This is how and why the mails were obstructed and this was the pretext for Federal interference. In a word, President Cleveland, obedient to the railroads, took sides with them and supported them in their conflict with their employes with all the powers of the Federal government.
STRIKE COMMISSION REPORT VS. CLEVELAND.
To bear out these facts it is not necessary to go outside of the official report of the Strike Commission, which anyone may verify at his pleasure. The only reason I do not incorporate the voluminous evidence is that the space at my command must be economized for other purposes.
It is thus made clear that President Cleveland and his Cabinet placed the government at the service of the railroads.
Edwin Walker, their own attorney, made the agent of the government and put in supreme command of the railroad and government forces! What an unholy alliance! And what a spectacle and object lesson!
Upon Walker’s representations Cleveland acted; upon Walker’s demand, the Federal soldiers marched into Chicago; upon Walker’s command, the great government of the United States obeyed with all the subserviency of a trained lackey.
SUPPOSE CLEVELAND HAD APPOINTED DARROW?
Suppose that President Cleveland had appointed Clarence S. Darrow, attorney for the American Railway Union, instead of Edwin Walker, attorney of the General Managers’ Association, as special counsel for the government!
And suppose that Darrow had ordered the offices of the General Managers’ Association sacked, the books, papers and correspondence, including the unopened private letters of the absent officers, packed up and carted away and the offices put under the guard of Federal ruffians, in flagrant violation of the Constitution of the United States, as was done by order of Walker with the offices of the American Railway Union!
And suppose, moreover, that the American Railway Union, backed up by Darrow, agent of the United States government, had sworn in an army of “thugs, thieves and ex-convicts” (see official report of Michael Brennan, superintendent of Chicago police to the Council of Chicago) to serve the American Railway Union as deputy United States marshals and “conservators of peace and order!”