A. Yes. We then asked for passes to come to Philadelphia to see Tom Scott. They wouldn't give us passes, and the boys didn't think they had enough money, with the ten per cent. reduction, to come to Philadelphia. They thought they could quell us by discharging some of the ringleaders, and they discharged a couple hundred of the boys, and this committee were all discharged, and they got around among the men, and said that they did not want them to have anything to do with those men, and they closed the telegraph wires against us, and everything of that kind. So, on the morning of the 27th day of June, we sent a request for them to meet us in the hall.
Q. To whom did you send it?
A. To the local authorities—Lang, Barrett, Scott, Pitcairn. They didn't come. We found we could not get hold of the telegraph wires to work them. On the night of the 26th, on the last train that night they sent out men on the train—thoroughly loyal men, as they called them—men that belonged to the Union, and we thought all right. They carried the news west and east that there would be no strike in Pittsburgh, and we knew nothing of that, but found it out afterwards. On Wednesday, June 27, one of our men jumped over the traces, and brought the word he was going out, and he told us what instructions his conductor had received in regard to the strike. Mr. Barrett, the superintendent of the Pan Handle road, had told him with the other trains he had sent word that night to the men that there would be no strike in Pittsburgh on the 27th. They told all the men to stay at work, that the thing would be arranged later; but it never was arranged. All were under the impression that the bubble would burst sooner or later. When the railroad officials say they had no notice of it, and did not know anything about the strike, why we tried everything in the world to let them know.
Q. In what way?
A. Why they discharged three or four hundred of us, and they certainly discharged us for cause. I received a letter myself from Mr. Thaw stating that I had lost the situation on account of being a member of the Trainmen's Union. I was discharged somewhere near Sunday the 24th of June.
By Senator Yutzy:
Q. Were you discharged before you organized Trainmen's Union lodges on the Baltimore and Ohio railroad in Virginia?
A. I traveled all over the Baltimore and Ohio, and I came back to Pittsburgh—part of the way over the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern and the Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Mr. Thomas had been watching for me, and he stopped me. I had not been paying railroad fares, so I came into Pittsburgh on a freight train.
Q. Were you still an employé?
A. Yes; at that time.