THE OBJECT OF FEDERAL INTERFERENCE.
From the Federal judge who sat on the bench as the protege of the late George M. Pullman, to whose influence he was indebted for his appointment—as he was to the railroad companies for the annual passes he had in his pocket—down to the last thug sworn in by the railroads and paid by the railroads (p. 340 report of Strike Commission) to serve the railroads as United States deputy marshal, the one object of the Federal Court and its officers was, not the enforcement of law and preservation of order, but the breaking up of the strike in the interest of the railroad corporations, and it was because of this fact that John P. Altgeld, Governor of Illinois, and John P. Hopkins, Mayor of Chicago, were not in harmony with President Cleveland’s administration and protested against the Federal troops being used in their state and city for such a malign purpose.
This is the fact and I shall prove it beyond doubt before this article is concluded.
CLEVELAND OMITS REFERENCE TO JUDGE WOODS.
The late Judge William A. Woods figured as one of the principal judges in the Chicago affair, issuing the injunctions, citing the strikers to appear before him and sentencing them to jail without trial, but President Cleveland discreetly omits all reference to him; and although he introduces copies of many documents, his article does not include copies of the telegrams that passed between Judge Woods from his home at Indianapolis and the railroad managers at Chicago before he left home to hold court in the latter city.
Judge Woods had the distinction of convicting the writer and his colleagues without a trial and of releasing William W. Dudley of “Blocks of Five” memory in spite of a trial.
Judge Woods is dead and I do not attack the dead. I have to mention his name, and this of itself is sufficient.
PULLMAN’S CONTEMPT OF COURT.
During the strike the late George M. Pullman was summoned to appear before the Federal Court to give testimony. He at once had his private car attached to an eastbound train and left the city, treating the court with sovereign contempt. On his return, accompanied by Robert Todd Lincoln, his attorney, he had a tete-a-tete with the court, “in chambers,” and that ended the matter. He was not required to testify, nor to appear in open court. The striker upon whom there fell even the suspicion of a shadow of contempt was sentenced and jailed with alacrity. Not one was spared, not one invited to a “heart-to-heart” with his honor, “in chambers.”