Volume V Part 14 (1/2)

[1887-1902]

In March, 1894, bands of the unemployed in various parts of the West, styling themselves ”Commonweal,” or ”Industrial Armies,” started for Was.h.i.+ngton to demand government relief for ”labor.” ”General” c.o.xey, of Ohio, led the van. ”General” Kelly followed from Trans-Mississippi with a force at one time numbering 1,250. Smaller itinerant groups joined the above as they marched. For supplies the tattered pilgrims taxed the sympathies or the fears of people along their routes. Most of them were well-meaning, but their dest.i.tution prompted some small thefts. Even violence occasionally occurred, as in California, where a town marshal killed a Commonweal ”general,” and in the State of Was.h.i.+ngton, where two deputy marshals were wounded. The Commonwealers captured a few freight trains and forced them into service.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Hundreds of men marching.]

c.o.xey's army on the march to the Capitol steps at Was.h.i.+ngton.

Only c.o.xey's band reached Was.h.i.+ngton. On May Day, attempting to present their ”pet.i.tion-in-boots” on the steps of the Capitol, the leaders were jailed under local laws against treading on the gra.s.s and against displaying banners on the Capitol Grounds. On June 10th c.o.xey was released, having meantime been nominated for Congress, and in little over a month the remnant of his forces was s.h.i.+pped back toward the setting sun.

The same year, 1894, marked a far more widespread and formidable disorder, the A. R. U. Railway Strike. The American Railway Union claimed a members.h.i.+p of 100,000, and aspired to include all the 850,000 railroad workmen in North America. It had just emerged with prestige from a successful grapple with the Great Northern Railway, settled by arbitration.

The union's catholic ambitions led it to admit many employees of the Pullman Palace Car Company, between whom and their employers acute differences were arising. The company's landlordism of the town of Pullman and petty shop abuses stirred up irritation, and when Pullman workers were laid off or put upon short time and cut wages, the feeling deepened. They pointed out that rents for the houses they lived in were not reduced, that the company's dividends the preceding year had been fat, and that the acc.u.mulation of its undivided surplus was enormous.

The company, on the other hand, was sensible of a slack demand for cars after the brisk business done in connection with World's Fair travel.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Town in background, lake in foreground.]

The town of Pullman.

The Pullman management refused the men's demand for the restoration of the wages schedule of June, 1893, but promised to investigate the abuses complained of, and engaged that no one serving on the laborer's committee of complaint should be prejudiced thereby. Immediately after this, however, three of the committee were laid off, and five-sixths of the other employees, apparently against the advice of A. R. U. leaders, determined upon a strike.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Portrait.]

George M. Pullman.

Unmoved by solicitations from employees, from the Chicago Civic Federation, from Mayor Pingree of Detroit, indorsed by the mayors of over fifty other cities, the Pullman Company steadfastly refused to arbitrate or to entertain any communication from the union. ”We have nothing to arbitrate” was the company's response to each appeal. A national convention of the A. R. U. unanimously voted that unless the Pullman Company sooner consented to arbitration the union should, on June 26th, everywhere cease handling Pullman cars.

[Ill.u.s.tration: About one hundred tents in background, several hundred people in the foreground.]

Camp of the U. S. troops on the lake front, Chicago.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Hundreds of railroad cars, some burning.]

Burned cars in the C., B. & Q. yards at Hawthorne, Chicago.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Railroad crossing, houses in the background.]

Overturned box cars at crossing of railroad tracks at 39th street, Chicago.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Portrait.]

Hazen S. Pingree.

At this turn of affairs the A. R. U. found itself confronted with a new antagonist, the a.s.sociation of General Managers of the twenty-four railroads centering in Chicago, controlling an aggregate mileage of over 40,000, a capitalization of considerably over $2,000,000,000, and a total workingmen force of 220,000 or more. The last-named workers had their own grievances arising from wage cuts and black-listing by the Managers' a.s.sociation. Such of them as were union men were the objects of peculiar hostility, which they reciprocated. Thus the Pullman boycott, sympathetic in its incipience, swiftly became a gigantic trial of issues between the a.s.sociated railroad corporations and the union.

For a week law and order were preserved. On July 2d the Federal Court in Chicago issued an injunction forbidding A. R. U. men, among other things, to ”induce” employees to strike. Next day federal troops appeared upon the scene. Thereupon, in contempt of the injunction, railroad laborers continued by fair means and foul to be persuaded from their work.

Disregarding the union leaders' appeal and defying regular soldiers, State troops, deputy marshals, and police, rabble mobs fell to destroying cars and tracks, burning and looting. The mobs were in large part composed of Chicago's semi-criminal proletariat, a ma.s.s quite distinct from the body of strikers.

The A. R. U. strike approached its climax about the 10th of July.