than the one I live in, is bigger and in a good location while mine is on a back street and I would not pay more than $1,000 for the house and lot."

Mr. Worthington: "If your house could be built for $600 and only yields 3-1/2 per cent the lot must be worth more than $5,000. Is it?"

Mr. Heathcoat: "No, sir. It is not, but there are some frame houses in Pullman which the company charges eight dollars a month for that could be built for $100."

Mr. Wright: "It was said at the beginning of this strike that the Pullman people owed $70,000 for rent. How far back did that acc.u.mulation begin?"

Mr. Heathcoat: "I should say about Nov. 1, 1893."

Mr. Wright: "Tell us if you know what the cuts in wages were in departments other than your own."