The Pullman Boycott Part 18

Commissioner Kernan: "Then there is no system of obtaining a hearing from the officials concerning any grievance?"

Mr. Lungren: "No there is no system and it is very difficult to see any of the officials to obtain redress."

Commissioner Kernan: "What were the conditions of your re-employment with the company?"

Mr. Lungren: "I had to leave the American Railway Union."

Commissioner Kernan: "Were you obliged to sign any contract relating to your membership in any labor organization?"

Mr. Lungren: "Yes. There was a written contract which I signed. It stated that I would have nothing to do with the American Railway Union."

Mr. Lungren also testified that he did not vote to strike. He did not attend the meetings; said he quit work in accordance with the notice posted by the company that the works would be closed down.

Dr. John W. McLean was the next witness. He said he had been a practicing physician since 1863, and had been in the employ of the Pullman company since 1894. He thought the strike had been brought about by the general depression in business throughout the country. Did not think the rents exorbitant in Pullman. Said he attended the Pullman employes who were injured, free of charge. When asked by Commissioner Kernan if he thought intemperance one cause of the Pullman strike, he said:

"Yes, I think all labor troubles are directly due to this cause."

General Manager E. St. John of the Rock Island road was the next witness examined. His testimony, which would fill several pages, was in brief a general contradiction of all evidence offered by the reporters, and American Railway Union witnesses. He charged the rioting to the strikers. He was opposed to the government ownership of railroads and also thought arbitration impracticable. He admitted that a greater reduction of wages was liable to follow unless the present depressed condition of business was soon remedied. Regarding the losses incurred by his road on account of the strike he said it was his impression that they would be somewhere between $800,000 and $1,000,000. When the question of communications from the officers of the American Railway Union came up Commissioner Kernan asked why the General Managers a.s.sociation declined to receive it.

Mr. St. John: "Because we considered such an organization unworthy of consideration."

Commissioner Kernan: "Were you determined not to recognize any union?"

Mr. St. John: "Not exactly, but the American Railway Union least of all."

Commissioner Kernan: "Were not the roads united sympathetically? Now what had the Lake Sh.o.r.e road to do with the Rock Island road?"

Mr. St. John: "What had the Rock Island to do with the Lake Sh.o.r.e?"

Commissioner Kernan: "Is it not true that the roads were united sympathetically?"

Mr. St. John: "Let me ask you a question."

Commissioner Kernan: "No, I am not on the stand. I may be some day and then you can question me."

Mr. St. John: "When a neighbor's house burns we all unite to fight the blaze. When an a.s.sault is made on all the roads, they unite to resist it."

When General Manager St. John resumed the witness stand, he had with him one of the twenty-six sets of books mentioned by Mr. Howard, containing the scale of wages and rules of employment of all cla.s.ses of railway employes on the roads represented in the General Managers' a.s.sociation.

When questioned by Commissioner Kernan he admitted that a committee had been appointed to formulate from these a schedule of what was a fair rate of wages for all cla.s.ses of employes and uniform rules of employment. That committee reported, but the report was never acted on.

This committee was appointed under a resolution pa.s.sed February 15, 1894. Its report was made in March, and if adopted would have affected 125,000 men at least. One or two roads, he admitted, might have reduced wages about this time, but there was no agreement with the other roads concerning it. It became known that Mr. Wright, chairman of the commission, had an annual Pullman pa.s.s. He said concerning it that he and Mr. Pullman had been personal friends for several years, and it was to him as a personal friend that the pa.s.s was given several years ago and had been renewed annually since. He deemed that it was for the glowing reports of Pullman, made by Mr. Wright and others in 1884, for he did not know Mr. Pullman then. He said that he had not used it since the appointment of the commission.

Following Mr. St. John, John M. Eagan took the stand.

Mr. Eagan admitted that as the manager of the General Managers'

a.s.sociation he was authorized to incur any expense to secure force to crush the strike, but was not authorized to do anything to settle it peaceably. Of his connection with the General Managers' a.s.sociation he said that he was requested to take charge of the a.s.sociation during the strike.

Commissioner Worthington: "Did you have anything done in relation to the appointment of deputy marshals?"

Mr. Eagan: "Each road appointed an official to select the men they wanted to act as deputy marshalls and turned 'em over to me. I sent them to Arnold to be sworn."

Commissioner Worthington: "Did those men serve as employes of the road while acting as marshals?"

Mr. Eagan: "My judgment is that they were to take care of the interests of the roads."

Commissioner Worthington: "Did they act in the double capacity as marshals and as railroad employes? That is, would an engineer, for instance, while wearing a star showing his authority, run an engine for the road?"

Mr. Eagan: "I believe they did that. They were sworn in as deputy marshals to give them a chance to protect themselves."

Commissioner Worthington: "By whom were the deputy marshals to be paid or by whom will they be paid?"

Mr. Eagan: "Each road is supposed to pay its own men."

Commissioner Worthington: "What do you know of any efforts made by the officers of the American Railway Union or the city officials to settle the strike amicably?"

Mr. Egan: "A party named McGillen, Alderman McGillen, I think, told me that Howard and Debs wanted a conference with me about settling the strike. I told him I had no authority to confer with them."

Commissioner Worthington: "Did you not have authority to talk with them and find out what they wanted or could do, without making any agreement with them?"

Mr. Eagan: "Not with those parties--I did not think I had. A few days later I found the mayor and Mr. McGillen in the office of the General Managers' a.s.sociation. They said they had come with a letter from Debs, Howard and Kelliher. I told the mayor he ought not to make a messenger boy of himself for these parties of the American Railway Union. Later I was given the doc.u.ment to give to the mayor. He was at Kensington, so I left it with the chief of police, and wrote a letter telling him I could not receive the letter he had brought."

Commissioner Worthington: "Were any other overtures of settlement made to you?"

Mr. Eagan: "That's all I know of any overtures."

Commissioner Worthington: "Was there anything insulting or offensive in the language of the letter the mayor brought you that made you refuse to receive it?"

Mr. Eagan: "The letter was published that evening and next morning and speaks for itself."

Commissioner Worthington: "I am asking you how you regarded it. Did you consider that there was anything insulting or offensive in the letter?"

Mr. Eagan: "I considered that any parties that had fought railroads as they had and been beaten as I believe they have been had lots of cheek to dictate the terms of their surrender."

Commissioner Worthington: "You do not answer my question. Were there not soldiers, U. S. marshals, deputy sheriffs and policemen engaged in guarding the railroads, and were you not hindered in the operation of the roads?"

Mr. Eagan: "Yes."

Commissioner Worthington: "Now was not the letter courteously composed and looking to a settlement of the difficulty?"

Mr. Eagan: "We didn't need a settlement--we had 'em already."

Commissioner Worthington: "The soldiers, marshals, sheriffs and police remained on duty sometime after that--didn't they?"

Mr. Eagan: "Yes, we needed the soldiers to protect our property."

Commissioner Worthington: "If a settlement could have been reached at that time between the railroads and the strikers, couldn't the soldiers and marshals have been dismissed. They wouldn't have been needed after an amicable settlement had been reached, would they?"

Mr. Eagan: "It was their intention not to recognize the American Railway Union."

Commissioner Worthington: "Then it is true is it that the reason this communication was not received was not because it was not courteously worded or because it was discourteous or insulting but because the General Managers would not recognize the American Railway Union?"