The Pullman Boycott Part 2

As the light of dawn proclaimed the birth of a new day so the events that this day would bring forth was the all absorbing thought and theme of a great number of the American people.

All were anxious to learn the situation, whether interested in the boycott or otherwise, as by this time the whole western part of the United States had begun to feel the heavy hand of the American Railway Union boycott, and every railroad from the Missouri to the Pacific coast, from Manitoba to Mexico, and all centers of importance in the West, Southwest and Northwest were tied up, because the American Railway Union men, in the cause of humanity and right, would not operate them with Pullman sleepers attached, and the railroad managers, in the cause of oppression, would not allow them to run otherwise.

Thirteen roads centering in Chicago were now completely tied up, the Santa Fe, Chicago & Northern Pacific, Southern Pacific, Chicago & Western Indiana, Pan Handle, Monon Route, Chicago & Grand Trunk, Chicago & Erie, Illinois Central, Baltimore & Ohio, Chicago & Great Western, Wisconsin Central and Cincinnati Southern, and the General Managers had begun to realize the futility of carrying on the fight, and if they had not received encouragement and aid from outside sources, would have in all probability ended the strike at once by dropping the Pullman cars.

As a prominent railroad man said when asked about the strike situation: "It is my opinion that the railroads will drop the fight just as soon as the American Railway Union can demonstrate the fact that Pullman cars can not be hauled without a long and expensive fight with their own employes. I know that this view of the case was taken by some of the managers at a meeting to-day, and Mr. Pullman will be notified that he must make a settlement with his men at once, otherwise the effected roads will drop his cars and resume business."

The Union now felt confident of success. President Debs said: "We are sure to win as our cause is just, there will be no disturbances as the men have orders that there must be no rioting and no interference whatever with the roads, other than to refuse to a.s.sist to operate them.

"Whatever the officials can do for themselves with the few men at their command let them do; we propose to be fair and square in this fight, and if within my power to prevent, not one spike belonging to any road will be damaged."

And thus the second day of the great strike came to an end.

June 28th added nine more roads to those already tied up.

The Chicago & Northwestern; Chicago & Alton; Union Pacific; Denver & Rio Grande; Chicago & Eastern Illinois; Pittsburg, Ft. Wayne & Chicago; Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul; Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, and the Stock Yard Terminals, making in all twenty-two roads out and twenty thousand men on strike in the city of Chicago, and not one act of violence committed that could be charged to a striker.

The Mobile & Ohio at this time succ.u.mbed to the boycott and sidetracked its Pullman cars promising not to haul them again until the strike was settled. This rail road is a large corporation, and its surrender to the American Railway Union was considered a great victory, and the directors at once ordered the boycott raised as far as this line was concerned.

Minneapolis and St. Paul was now beginning to feel the effect of the boycott.

The Northern Pacific was the first in the fight, and the same plan of action outlined at Chicago was followed at these points when the time came to make up pa.s.senger trains. The switchmen refused to couple on the Pullman's and were discharged.

The mediation committee at once took up the matter with the manager, asking him to re-instate the discharged men, which he refused to do, and as a result the entire system from the Pacific coast to Minneapolis and St. Paul was called out.

This plan was adopted and carried out on all the rail roads entering the Twin cities.

The boycott was no longer a fight in the interest of the Pullman employes alone but had resolved itself into a gigantic contest between organized labor on the one side, and organized capital on the other, and although up to this time there had been no violence, no loud demonstrations, no threats of any kind, the Illinois Central demanded troops to protect their property, and the militia was ordered out. On the Pan Handle the Cincinnati Express had the cars of Mr. Pullman detached, and the officials cried "riot" and asked from Sheriff Gilbert of Chicago a posse to protect the U. S. mail. This was furnished, and although the mail cars were not molested in any way, the officials refused to allow the mail to go forward without the Pullman sleepers attached.

Seven more railroads had now come under the ban of the boycott making in all twenty-nine at the close of the fourth day.

On June 29th President Debs issued the following appeal to railway employes of the country.

"The struggle with the Pullman company has developed into a contest between the producing cla.s.ses and the money power of the country.

"This is what Lincoln predicted at the close of the civil war, and it was this reflection that gave the great emanc.i.p.ator his gloomiest forebodings. We stand upon the ground that the workingmen are ent.i.tled to a just proportion of the proceeds of their labor. This the Pullman company denied them. Reductions have been made from time to time until the employes earned barely sufficient wages to live, not enough to prevent them from sinking deeper and deeper into Pullman's debt, thereby mortgaging their bodies and souls, as well as their children's, to that heartless corporation.

"Up to this point the fight was between the American Railway Union and the Pullman company. The American Railway Union resolved that its members would refuse to handle Pullman cars and equipment. Then the railway corporations through the General Manager's a.s.sociation, came to the rescue, and in a series of whereases declared to the world that they would go into partners.h.i.+p with Pullman, so to speak, and stand by him in his devilish work of starving his employes to death. The American Railway Union accepted his gauge of war, and thus the contest is now on between the railway corporations arrayed solidly on the one hand, and the labor forces upon the other. Every railroad employe of the country should take his stand against the corporations in this fight, for if it should be lost corporations will have despotic sway and all employes will be reduced to a condition scarcely removed above chattel slavery; but the fight will not be lost. The great principle of American manhood and independence is involved. Corporate power, drunk with its own excesses, has presumed too far upon the forbearance of the American people, and, notwithstanding a subsidized press (to which there are many notable and n.o.ble exceptions), public sympathy is with the striking employes, who are merely contending for the right of their fellow toilers to receive living wages for their work.

"I appeal to strikers everywhere to refrain from any act of violence.

Let there be no interference with the affairs of the companies involved and above all let there be no act of depredation. A man who will destroy property or violate law is an enemy, not a friend to the cause of labor.

The great public is with us and we need only to maintain a dignified, honest, straight forward policy to achieve victory. Let it be understood that this strike is not ordered by myself nor by any other individual; nor is the strike inaugurated anywhere except by consent and authority from a majority of the employes themselves.

"Neither is this a fight simply of the American Railway Union. The question of organization ought not be raised, but every man who believes in organized railroad labor should take his stand on the side of labor, and its battles for his rights and those of his fellowmen. I have faith in the great body of railroad employes of the country and am confident they will maintain an unbroken front in spite of any opposition that may be brought to bear against them.

"I am perfectly confident of success. We cannot fail.

E. V. DEBS."

CHAPTER V.

THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SIDES WITH THE MANAGERS.

The fifth day of the great strike showed no cessation of hostilities, the entire Northwestern and Southwestern portion of the United States was practically at a standstill. Every road entering Chicago was partially, if not completely tied up, and the General Managers a.s.sociation, under the leaders.h.i.+p of John M. Egan was at sea.

They now realized that they had taken a contract that it would be difficult to fulfill, and without the co-operation of some greater power they would be defeated. A lack of confidence in their ability to subdue the strikers and compel them to work, was well ill.u.s.trated in a meeting between Sir George Pullman and Vice-President Harahan of the Illinois Central. W. M. Daley, of New Orleans, was the only witness to the meeting and his presence undoubtedly saved Sir George from a masterly drubbing at the hands of Mr. Harahan. Mr. Pullman entered the office of Vice-President Harahan, and in the course of time his conversation turned to the strike and its effect on the Illinois Central.

This was the opening round.

It aroused all the ire in the portly form of Mr. Harahan, and with blazing eyes he turned on Sir George.

"You are not fit to govern men," he said; "instead of visiting your own works, you have a number of superintendents who furnish you with reports, and when they are colored to suit you take them as facts, and a result is business is embargoed, poverty stalks all over your grounds, you are alone responsible for the present condition of affairs on the railroads. Why don't you go among your employes and see things for yourself? If you did there would be no such trouble." Then followed a number of epithets such as thick head, incompetent, over-rated, and the official shook his fist under the stubby nose of Sir George in a very threatening manner. Mr. Pullman tried to speak, but the Vice-President broke in on him again. "You think you have a contract with this road that you can rub it in on us, but you can't, never will we submit to it, the railroads are losing $250,000 a day owing to your obstinacy. You are unfit to act as president of any company, and if you were to visit your much boasted town to-day, the chances are that you would be dealt with severely. Why, you are nothing but a figure head, you are not the actual president of the company, for if you were you would know something about it. You know nothing in regard to the actual state of affairs." It did not take long for the story to reach the different railroad centers about the city.

It came to the knowledge of the American Railway Union that J. M. Egan and Manager St. John of the Rock Island road had employed two thousand men in Canada to fill the places of the strikers, and steps were taken immediately to stop their importation, but with what success it was impossible to determine.

All this time the strike was spreading and the members.h.i.+p of the American Railway Union was increasing rapidly. The sensational reports of rioting and bloodshed in various yards proved upon investigation to be false, and beyond doubt circulated by the General Managers and eagerly seized by the subsidized press to win the sympathy of the public in the interest of the corporations.

The police when questioned positively denied the stories saying there were no grounds for the reports.

Marching orders were received at the headquarters of the Missouri U. S.

troops, for the 15th infantry and though it was not known at the time the orders were received from Was.h.i.+ngton, it was soon learned that they were to go to Chicago and a.s.sist the General Managers to run their trains.

At this time occurred the tie-up at Minnesota Transfer, which was the most complete and effectual blockade of any in the strike district. The Minnesota Transfer represents nine different roads. The Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul; Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha; Great Northern; Northern Pacific; Minneapolis & St. Louis; Chicago Great Western; Wisconsin Central; Chicago, Burlington & Northern and Belt Line Ry.

All freight through the Twin Cities handled by these roads, is interchanged at this point. It is situated midway between St. Paul and Minneapolis and employes from three hundred to five hundred men according to the volume of business. This is a freight yard exclusively, and therefore had nothing to do with the handling of Pullman equipment.

But this little technicality did not prevent this body of men from coming to the a.s.sistance of their brothers, and as each road was brought under the ban of the boycott they refused to handle cars or in any way a.s.sist them to operate their line.

On the night of the 1st day of July, the Milwaukee road now under boycott brought in five cars of beer for delivery to the Great Northern.

The men including the yardmaster refused to deliver the cars, and were sent home. A meeting was called for the night of July 2nd, and a committee appointed to wait upon the superintendent, Mr. D. M. Sullivan, and ascertain if the men were discharged. Mr. Sullivan answered in the affirmative, and an unanimous vote to strike was then taken, over three hundred men, the entire force with three exceptions quit work, and not a wheel was turned except by the superintendent himself, for ten days.

The general Managers now got in their fine work by utilizing the government. A Was.h.i.+ngton special to the Chicago Times says:

Our wretched administration is in the hands of the railroads, there is no doubt about it, Cleveland, Lamont, Olney and Bissel are at the beck and call of the corporations, from the White House down it has been determined to put forth every effort even to Gatling guns, to employ every arm of the government even to its Supreme Judges to destroy this strike and the laboring people concerned in it. The case is decided against the strikers in advance, the wired words of the General Managers are accepted as settled facts; what they ask for they will get, what they suggest will be adopted. The workingmen are to be ground beneath the heel of the military, and if necessary, to force them into submission they are to be sabered, bayoneted, shot down or taken prisoners or whatever is deemed sternly necessary to compel them to submit to such terms as their moneycrat owner sees fit to impose.

This is a railway administration. So promptly loyal has Cleveland proven himself to be that it is to be believed that should the companies desire it, they could have the Executive Mansion for a round house and the White House grounds for switching purposes.

The managers wired Olney to name Edwin Walker, who is attorney for the Milwaukee road as special solicitor for the government, to take measures against the strikers as they had no confidence in Milchrist.

He seemed weak, his term was soon to expire and he seemed inclined to avoid harsh measures ablest with the men. They wanted Walker, he was the corporation attorney in the country; he had been cradled by, and grown up at the knee of corporations; he was their body and soul in the life and death struggle with their employes.

They urged Olney to clothe Walker with the special United States authority to better protect them and overthrow the strike. By thus making the railway attorney Walker solicitor for the United States, the control of government power could be placed in the hands of the corporations to wield against the men. Walker was appointed by Olney and placed in control over Milchrist in the affairs of the strike. Mr.

Walker was known personally by Olney, and Olney is at the present time one of the counsels of the Santa Fe and Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, and said to be a director of the latter road. He has been for years intimate with Mr. Walker, who, by the way, is a hot favorite of Fuller of the supreme bench. There was, therefore a dozen good reasons for this selection, which addressed themselves to Mr. Olney, who is in this not as a cabinet officer, but as a friend and director of railway corporations, and he therefore precipitately granted the request of the general managers. Bissel, also a railroad director, shows Olney's anxiety to come to the back of the roads. (The truth of the above correspondence could not be denied.) In this way the entire available force of troops at Ft. Sheridan, including infantry, cavalry and artillery was ordered out by the President of the United States to a.s.sist the railroad managers against the people. Such was the att.i.tude of this government "of the people, by the people, and for the people"

against the people. The railway managers having now secured the federal troops, proceeds to issue injunctions restraining the strikers from using the power of persuasion on those men still in the service, to induce them to quit. This order drawn up by Judges Wood and Grosscup was a lengthy one, and peculiarly in harmony with the corporation interest.