May 13, 2020
This week at In The Past Lane, the American History podcast, we
take a look at the famous Pullman Strike of 1894. It began as a
protest over wage cuts in the midst of a severe economic depression
and quickly grew to virtually paralyze the nation’s railroad
system. Eventually, President Grover Cleveland sent in the military
and smashed the strike. The workers lost the strike, but they did
gain a new spokesperson – the socialist Eugene Debs – who would
play an influential role in American society in the decades to
come.
Feature Story: The Pullman Strike of 1894
On May 11, 1894, employees of the Pullman Palace Car Company,
located just outside Chicago, went on strike. They walkout was in
response to severe wage cuts that came as the nation descended into
the worst economic depression in its history. But what started out
as a local strike soon blossomed into a nationwide work stoppage
that paralyzed the railroad system and caused a national
crisis.
The Pullman Strike, one of the most famous in US history, marked a
sharp turn in the fortunes and reputation of the Pullman Company’s
owner. For well over a decade George Pullman had enjoyed a
reputation as a benevolent industrialist. He established the
Pullman Palace Car Company in 1867 to manufacture luxury railroad
cars. Pullman was an idealist who believed that workers and
employers could work together in harmony for mutual benefit. Acting
on this idea, he established the town of Pullman in 1880. It was a
company town, built and owned by the Pullman corporation for its
employees, who rented homes and patronized stores owned by the
company. They also had to abide by many intrusive regulations
imposed by the company on their personal activities. George Pullman
earned widespread praise in the media for being a model capitalist
who earned a vast fortune, but also provided decent wages and
living conditions for his workers.
So long as the Pullman Co. remained profitable, its employees
considered themselves relatively fortunate. But then a devastating
economic depression struck in 1893. Known as the Panic of 1893, it
wiped out thousands of businesses and sent the unemployment rate to
over 20 percent. The railroad industry was hit especially hard. So
Pullman laid off hundreds of workers and announced to the rest a
wage cut of 30 percent. On top of this devastating news, workers
learned that Pullman had refused to reduce their rents, which were
deducted automatically from their paychecks. Some workers soon
began receiving paychecks for less than one dollar per week to
cover the cost of food, heat, and clothing.
And so it was that on May 11, 1894, the fed up and furious workers
at Pullman voted to strike. George Pullman responded – as did most
employers in that era – by refusing to negotiate with the workers.
After six weeks, a man named Eugene Debs, the leader of the
American Railway Union (ARU) announced that all of the union’s
125,000 members across the country, as an act of solidarity with
the striking Pullman workers, would impose a boycott on the Pullman
Company. They would refuse to handle any Pullman cars. Given the
ubiquity of the Pullman cars, the ARU’s boycott soon slowed the
nation’s railroad system to a crawl.
The heads of more than two dozen railroads united to support
Pullman and break the ARU by hiring thousands of strikebreakers and
pressuring the governor of Illinois, John Altgeld, to send in the
state militia. When the governor refused out of sympathy for the
strikers and a desire to avoid violence, the railroad magnates
turned to Washington, D.C. for help, asking President Grover
Cleveland to send in federal troops.
Grover Cleveland was not the first president to face the choice of
whether to send federal troops to quell a labor dispute. President
Andrew Jackson dispatched troops in 1834 to end a strike by
disgruntled workers working on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. More
recently President Rutherford B. Hayes had sent troops to crush the
great railroad strike of 1877. Despite these precedents, however,
Cleveland worried about the ideological and political ramifications
of military intervention. For one, the use of the army against
American citizens seemed to run counter to key republican
principles—had not the Founding Fathers established the United
States to escape an oppressive British government? Had they not
also adopted a Bill of Rights that sharply limited the use of
federal power? Cleveland also had to consider the possibility that
the public would condemn such use of federal power—especially if
violence ensued as it did in 1877. The President spent several
agonizing days in late June and early July of, 1894, consulting
with advisors and mulling over his options.
Despite harboring some misgivings about using federal troops to
resolve a domestic dispute, President Grover Cleveland was a
pro-business conservative, and his administration reflected his
outlook. He authorized his Attorney General, Richard Olney, a man
with extensive ties to the railroad industry, to obtain on July 2,
1894, a court injunction declaring the ARU boycott of Pullman cars
a “conspiracy in restraint of trade” that unlawfully interfered
with the movement of the U.S. mail. This last part about the mail
was key – because delivery of the mail was a federal
responsibility, the Cleveland administration claimed it had an
obligation to the public to stop the boycott.
When Debs and the ARU members defied the injunction, Cleveland
ordered the U.S. Army to intervene on behalf of the railroads to
end the boycott and get the trains moving again. The arrival of
federal troops touched off extensive violence. Workers clashed with
soldiers and destroyed railroad property and the soldiers responded
with rifle fire that left at least 37 workers dead and scores
wounded.
Federal officials arrested Debs and several other ARU leaders and
the boycott collapsed in mid-July. The Pullman strike lasted only a
few more weeks before ending in early August in complete defeat for
the workers.
Public opinion had by then turned against Pullman for his obstinate
refusal to negotiate with his workers. As was the case two years
earlier in the Homestead Strike involving Andrew Carnegie and his
steel workers, the Pullman strike exposed the notion of a
benevolent capitalist as a myth. Both Pullman and Carnegie were
arguably better employers than many of their capitalist
counterparts, but their benevolence ran a distant second behind
their primary concern: profit. When profits were threatened by
unions or economic downturns, the benevolence was replaced by
ruthlessness.
In the aftermath, President Cleveland tried to restore his
reputation with American workers by making Labor Day, a holiday
established in the early 1880s, a federal holiday. He also
established a federal commission to investigate the cause of the
strike. Its report criticized Pullman for his handling of the
strike and it argued that labor unions and government regulation
were necessary as a way to curb the unrestrained power of
corporations. But one year later, a very conservative and
pro-business Supreme Court, ruled that the use of court injunctions
to end strikes was constitutional. It would be another 40 years
before legislation passed during the New Deal established legal
protections for workers and labor unions.
There was one positive outcome of the strike for American workers.
It launched the storied career of Eugene Debs who became an iconic
labor leader and advocate of socialism for the next 30 years. Debs
would run for president five times as the nominee of the Socialist
Party of America. And he left a lasting influence on American
society.
What else of note happened this week in US
history?
May 11, 1934 - A massive dust storm begins to sweep across the
Great Plains. Drought and high-level winds carried off from the
so-called “Dust Bowl” some 350 million tons of topsoil, causing
tens of thousands of poor farmers known as Okies to migrate to the
west coast.
May 13, 1846 - After a questionable border incident between US and
Mexican military forces, the US declares war on Mexico. The
subsequent US victory allowed it to seize the northern half of
Mexico, land that became the future states of CA, AZ, NM, and parts
of NV, UT, TX and CO.
May 15, 1970 – 50 years ago this week – city and state police open
fire on a crowd of African American students at Jackson State in
Mississippi, killing 2 and injuring 12. This incident received a
fraction of the attention given killing of 4 white students at Kent
State 11 days prior.
May 17, 1954 - The SCOTUS issued its Brown v Board decision that
declared segregation in public schools to be unconstitutional. Want
to know more? Check out ITPL Episode 40 featuring my interview with
historian Erin Krutko about her book, Remembering Little
Rock.
And what notable people were born this week in American
history?
Two legends of the silver screen were born this week.
May 12, 1907 Katharine Hepburn and May 16, 1905 Henry Fonda
May 13, 1914 heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis
May 17, 1903 baseball legend and Hall of Famer, James Thomas “Cool
Papa” Bell. Bell retired from Negro League baseball in 1946, the
year before Jackie Robinson broke the so-called color line.
Nonetheless, Cool Papa Bell was inducted into the MLB Hall of Fame
in 1974
The Last Word
Let’s give it to an anonymous Pullman employee who
said the following about the problem of living in a town completely
controlled by one company:
“We are born in a Pullman house, fed from the Pullman
shops, taught in the Pullman school, catechized in the Pullman
Church, and when we die we shall go to the Pullman Hell.
For more information about the In The Past Lane podcast, head to
our website, www.InThePastLane.com
Music for This Episode
Jay Graham, ITPL Intro (JayGMusic.com)
The Joy Drops, “Track 23,” Not Drunk (Free Music Archive)
Sergey Cheremisinov, “Gray Drops” (Free Music Archive)
Pictures of the Flow, “Horses” (Free Music Archive)
Ondrosik, “Tribute to Louis Braille” (Free Music Archive)
Alex Mason, “Cast Away” (Free Music Archive)
Squire Tuck, “Nuthin’ Without You” (Free Music Archive)
Ketsa, “Multiverse” (Free Music Archive)
Ketsa, “Memories Renewed” (Free Music Archive)
Dana Boule, “Collective Calm” (Free Music Archive)
Borrtex, “Motion” (Free Music Archive)
Ondrosik, “Breakthrough” (Free Music Archive)
Cuicuitte, “sultan cintr” (Free Music Archive)
Blue Dot Sessions, "Pat Dog" (Free Music Archive)
Jon Luc Hefferman, “Winter Trek” (Free Music Archive)
The Bell, “I Am History” (Free Music Archive)
Production Credits
Executive Producer: Lulu Spencer
Graphic Designer: Maggie Cellucci
Website by: ERI Design
Legal services: Tippecanoe and Tyler Too
Social Media management: The Pony Express
Risk Assessment: Little Big Horn Associates
Growth strategies: 54 40 or Fight
© In The Past Lane, 2020
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© In The Past Lane 2020