The Pullman Boycott Part 23

"SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of this date, giving your impressions derived from your visit to the town of Pullman yesterday. In pursuance of the invitation contained in your telegram of the 19th inst. I caused Mr. Wickes, a vice president of this company, who is thoroughly acquainted with its affairs at Pullman, to call upon you and offer you every a.s.sistance in his power or which could be offered by any officer of the company in making your proposed personal investigation. Mr. Wickes offered to accompany you to Pullman for this purpose, and I regret that you did not appear to consider that he could be of service to you. As an indication of the importance of the aid of local knowledge in making essential discriminations I may say to you that I have the best reason for believing that the husband of a wife who is published as representing her family to you yesterday as in need of help, drew more than $1,300 of his savings from a bank July 2 last for the purpose as he said of buying lots.

"While it has not been represented to the officers of this company by any persons concerned that there was any such extended distress at Pullman, as was represented for the first time by the extraordinary method of a published telegram to you in your official capacity, I do not doubt that there are many cases of need caused by the refusal of the employes for more than two and one-half months to earn offered wages of more than $300,000; and that such cases have been increased and made more severe by the persistence of more than 650 of our employes, of whom about 350 live in Pullman, in refusing to apply for their old places after the strike was practically over and after they were publicly invited, July 16, to resume their work, until by the gradual coming in of new men during the whole month their places have been filled and the full force engaged for all work in hand. In addition to this there is, no doubt, need among the old employes living in Pullman, a considerable number of whom have persistently refused to apply for work at all, many of them it is understood, considering themselves to be still engaged in a strike.

"I mention these things so that the responsibility for the existing situation, whatever it is may not be improperly placed. The situation, however, is one which must be dealt with without regard to what has caused it, and I shall give it the consideration which is due from the company. I do not, however, antic.i.p.ate, as you appear to do, that those employes who have resumed their work will be limited to the satisfaction of their most pressing wants, and as to those who are not at work the cancelling of their rents is not, I venture to suggest, a question to which attention should first be given at the present juncture if their pressing needs are as you suppose them to be. The company will continue in its efforts to secure work in order to employ as many men as possible, and in that way relieve the situation as far as practicable.

"Your suggestion that the work should be divided so that a sufficient number of our present employes should be put on half time in order to give at least half time work for all was tried last winter. The result has been that the gross earnings of various individual employes were last winter so small as to give an erroneous impression with reference to the sufficiency of the rate of wages. The policy of the company is now to employ only as many men as it is possible to furnish work for on full time.

"Very respectfully yours, "GEORGE M. PULLMAN, "President.

"The Hon. John P. Altgeld, Governor."

"CHICAGO, Aug. 21.

"George M. Pullman, Esq., President the Pullman's Palace Car Company, City.

"SIR: I have your answer to my communication this morning. I see by it that your company refuses to do anything toward relieving the situation at Pullman. It is true that Mr. Wickes offered to take me to Pullman and show me around. I told him that I had no objection to his going, but that I doubted the wisdom of my going under anybody's wing. I was, however, met by two of your representatives, both able men, who accompanied me everywhere. I took pains to have them present in each case. I also called at your office and got what information they could give there, so that your company was represented and heard, and no man there questioned either the condition or the extent of their suffering.

If you will make the round I made, go into the houses of these people, meet them face to face, and talk with them you will be convinced that none of them had $1,300 or any other sum of money a few weeks ago.

"I cannot enter into a discussion with you as to the merits of the controversy between you and your former workmen. It is not my business to fix the moral responsibility in this case. There are nearly 6,000 people suffering for the want of food--they were your employes--four-fifths of them are women and children--some of these people have worked for you more than twelve years. I a.s.sume that even if they were wrong and had been foolish you would not be willing to see them perish. I also a.s.sume that as the state has just been to a large expense to protect your property you would not want to have the public shoulder the burden of relieving distress in your town.

"As you refuse to do anything to relieve the suffering in this case I am compelled to appeal to the humanity of the people of Illinois to do so.

Respectfully yours,

"JOHN P. ALTGELD."

CHAPTER XXI.

CONCLUSION.

The condition of the Pullman strikers elicited by the commission appointed by President Cleveland for that purpose as shown by the preceding extracts from the investigation, was known to the delegates to the convention of the American Railway Union held in Chicago in June. In turn they made known to the various local unions these deplorable conditions. Hence the boycott, or as it has been designated by the general managers, a sympathetic strike.

They have been charged with striking without a cause other than a fanciful grievance of the Pullman employe, and roundly censured for their actions. That too by men of kind hearts and liberal views who were not aware of the true situation. Had this commission been appointed previous to the boycott, it is my honest conviction, there would have been no trouble. The broad inherent spirit of humanity in American hearts would a.s.sert itself and the powerful voice of public sentiment would terrorize this inhuman corporation into doing justice to their employes.

The defeat of the strikers was attributed to a great many causes, but the real cause can be laid to the federal government or the administration thereof.

President Cleveland, it is said, was and is a partner in a law firm who are employed by four of the largest railroad systems in the United States. The cabinet, with a few exceptions, are also connected with railroad corporations either directly or indirectly.

The federal courts are absolutely owned by the railroads, and consequently the whole federal government was arrayed against the strikers.

The federal judges prost.i.tuted the courts to the use of the railroads in granting injunctions to restrain the officers of the American Railway Union from acting in any form for or with that organization. From the time that Mr. Debs was successfully shackled by the courts, the strikers were like some great beheaded mastodon, staggering about, vainly endeavoring to retain the dying spark of life.

In order to be more explicit, just as soon as the officers of the American Railway Union were incarcerated, reports were circulated by the general managers at one point, that men at some distant point had returned to work. The men, where these reports would be received, would at once wire to the officers at Chicago, asking if it be true. The officers of the union were prohibited from sending telegrams, and on receiving no reply they would take it for granted that these reports were authentic, and apply for work. In short, when they lost the guidance of Debs, their ranks became demoralized. This was the real cause of the defeat of the American Railway Union. Its first defeat after twelve decisive victories, eleven of which were accomplished without a strike.

The prost.i.tution of the government--founded on the blood of our forefathers--by the organized capital of this country, of which the greater part is foreign gold, is something of the most vital importance to every workingman in America to-day. This is a matter that demands the gravest thought of every American citizen who is loyal to himself, to his family and to his country.

The flagrant abuse of the const.i.tution by the plutocratic money power, if not checked by the people, will reduce them to a condition beneath that of any nation in the known world.

This strike has clearly demonstrated the truth of this a.s.sertion. In not one instance during the whole course of the trouble, have the representatives of the corporations and the representatives of the government failed to unite in destroying the const.i.tutional rights of the American workingman.

The devilish ingenuity of this corporate power goes still further to retain the power they hold over the government. They have conceived a plan to disfranchise in a manner all members of the American Railway Union and deprive them of the right to vote. In this they have actually accomplished their purpose by forcing its members out of employment, and driving them from their homes to seek employment in foreign parts of the country on the eve of election, where they would not be eligible to vote.

The inherent cunning of this blood sucking money power would pale to insignificance the most diabolical deeds of the prince of darkness.

Blinded by their victory over the American Railway Union--through the a.s.sistance of the federal courts--they will stop at nothing to complete the work of subjugation and annihilation. They have tested their power over the courts and find them so completely subservient to their will that they know they would be secure in carrying out any high-handed proceeding which they may deem necessary to complete their work of demoralization and hounding to death, if need be, the members of this order.

This was the very condition of affairs that President Debs antic.i.p.ated, and tried to guard against. This was the impending danger against which he warned the men, and for this he filled a felon's cell in Cook county jail.

Against these conditions the people must unite and co-operate. We must no longer close our eyes to the glaring fact that we are being made parties to our own destruction by the corporations and trusts of this country, and their allies the Democratic and Republican parties.

These two great political parties are so completely controlled by the corporations, that anything asked of them is immediately granted, the only difference between the two being their views as to the best method by which they can serve these corporations.

The railroads combine and trusts of all kinds furnish the funds for campaign purposes, and also incidentally furnish the votes to elect their friends. They have in every precinct, ward, town, city, county and state, their hirelings who beguile the people into voting as they dictate.

The child like confidence of the people could not be shaken in the old parties. They were ever ready to place implicit faith in these designing politicians, believing that the laws made by them were just what was wanted for the people's salvation.

This delusion cannot last, the time is now ripe for action. The ma.s.ses must protect their interests if they would be free to enjoy the rights awarded them by the const.i.tution.

The American Railway Union has proven the greatest blessing to the working people of this country. It has torn the mask of hypocrisy from these plutocratic professional politicians and revealed them in their true character.

The working people can no longer afford to be deluded by these old parties. They must unite and arise in one grand body and a.s.sert their independence as freemen and intelligent American citizens, and by their ballot take possession of this government of the capitalist, by the capitalist, and for the capitalist, and again make it a government of the people, by the people and for the people.

President Debs struck the keynote when he said that it was better for the government to own the railroads than for the railroads to own the government. Our only chance to succeed in obtaining our const.i.tutional rights is by legislation and this we must create ourselves. We never can obtain it through either of the old parties and therefore must ally ourselves to a new party.

It is time that every intelligent workingman would think and act for himself. All semblance to aristocracy in labor must be eliminated, the skillful artisan has no more guarantee of just treatment than has the common laborer.

Every workingman should endorse the Peoples party. They must unite as one, in one common cause and strike for their rights with the only effective weapon left to them, "the ballot."

This strike has proven beyond doubt that the protective features in railroad organizations, and other organizations as well, is a dead letter as long as the federal courts are controlled by capital. Unless this is remedied, all labor organizations might just as well send in their charters and cease to exist.

I cannot believe that the American people will allow this state of affairs to continue. There are many men in public life to-day whose motives are pure and unselfish. Such men as Governors Altgeld, Waite, Penoyer; Congressmen Kyle, Pfeffer, McGann, Pence, Goldgier; Mayor Hopkins of Chicago, Sydney M. Owens, Clarence S. Darrow, Judge Tully, Gen. Weaver, W. W. Erwin and hosts of others, who publicly espoused the cause of the strikers.

The subsidized press, the most dangerous enemy of labor, and next to the courts, the most effective weapon in the hands of the railroad corporations in destroying the rights of labor and defeating the strikers, has again fallen in line as the champions of the laboring cla.s.ses. With hypocritical pretensions to sympathy for the workingman, the organs of the two great political parties have begun to knife each other, and unite in denouncing the People's party, all for the benefit of the poor farmer, railroader, mechanic and laborer. They are loud in their denunciation of trusts, combines and corporations of all kinds that have a tendency to crush the poor working people. Their great and generous hearts are overflowing with sympathy for the poor oppressed toiler.

The question is, can the American workingman be again deluded by these organs of organized capital?

The laboring people do not want sympathy, neither do they want charity, all they want is simple justice, and this they must and will have.

There are exceptions among the press and these should be remembered by the people. Papers that were champions of right and justice and whom the general managers could not buy.

And now, kind reader, in conclusion I will quote the words of him, whose n.o.ble life is devoted to the cause of humanity:

"The strike was not a failure. It will pa.s.s into history as a n.o.ble struggle for a righteous cause, and those who partic.i.p.ated in it, whatever their immediate sacrifices may be, will in the end feel amply compensated for all their losses."

THE END.