Peace and order were fatal to the railroad corporations. Violence was as necessary to them as peace was to the employes. They realized that victory could only be snatched from labor by an appeal to violence in the name of peace.
First, deputy marshals. The very day they were appointed the trouble began. The files of every Chicago paper prove it. The report of the Strike Commission does the same.
That was what they were hired for and their character is sufficient evidence of their guilt.
Second, fires (but no Pullman palace cars were lighted) and riots (but no strikers were implicated).
Third, the capitalist-owned newspapers and Associated Press flashed the news over all the wires that the people were at the mercy of a mob and that the strikers were burning and sacking the city.
Fourth, the people (especially those at a distance who knew nothing except what they saw in the papers) united in the frenzied cry: “Down with anarchy! Down with the A. R. U.! Death to the strikers!”
DISTURBANCES STARTED BY DEPUTY MARSHALS.
The first trouble instigated by the deputy marshals was the signal for the Federal Court injunctions, and they came like a succession of lightning flashes.
Next, the general offices of the American Railway Union were sacked and put under guard and communication destroyed. (Later Judge Grosscup rebuked the Federal satraps who committed this outrageous crime, but he did not pretend to bring them to justice.)
Next, the leaders of the strike were arrested, not for crime, but for alleged violation of an injunction.