Pullman Strike

Low wages, expensive rent, and the failing ideal of a utopian workers settlement were already a problem for the Pullman workers. Company towns, like Pullman, were constructed with a plan to keep everything within a small vicinity to keep workers from having to move far. Using company-run shops and housing took away competition leaving areas open to exploitation, monopolization, and high prices. These conditions were exacerbated by the Panic of 1893. George Pullman had reduced wages 20 to 30% on account of falling sales. However, he did not cut rents nor lower prices at his company stores, nor did he give any indication of a commensurate cost of living adjustment. The employees filed a complaint with the company's owner, George Pullman. Pullman refused to reconsider and even dismissed the workers who were protesting. The strike began on May 11, 1894, when the rest of his staff went on strike. This strike would end by the president sending U.S. troops to break up the scene. ==Boycott==

Many of the Pullman factory workers joined the American Railway Union (ARU), led by Eugene V. Debs, which supported their strike by launching a boycott in which ARU members refused to run trains containing Pullman cars. At the time of the strike approximately 35% of Pullman workers were members of the ARU. The railroads coordinated their response through the General Managers' Association, which had been formed in 1886 and included 24 lines linked to Chicago. The railroads began hiring replacement workers (strikebreakers), which increased hostilities. Many African Americans were recruited as strikebreakers and crossed picket lines, as they feared that the racism expressed by the American Railway Union would lock them out of another labor market. This added racial tension to the union's predicament. In Chicago, where the railroads found it difficult to continue operating without striking employees, the boycott had the greatest effect. The pressure put on by the population at the time on Pullman increased as ARU members used "unity" to shut down rail networks. But, by refusing to engage in negotiations and receiving federal court orders to put an end to the strike, the railroads, who were unified under the General Managers' Association, showed all of its corporate power. Conflict broke out between strikers and replacement workers that often turned violent in Chicago alone, and federal troops were eventually called in to bring the peace back. Strikers had been separated more from public sympathy by the media, which often than not supported industrialists, portraying them as disruptive. The boycott revealed the amount of racial and economic divides while showing the growing influence of industrial labor unions. Debs's arrest afterward stamped the Pullman Strike as a turning point in labor history by showing the federal government's preference for corporate interests over workers' rights. On June 29, 1894, Debs hosted a peaceful meeting to rally support for the strike from railroad workers at Blue Island, Illinois. Afterward, groups within the crowd became enraged and set fire to nearby buildings and derailed a locomotive. Elsewhere in the western states, sympathy strikers prevented transportation of goods by walking off the job, obstructing railroad tracks, or threatening and attacking strikebreakers. This increased national attention and the demand for federal action. ==Federal intervention==

illustrates. The strike was handled by US Attorney General Richard Olney, who was appointed by President Grover Cleveland. A majority of the president's cabinet in Washington, D.C., backed Olney's proposal for federal troops to be dispatched to Chicago to put an end to the "rule of terror." In comparison to his $8,000 compensation as Attorney General, Olney had been a railroad attorney and had a $10,000 retainer from the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad. Olney got an injunction from circuit court justices Peter S. Grosscup and William Allen Woods (both anti-union) prohibiting ARU officials from "compelling or encouraging" any impacted railroad employees "to refuse or fail to perform any of their duties". Grosscup later remarked that he opposed the involvement of the judiciary system as he believed labor disputes to be a “partisan action.” After hearing the injunction was put in place, railway operators telegrammed Olney to request their own injunction in anticipation of strikes. The injunction was disobeyed by Debs and other ARU leaders, in a telegraph to the western ARU branch, Debs responded "It will take more than injunctions to move trains, get everybody out. We are gaining ground everywhere." After injunctions were issued to other states, federal forces were dispatched to enforce them. Debs had been hesitant to start the strike, because he worried that violence would undermine the progress of the strike as well as provide reason for military intervention. Despite these concerns, Debs decided to put all of his efforts into the strike. He called on ARU members to ignore the federal court injunctions and the U.S. Army: Strong men and broad minds only can resist the plutocracy and arrogant monopoly. Do not be frightened at troops, injunctions, or a subsidized press. Quit and remain firm. Commit no violence. American Railway Union will protect all, whether member or not when strike is off. Debs wanted a general strike of all union members in Chicago, but this was opposed by Samuel Gompers, head of the AFL, and other established unions, and it failed. United States Marshal John W. Arnold told those in Washington that “no force less than regular troops could procure the passage of mail trains or enforce the orders of federal court”. Federal troops were dispatched and arrived in Chicago the night of July 3. ==Local responses==

The strike affected hundreds of towns and cities across the country. Railroad workers were divided, for the old established Brotherhoods, which included the skilled workers such as engineers, firemen and conductors, did not support the labor action. ARU members did support the action, and often comprised unskilled ground crews. In many areas, townspeople and businessmen generally supported the railroads, while farmers—many affiliated with the Populists—supported the ARU. In Billings, Montana, an important rail center, a local Methodist minister, J. W. Jennings, supported the ARU. In a sermon, he compared the Pullman boycott to the Boston Tea Party, and attacked Montana state officials and President Cleveland for abandoning "the faith of the Jacksonian fathers." Billings remained quiet but, on July 10, soldiers reached Lockwood, Montana, a small rail center, where the troop train was surrounded by hundreds of angry strikers. Narrowly averting violence, the army opened the lines through Montana. When the strike ended, the railroads fired and blacklisted all the employees who had supported it. ==Public opinion==

President Cleveland did not think Illinois Governor John Peter Altgeld could manage the strike as it continued to cause more and more physical and economic damage. Altgeld's pro-labor mindset and social reformist sympathies were viewed by outsiders as being a form of "German Socialism". Critics of Altgeld worried that he was usually on the side of the workers. Outsiders also believed that the strike would get progressively worse since Altgeld "knew nothing about the problem of American evolution." Public opinion was mostly opposed to the strike and supported Cleveland's actions. Republicans and eastern Democrats supported Cleveland (the leader of the northeastern pro-business wing of the party), but southern and western Democrats as well as Populists generally denounced him. Chicago Mayor John Patrick Hopkins supported the strikers and stopped the Chicago Police from interfering before the strike turned violent. Governor Altgeld, a Democrat, denounced Cleveland and said he could handle all disturbances in his state without federal intervention. The press took the side of Cleveland and framed strikers as villains, while Mayor Hopkins took the side of strikers and Altgeld. The New York Times and Chicago Tribune placed much of the blame for the strikes on Altgeld. The New York Times called it "a struggle between the greatest and most important labor organization and the entire railroad capital." President Cleveland and the press feared that the strike would foment anarchy and social unrest. Cleveland demonized the ARU for encouraging an uprising against federal authority and endangering the public. The large numbers of immigrant workers who participated in the strike further stoked the fears of anarchy. ==Aftermath==

Debs was arrested on federal charges, including conspiracy to obstruct the mail as well as disobeying an order directed to him by the Supreme Court to stop the obstruction of railways and to dissolve the boycott. He was defended by Clarence Darrow, a prominent attorney, as well as Lyman Trumbull. At the conspiracy trial Darrow argued that it was the railways, not Debs and his union, that met in secret and conspired against their opponents. Sensing that Debs would be acquitted, the prosecution dropped the charge when a juror took ill. Although Darrow also represented Debs at the United States Supreme Court for violating the federal injunction, Debs was sentenced to six months in prison. Early in 1895, General Graham erected a memorial obelisk in the San Francisco National Cemetery at the Presidio in honor of four soldiers of the 5th Artillery killed in a Sacramento train crash of July 11, 1894, during the strike. The train wrecked crossing a trestle bridge purportedly dynamited by union members. Graham's monument included the inscription "Murdered by Strikers", a description he hotly defended. The obelisk remains in place. In the aftermath of the Pullman Strike, the ARU was disbanded and the state ordered the company to sell off its residential holdings. Many Pullman workers joined the AFL after the collapse of the ARU. Following the death of George Pullman (1897), the Pullman company would be led by Robert Todd Lincoln, and Thomas Wickes would become the company's vice president. With this change the company would shift its focus away from its environmental strategy of having superior living and recreational accommodations to keep workers loyal, and would instead use the town of Pullman for more industrial purposes, building storage and repair shops in place of fields. While the Pullman company continued to grow, monopolizing the train car industry, the town of Pullman struggled with deteriorating housing and cramped living spaces. The company remained the area's largest employer before closing in the 1950s. The area is both a National Historic Landmark and a Chicago Landmark District. Because of the significance of the strike, many state agencies and non-profit groups are hoping for many revivals of the Pullman neighborhoods, starting with Pullman Park, one of the largest projects. It was to be a $350 million mixed-use development on the site of an old steel plant. The plan was for 670,000 square feet of new retail space, a 125,000 square foot neighborhood recreation center, and 1,100 housing units. Politics '' labeled Eugene Debs and the strike organizers as "The Vanguard of Anarchy", July 21, 1894.|upright Following his release from prison in 1895, ARU President Debs became a committed advocate of socialism, helping in 1897 to launch the Social Democracy of America, a forerunner of the Socialist Party of America. He ran for president in 1900 for the first of five times as head of the Socialist Party ticket. Civil as well as criminal charges were brought against the organizers of the strike and Debs in particular, and the Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision, In re Debs, that rejected Debs' actions. The Illinois Governor John P. Altgeld was incensed at Cleveland for putting the federal government at the service of the employers, and for rejecting Altgeld's plan to use his state militia rather than federal troops to keep order. Cleveland's administration appointed a national commission to study the causes of the 1894 strike; it found George Pullman's paternalism partly to blame and described the operations of his company town to be "un-American". The report condemned Pullman for refusing to negotiate and for the economic hardships he created for workers in the town of Pullman. "The aesthetic features are admired by visitors, but have little money value to employees, especially when they lack bread." The State of Illinois filed suit, and in 1898 the Illinois Supreme Court forced the Pullman Company to divest ownership in the town, as its company charter did not authorize such operations. The town was annexed to Chicago. Much of it is now designated as an historic district, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Labor Day In 1894, in an effort to conciliate organized labor after the strike, President Grover Cleveland and Congress designated Labor Day as a federal holiday in contrast with the more radical May Day. Legislation for the holiday was pushed through Congress six days after the strike ended. Samuel Gompers, who had sided with the federal government in its effort to end the strike by the American Railway Union, spoke out in favor of the holiday. ==See also==

• Bassett, Johnathan "The Pullman Strike of 1894," OAH Magazine of History, Volume 11, Issue 2, Winter 1997, pp. 34–41, a lesson plan for high schools • Buder, Stanley. Pullman; an experiment in industrial order and community planning, 1880-1930 (Oxford UP, 1967) pp. 147–201 on strike. online • Cooper, Jerry M. "The army as strikebreakerthe railroad strikes of 1877 and 1894." Labor History 18.2 (1977): 179–196. • DeForest, Walter S. The Periodical Press and the Pullman Strike: An Analysis of the Coverage and Interpretation of the Railroad Strike of 1894 by Eight Journals of Opinion and Reportage MA thesis. University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1973. • Eggert, Gerald G. Railroad labor disputes: the beginnings of federal strike policy (U of Michigan Press, 1967). • Ginger, Ray. The Bending Cross: A Biography of Eugene V. Debs. (1949). online • Hirsch, Susan Eleanor. After the Strike: A Century of Labor Struggle at Pullman. (U of Illinois Press, 2003). • Kelly, Jack. The Edge of Anarchy: The Railroad Barons, the Gilded Age, and the Greatest Labor Uprising in America. (St. Martin's Press, 2019). • Laughlin, Rosemary. The Pullman strike of 1894 (2006) online, for high schools • Lindsey, Almont. The Pullman Strike: The Story of a Unique Experiment and of a Great Labor Upheaval. (University of Chicago Press, 1943).online, a standard history • Lindsey, Almont. "Paternalism and the Pullman Strike," American Historical Review, Vol. 44, No. 2 (Jan., 1939), pp. 272–289 • Nevins, Allan Nevins. Grover Cleveland: A Study in Courage. (1933) pp. 611–628 • Novak, Matt. "Blood on the Tracks in Pullman: Chicagoland's Failed Capitalist Utopia" (2014) Gizmodo.com online • Papke, David Ray. The Pullman Case: The Clash of Labor and Capital in Industrial America. (University Press of Kansas, 1999). • Reiff, Janice L. "Rethinking Pullman: Urban Space and Working-Class Activism" Social Science History (2000) 24#1 pp. 7–32 online • • Salvatore, Nick. Eugene V. Debs: Citizen and Socialist. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1984. online • Schneirov, Richard, et al. (eds.) The Pullman Strike and the Crisis of the 1890s: Essays on Labor and Politics. (U of Illinois Press, 1999). online • Smith, Carl. Urban Disorder and the Shape of Belief: The Great Chicago Fire, the Haymarket Bomb, and the Model Town of Pullman. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. • White, Richard. Railroaded: the transcontinentals and the making of modern America (WW Norton, 2011), pp 429–450. • Winston, A.P. "The Significance of the Pullman Strike," Journal of Political Economy, vol. 9, no. 4 (Sept. 1901), pp. 540–561. • Wish, Harvey. "The Pullman Strike: A Study in Industrial Warfare," Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society (1939) 32#3 pp. 288–312 Primary sources • Cleveland, Grover. The Government and the Chicago Strike of 1894 [1904]. Princeton University Press, 1913. • Manning, Thomas G. and David M. Potter, eds. Government and the American Economy, 1870 to the Present (1950) pp 117–160. • United States Strike Commission, Report on the Chicago Strike of June–July, 1894. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1895. 54pp of history and 680pp of documents, testimony and recommendations • Warne, Colston E. ed. The Pullman Boycott 1894: The problem of Federal Intervention (1955) 113pp. online, useful overview ==External links==