The Pullman Boycott. W. F. Burns
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 Washington 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 assist the railroad managers against the people. Such was the attitude 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.
The Chicago Times, in an editorial says: In this Federal injunction, which is in the main eminently just and equally unnecessary, appears a claim in which certain persons named, and all other persons whatsoever are ordered to refrain from compelling or inducing, or attempting to compel or induce, by threats, intimidation, force or violence any of the employes of any of the said railroads, to refuse or fail to perform any of their duties, as employes of said railroads, in connection with the interstate business or commerce of such railroads, or the transportation of passenger or property between or among the states; or from compelling or inducing or attempting to compel or induce by threats, intimidation, persuasion, force or violence, any of the employes of any of said railroads, who are employed by said railroads and engaged in its service, in the conduct of interstate business or in the operation of any of its trains carrying mail of the United States or doing interstate business or transportation of passengers or freight, between and among the states, to leave the service of such railroad. The Times emphatically does not believe that any court whatever has a right to order men to refrain from attempting by persuasion to induce others to leave the employment they are engaged in. There is a natural law that in the end will prevail over the formal law built up by lawyers and courts. If as Judge Gary says, the law is common sense, this injunction will not stand, for common sense will certainly pronounce an orderly and respectful request to a railroad employee to give up his position and join the organized strikers, no crime. It is idle to plead that a discreet and just court will only enforce this injunction against actual law breakers, for there is in it an opportunity for injustice and oppression which makes it wholly bad. The injunction is becoming a menace to liberty, it is a weapon ever ready for the capitalist, and there should be more careful federal legislation limiting its use.
Certainly if the restraining order of Judges Wood and Grosscup be good law there is no sense in maintaining organized labor. Childlike trust in the benevolence and fairness of the employer must be the workingman's future policy if this injunction be made a precedent.
In the meantime the General Manager's association and the subsidized press were endeavoring to impress the public with the belief that the strikers were a lot of disorderly and riotous law breakers of the worst description. To show how much truth there was in these tales, I will give the statement of Capt. J. Hartnett as made after dispersing a mob. He said: There wasn't a railroad man in the whole outfit, but a lot of bums who thought they would have a lot of sport at the expense of the railroads. But we soon gave them a hustling, and I want to say this for the strikers, and by that I mean the real railroad men, they are orderly here and as quiet as possible, I have had no disturbance in any district that can be traced to railroad men. It is well known that on occasions like these every loafer turns loose and takes advantage of the strike to start a row, but the genuine railroad men are too sensible to cause any disturbance.
This was true also of all other cities engaged in the strike.
CHAPTER VI.
TROOPS AT BLUE ISLAND.
The Fourth of July dawned upon a scene that would start the blood of the signers of the Declaration of Independence leaping in flames of fire through their veins, if they could but reappear upon this land in the vigorous manhood of their youth; those heroes whose blood baptized the battlefields of Yorktown and Bunker Hill for the glorious cause of liberty and equal rights; and behold the spectacle of this day, they would think that they had fought, bled and died in vain, that victory after all was but defeat.
Military despotism reigned supreme. The great masses of the liberty loving people who were wont to celebrate this National holiday of Independence in a manner befitting the occasion, began to think. Their thoughts took them back to the days of English tyranny, and they ask themselves, must this fight be fought again? The thoughts were contagious, and when the American people began to think, their thoughts are dangerous. The battle must and will be fought again, but not with the weapons of '76, but with the weapon the old man can wield as well as the young; the ballot.
Wholesale arrests followed the arrival of the federal troops at Blue Island, free speech was eliminated, any man who passed along, who had the appearance of striker or sympathizer was promptly arrested, and that too without a warrant. The remark "that fellow is a scab," was sufficient to send a man to the guard house. A fireman was asked by his landlord, "where have you been lately?" That was enough, he was placed with other shackled prisoners in the guard house, but was released later on. In the morning there was a parade, but the old time patriotism was noticeably