The Pullman Boycott Part 1

The Pullman Boycott.

by W. F. Burns.

INTRODUCTORY.

In presenting this work to the public, I beg leave to say that I lay no claim whatever to literary ability, and will ask the reader to kindly overlook the crudeness of this my first effort.

My line of work since boyhood has been confined princ.i.p.ally to railway service; in short I am a switchman, and in that branch of the service, have been frequently confronted with the differences that arise between the management of the various railroad corporations and their employees.

While I disclaim any credit for ability as a writer, by years of experience and careful study of the condition of affairs as they have in the past and do in the present exist, I profess to be able to fairly present the facts of the Pullman strike. This strike was a matter of unusual interest to me, not alone because my individual interests were involved, but because the independence of every man in America who earns his bread by the sweat of his brow, was in the balance.

The right to organize for mutual protection was questioned, nay more, the right to be heard, a right granted to the greatest criminal in any part of the civilized world, was refused by the power representing the capital of this country. This power fortified by the Federal troops, by the mandate of the Federal courts, instigated by the chief executive, the president of the United States, the account of this strike as presented to the public by the a.s.sociated Press, was George M. Pullman's and the General Managers' side of the question, distorted and colored to suit their purposes.

My aim in presenting this book, is to disabuse the minds of the people as far as possible, from the misleading statements given out by the General Managers' a.s.sociation through their mouth piece, the a.s.sociated Press.

To this end I have carefully collected facts from the best and most reliable sources, aside from what personal knowledge I had of this strike.

I obtained information from telegrams received in our Central Committee rooms, from all parts of the country, also from committees appointed to investigate the authenticity of reports received from different parts of the country where the strike extended.

The general accounts I quote largely from the "Chicago Times," a paper whose honorable and manly stand throughout that great struggle, gained for it a world wide reputation for honesty and fairness.

The accounts herein contained are truths pure and simple, and upon these truths I base the merits of this book.

Very respectfully,

W. F. BURNS.

CHAPTER I.

THE AMERICAN RAILWAY UNION.

In order to give a clear conception of the greatest strike in the history of railroad organizations, it will be necessary to go back to the birth of the American Railway Union.

This organization was inst.i.tuted on the 17th day of August, 1893, in the city of Chicago, and owes its existence to its present leader Eugene V.

Debs.

Mr. Debs' connection with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen dates back to the early seventies, and be the credit due to that organization for introducing to the laboring people of America, a leader who stands absolutely without a peer in the labor world to-day, possessed of the collective traits of some of the greatest men of the past.

I know no better description of Debs than that of Wm. C. Pomeroy in the Eight Hour Herald, as follows: "I am sitting on the stage of a great meeting of people, my eyes are closed in dreamy reverie, I hear a voice whose resonant tones are familiar to my ears, the voice, the words bear me in imagination back to the days of Rome, and Caius Gracchus is proclaiming the coming liberty of the people. The words of flaming eloquence suddenly change into the rugged tones of Cola di Rienzi, crying: 'Arouse, ye Romans; arouse, ye slaves.' The words are sweet to the ears, and stir my soul to extacy. Soft, I am no longer in the Eternal City, but wander among the hills and dales of Judea, and the voice has changed again. This time 'tis the compa.s.sionate tones of Him of Galilee, beseeching to 'love ye one another,' now swift changing in its mellifluous harmony, I hear Pandora whisper 'the dawn approaches, take heart of hope,' and Prometheus answers with the echoed groans of the suffering, sighing souls. The air is now filled with stirring martial music, and above its changing cadences pours forth in pa.s.sionate appeal the stentor voice of Peter, the Hermit, raising in the bosom of men, the lethargic love of duty. Aye; on the German hilltops, pulpited he speaks, and Hermanic in deep-toned thunder hurdles back, 'I come.'

Now there is a silence for a s.p.a.ce, and the changing draperies of imagination disclose a newer scene. I am in the meeting of the Virginian Burgesses, and the voice has taken on the tones of Patrick Henry. It says: 'Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,' and, 'he who would be free himself must strike the blow.' Now 'tis Thomas Jefferson giving utterance to, 'we hold these truths to be self evident that all men are born free and equal.' And lo! even as the soft tones of the 'chosen son'

die into the distance, the voice of Andrew Jackson hurls forth the edict 'each man and every man in this country, by the eternal, must and shall be free.'

"The echoing ages take up the dictum and it becomes mingled with the tones of him who at Gettysburg spoke the immortal flaming words: 'This nation, under G.o.d, shall have a new birth of freedom, and the government of the people, by the people and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.' Scarce had the utterance of the martyr ceased to fill the air when Lowell softly says:

"'He's true to G.o.d, who's true to men, whenever wrong is done.

To the humblest and the weakest of all the beholding sun; That wrong is also done to us, and they are slaves most base, Whose love of right is for themselves, and not for all the race.'

"My brain is puzzled. How comes it, I ask myself, that these heroes dead and gone are near me here to-day?

"What power permits them to quit their abiding places within the crusty bosom of mother earth, and visiting again the haunts of mortal man, pour forth their immortal utterances? My rummaging mind takes on a newer consciousness. Reverie lifts her leaden hand from off my brow, my eyes open and gaze upon a vast mult.i.tude of people--men, women and children.

Men are standing on the seats and hurling their hats in the air; women are weeping in joy and waving handkerchiefs, all, all shout in clamorous accord. Their eyes are riveted upon the stage, and upon a man who is gracefully bowing acknowledgement to the thunders of applause. I am near him, I gaze in his face. 'Tis the face of Eugene V. Debs."

To my mind the above beautiful comparisons are not overdrawn.

In 1874 he was admitted to the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, and in 1877 his brother members of the local lodge, recognizing his superior ability, sent him to the Indianapolis convention to represent them. The next year he was a delegate to the Buffalo convention. Here he was chosen a.s.sociate editor of the Locomotive Firemen's Magazine, and three years later he was elected editor, and a.s.sumed full control.

In September, 1880, he was elected Grand Secretary and Treasurer in Chicago, and to prove the confidence placed in him by this organization, he was unanimously elected to that office for thirteen consecutive years without a dissenting vote, and at the last convention, held in San Francisco, he was again nominated after making a speech, courteously but firmly declining, and was finally forced to refuse the nomination before his declinature would be accepted.

When Mr. Debs a.s.sumed control of this office, the Brotherhood was on the verge of disruption.

From this condition he, by his untiring devotion and wonderful executive abilities, elevated the Brotherhood to one of the most powerful organizations of the age, and thus it was through the instrumentality of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen he was brought before the laboring people. Some few years ago he saw that cla.s.s organization would not be successful, owing to the petty jealousy existing between the different orders, and that in every instance where one organization had a grievance with a railroad corporation, the management would use one or all the others to crush the one having the grievance.

In order to remedy this, he promulgated a plan of federation whereby all the different organizations, engineers, firemen, conductors, trainmen and switchmen would stand as a unit in case of a grievance.

This federation was accomplished, but owing to the treachery of some of the chiefs, proved unsatisfactory and was finally dissolved.

But this did not discourage Mr. Debs, on the contrary, it made him more determined than ever to save the employes from the grinding power of railroad corporations, and to that end he inst.i.tuted the American Railway Union, embracing all cla.s.ses in the railway service from the trackmen to the engineers. This infant organization that so recently became such a power, was by no means the offspring of a premature conception. President Debs deliberated long and well, carefully considering all the points, and conscientiously weighing the advantages and disadvantages that would arise from the formation of such a union, before taking active steps to organize.

He finally decided that in the American Railway Union were the only true principles of organization, and in conjunction with a few of his a.s.sociates, men true as steel, such men as Howard, Rodgers, Burns and, Kelliher, this union was founded.

The first strike that was authorized by the American Railway Union was that on the Great Northern Railway Line, against a sweeping reduction in wages in all departments on that system.

This strike commenced on April 13, and after a stubborn fight of eighteen days (where one of the shrewdest and ablest railroad presidents in the United States was met in his every stronghold and defeated by the grandest labor leader in the world, the matchless Debs) the strike was settled, and victory perched on the banner of the American Railway Union.

Then it was that the true principles of this organization were recognized by railroad employes, and applications for charters came pouring in from all parts of the country.

CHAPTER II.

THE BOYCOTT.

The American Railway Union is in every sense an American Inst.i.tution, whose aims and objects as previously stated are to protect and shield its members from the grinding power of railroad corporations. Its motto is unity: "One for all and all for one."

The Pullman employes were admitted to this organization and consequently ent.i.tled to the protection guaranteed to all members, therefore when they walked out, after every honorable means to avert a strike was exhausted, the American Railway Union was in duty bound to sustain them.

The strike was ordered on the 11th day of May, after an all night session by a committee of forty-six members representing every department in the Pullman works. When the word was given four thousand employes responded to the call, and this proved to be the beginning of the most gigantic strike in the history of organized labor.

The wrongs of the Pullman people were not generally known to the public, the cruel and inhuman treatment they were subjected to, was kept strictly from the public ears.