(Continued from Part 1)
It’s Lit
The nationwide rail boycott was on. The Indianapolis Journal on June 29 devoted almost its entire front page to it:
DEBS IS SUPREME.
Reports That Show His Boycott Order Has Been Obeyed.
CHICAGO, June 28.—The extent of the Pullman boycott strike was indicated today by the flood of telegrams received by President Debs, of the American Railway Union. The movement has gathered strength until now it paralyses the traffic of the whole West. Perishable freight is being ruined on side tracks of overland routes in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and southern California, as well as Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Montana, Oregon, Idaho, Minnesota and the Dakotas. Travel is stopped from the Pacific coast east and not a car is leaving Chicago for the West. Among the messages received by Mr Debs today are the following from local officers of the union at the points named:
Minneapolis — The railway interests of this city are completely tied up. Not a car moved since 1 o'clock.
Duluth. Minn.—Northern Pacific tied up solid. Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis or Omaha company comes next. Travel in Duluth at a standstill. Los Angeles, Cal.—No Pullmans left here or San Diego. Southern Pacific not operating.
Sprague, Wash.—Not a car moving here. Will not resume until old wage schedule is restored.
Emporia, Kan.—Santa Fe rendered useless by complete strike. No trains through here.
Livingston, Mont.—Dispatchers followed all union men out. Northern Pacific crippled from head to foot.
Missoula, Mont.—strike in full effect. Committee appointed.
Little Falls, Minn.—Not a railroad man working here. American Railway Union is king.
Butte, Mont —Union Pacific men all out. Will stay out until otherwise intimated.
The union men were positive now that the whole nation was going to unite and overthrow these greedy railroad barons.
Would the New York Times be a little more balanced than the Chicago Tribune? Let’s see:
In Chicago Alone 150,000 Men Are Ready to Strike to Aid the Railroad Men —Strike Commenced Yesterday on the Rock Island, Chicago and Calumet Terminal. Monon, Northwestern, and Other Roads -- Firemen Are in Sympathy and May Strike, as Is True of Some Engineers —Ten Roads Abandon Mail and Passenger Services — Price of Necessities in Chicago Greatly Increased—Many Industries May Have to close — Strikers Stop Trains and Detach Pullman Cars —Strike Is Costing the Railroads $250,000 a Day
June 30.—The name of George M Pullman will go down in history as the central figure of probably the greatest strike, turning into the most tremendous, as well as the most disastrous, labor agitation of the nineteenth century. The fame. or notoriety. of Eugene V. Debs and George W. Howard will be familiar in later years as the leaders of the laboring classes in the fiercest, most stupendous battle ever waged between capital and labor.
The Pullman boycott and the union of twenty-seven railroad managers in a defensive alliance against what until now has appeared to be a mushroom organization. originated by professional agitators, marks the beginning of a combat which, be the results what they may, cannot fail to mark the beginning of a new era, both politically and financially.
Defeat by either side means death to the several interests involved. This much and more was demonstrated today, when, in the heat of passion, spurred on by speeches calculated to arouse the utmost enthusiasm among laboring men, the many trade and labor unions of the city and State. through their representatives, voted to sustain the American Railway Union in its fight against the Pullman Company and the railroads now represented in the General Managers Association.
A meeting of the chiefs and masters of labor organisations in Chicago was held at the headquarters of the American Railway Union today, for the ostensible purpose of passing resolutions denouncing the hiring of armed forces by corporations to oppose the contestants for the rights of labor. The question announced as involved was barely touched upon at the meeting, the resolution passed bearing chiefly on the attitude of the State officials, and asking for the abrogation of franchise held by the railroads under the State law which, it is claimed, is being violated by the roads in refusing to supply transportation facilities unless they are permitted to run Pullman cars.
The most important clauses of the resolutions bearing upon the action of the State officials were drafted by a woman, Mrs. Fanny Kavanaugh. The swinging into line of the many trade unions present was brought about by speeches made by all the prominent labor leaders of the city and State.
While not acting in purpose, the unions were all pledged before the meeting to join in supporting the railroad men in their struggle, and at a later meeting of the Trades and Labor Assembly the Central Division of the United Labor Unions a committee was appointed to wait upon the officials of the American Railway Union and offer the united strength of every trade and labor organization in the city.
The tender was made at headquarters this afternoon, and it was pledged that every union man in the city would go out on strike immediately if the officers of the railroad union deemed it necessary.
The proposition made and accepted was that in case the trouble between the union and the railroads was not settled within the next day or two every union man in the City of Chicago, from the highest to the lowest, would be called out in sympathy with the railroad men. At the lowest estimate this will mean a strike among the labor unions alone of over 150,000 men. Added to this will be the many thousands who will be thrown out of employment by the forced shutdown of all industries affected by labor agitation.
Side note: modern journalists insist it is impossible to practice “objectivity” any more. I’d claim that this article is close enough. There’s a slight anti-union slant, but overall it’s merely telling you what happened, not what opinion you should have about it.
Here’s the Indianapolis Journal for July 1:
LULL IN THE STORM
Hammond Strikers Once More Permit Moving of Trains.
It Was the Only Compromise with Gov. Matthews That Kept Back the State Militia.
DEBS MADE A BAD BLUNDER
Marshal Hawkins Serves His Restraining Order on Shields.
Monon and Erie Trains, with Pullman Coaches, Pull Through Without Interference.
MORE STRIKERS ARRESTED
Riot at Danville Following Attempt to Move C. & E. L Train.
Not a Wheel Turning North of Terre Haute—Grand Master Sargent Says His Men Will Not Take Part.
HAM.MOND, Ind., June 30—For the first time since Wednesday noon this city Is comparatively quiet. For four days the American Railway Union has been working with might and main to prevent trains carrying Pullman sleepers from running through this city, and for the last twenty-four hours up to 6 o'clock tonight had met with wonderful success, but at that hour message from President Debs to the strikers to drop everything and let all trains proceed unmolested. This order put a damper on the hopes of the strikers, and when the north-bound train on the Monon arrived, and local President Alex Shields, who was returning from Indianapolis, where he had been taken by United States Marshal Hawkins last night, got off the train and confirmed the order in person, everything was dropped. and trains carrying sleepers began pulling out. From noon yesterday until noon today traffic on the Chicago & Erie was practically suspended. At noon today five passenger trains on that road were blocked here and two more at Griffith. seven miles east of here. Shortly after noon the first train nearly twenty-four hours passed east over this line. It was the Wells-Fargo fast express and fruit train. Shortly after train No. 10, due here last night at 6:15, pulled through, and also an hour later train No. 2, due to depart at 8:30 this morning, left. Neither of these train carry sleepers, and were permitted to proceed unmolested. All passengers on trains No. 8 and No. 10 had been transferred to train No. 2. At 2 o’clock No. 12 attempted to pull through with two sleepers, but was boarded by the strikers and the sleepers cut off. The train officials were then told they could go on without them, but this was not done, as the trainmen had orders not to proceed without their whole train. The cars were then run on the sidetrack and remained there until late tonight.
ERIE TRAIN SIDETRACKED
The first train westbound the strikers have molested was train No. 3, on the Erie. This train had been at Griffith since 6 o'clock this morning, and pulled into this city at 2 o'clock this afternoon. It was met by nearly a thousand strikers and the two sleepers detached and run on a sidetrack. The Monon was more successful in running its trains, although train No. 3, which was held up at 10:45 o'clock last night, did not get away from here until nearly 8 o'clock tonight. All the other passenger trains on this line passed through safely, and the passengers on No. 3 were transferred to train No. 31 at 9:30 o'clock this morning. The passengers who were delayed here over night suffered a great deal from want of something to eat, more especially those on the Erie at the State line.
The road officials asked the strikers to permit the women and children to occupy the sleepers during the night, but this was refused, and they had to remain in the coaches, which were crowded so that none could lie down. Shortly after noon today Sheriff Fredericks received the following reply to the message sent Governor Matthews last night:
“In conference with Alexander Shields, president of the American Railway Union of Hammond. on his guarantee that there shall be no interference with trains now held and in transit until his return by the strikers at Hammond I have agreed to take no immediate action, if strikers obey his orders as wired today. Make immediate demand for release of trains now held including Chicago & Erie No. 8, and wire me result."
The sheriff made the demand, but it was refused, and the result wired to the Governor. Local President Shields, in an interview with a Journal correspondent tonight. said: "I am satisfied that the members of the American Railway Union understand the situation well enough to let the matter rest where it is as far as this city is concerned, providing the State officials and officers of the railways use proper judgment in the matter, but should a system of coercion be carried on by these men the A. R. U. boys may resent it. We do not want the State militia brought to Hammond, and I am certain if this stopping of trains and detaching sleepers be carried any further it will do the order more harm than good. If this boycott be carried on the work should be done in Chicago, and not in Hammond. As far as this city is concerned, the boycott is practically over unless wholesale arrests be made at the instigation of railway officials for what has already been done. In that case there is no telling what the boys will do."
RUMORED MONON STRIKE.
It is reported tonight that all engineers and firemen on the Erie and Monon roads have been ordered out, but up to 9:30 o'clock to-night this order has not gone into effect. A committee of the strikers went to Chicago this evening to confer with President Debs, and it has not yet returned.. Word was received this evening that United States Marshal Hawkins was on his way here with warrants for the arrest of Kid Merriweather, Phillip Haxel, August Tabbitt, Thomas Knotts and Guy Jones, and also with a restraining order against the strikers interfering with any more trains.
The sympathy of the citizens has been with the strikers, but many have spoken in strong language against matters being brought to this city. They say that Chicago was the place to have carried on the strike and that trains carrying Pullmans should never have been allowed to leave.
Where Was the Government in All This?
Debs and the ARU thought the country was on their side and they were going to win. President Cleveland, Attorney General Olney, and the General Managers Association (the railroad execs) had no intention of letting that happen. It may have taken them a while to get their strategy in place and implement it, but they weren’t idle.
Injunction
Nowadays, strike dramas always seem to feature an injunction. Frequently the union ignores it, and forgiveness for violating it is negotiated along with the union’s other demands. In the Pullman strike this tactic was a novelty. The New York Times on July 3 explains how it would work and how draconian it appeared, and assumes it meant Game Over:
CARS MUST NOT BE STOPPED
SWEEPING INJUNCTION AGAIIST RAILROAD STRIKERS
EX-EMPLOYES PRACTICALLY HELPLESS
To Prevent Operation of Trains is to Violate the Interstate Law
END OF STRIKE NEAR AT HAND.
The Restraining Order Enjoins All Strikers, Their Friends, Sympathisers and Those Whom They May Incite from Interfering in Any Way in Illinois. Portions of Indiana. and Wisconsin with Any Interstate Commerce Traffic— Railroads Will Passively Allow Strikers to Act, for the Purpose of Having the Injunction Enforced — Strikers Think the Order Will Boomerang —Meantime, the Railroad ex-employes Have Strengthened Their Vantage—Troops Will Be Necessary to Restore Operation of trains.
CHICAGO. July 2.—The crucial point in the railroad strike will be reached within twenty-four hours from midnight. This is the opinion confidently expressed at the headquarters of the railroad managers at a late hour tonight.
It is likewise the first expression emanating from the managers’ end since the commencement of hostilities with which the representatives of the strikers are in complete accord. Both elements are sanguine that the beginning of the end will be in sight before sundown Tuesday.
As to the means by which this desirable consummation is to be attained, however, there is a radical difference of opinion.
The General Managers profess to believe that the extraordinary injunction issued today by Judges Woods and Grosscup will prove to be worthy of the terse yet epigrammatical designation given to it by the members of the Federal judiciary first named, “A Gatling gun on paper."
It is a veritable dragnet in the matter of legal verbiage, one of those peculiar instruments that punishes an individual for doing a certain thing, and is equally merciless if he does not do it, so it is difficult to understand how the strikers can maintain their present policy and at the same time evade its operation, or escape its influence.
Even personal service is not an absolute necessity to its legal enforcement. According to the law as expounded by United States District Attorney Milchrist tonight, the publication of the decree in a widely-circulated paper, its posting in a public place where it is certain to be read, and its contents disseminated, or the formal reading to a demonstrative crowd by a Deputy Marshal, may be ruled upon as constituting sufficient service to place those guilty of a breach of its provisions under the ban of the law.
Under this interpretation thousands of strikers might be arrested day after day and be arraigned and summarily dealt with for contempt of court, and this is precisely the policy, according to the reports at the Government Building tonight, that it is intended to pursue.
If it is carried out, there will be no need, so it is believed, for the employment either of State militia or Federal troops.
A goodly force of Deputy Marshals armed with power to make arbitrary arrests and with the knowledge on the part of the strikers that, once within the clutches of the law, peremptory sentence to prison for contempt instead of a preliminary hearing, bail, and a final trial months hence, when the echoes of the strike may have died out will be their portion should, so reason the railroad managers, create such a combination of circumstances as to induce the strikers to pause and reason before proceeding further in their present course.
But the strikers themselves reason differently. At their headquarters this evening the interference of the Federal court was denounced in vigorous language by one and all of the hundreds, if not thousands, of railroad men that passed in and out, and the most intelligent of the number voiced the general sentiment in the declaration that the far-reaching and dragnet character of the injunction would tend toward defeating the very ends to which it was directed. Instead of inducing men to return to work, so it was contended, it would result in driving out thousands of members of railroad organizations not affiliated with the union or apparently in sympathy with its present operations, simply because these men would not tolerate the cracking over the shoulders of their fellows of a Government whip that some day or other, under similar circumstances, might be used as a lash for their own shoulders.
The opinion was confidently expressed in the strikers' camp tonight that the engineers and firemen of every road that attempted to resume operations by virtue of the injunction would immediately leave their posts, and that consequently the last state of such roads would be worse than the first. Not only this, but it was asserted that it needed simply the formal request of officers of the union to bring out every man, woman, and child in Chicago identified with organised labor in accordance with the formal resolutions adopted at yesterday's meeting of the federated trades.
Such a step, it was argued, would be meeting Greek with Greek, and the tug of war could not result otherwise than in a speedy and absolute victory fur the labor element. Such a situation and such an ending the leaders of the strike prognosticate .
“We have an injunction, so that’s the end of it!” the railroads thought, and the New York Times seemed to agree. The strikers could be thrown in jail without the usual trials!
“It’s just going to make us stronger!” the strikers countered. But there was more drama coming. Much more. We haven’t even seen the US Army troops yet.
(To be continued)
Fascinating history on how minimum wage is taken for granted nowadays...but even then, it was about the purchasing power.
A couple interesting events in historical labor strikes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_General_Strike#Life_during_the_strike
"The regular police forces made no arrests in actions related to the strike, and general arrests dropped to less than half their normal number. Major General John F. Morrison, stationed in Seattle, claimed that he had never seen "a city so quiet and orderly."[14] The methods of organization adopted by the striking workers bore resemblance to anarcho-syndicalism, perhaps reflecting the influence of the Industrial Workers of the World in the Pacific Northwest,[citation needed] though only a few striking locals were officially affiliated with the IWW.[14]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoffa_(film)#Plot This scene was interesting, although historical accuracy may be off: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY6N-tEppkg