The defeat of this and other strikes, together with the fact that most railway employes were ineligible to the then existing brotherhoods, led to the organization of the American Railway Union in 1893, which embraced all the employes in the railway service. The new union grew rapidly. Soon after it was organized it engaged in and won several minor strikes. In April, 1894, the strike on the Great Northern, involving all the employes of the entire system, was fought, and resulted in a complete victory for the union in less than three weeks. A short time later another strike was threatened owing to disagreement growing out of the construction of the agreement. For the second time the A. R. U. came out victorious. At this time thousands were pouring into the union all over the country. Then followed the Pullman strike, in the latter part of June.
The Pullman company, backed by the combined railway corporations, represented by the General Managers’ Association, resolved to crush the union. They not only failed, but the union paralyzed their traffic and defeated them all. Seeing that the union was triumphant they changed their tactics. They had the United States marshal of Illinois swear in an army of deputies, ostensibly to protect property, but in fact to incite tumult. In his official report to the council of Chicago the Chief of Police said that these “deputies” consisted of thieves, thugs and ex-convicts, the worst element that had ever been turned loose on any city. As soon as the deputies began to operate, as directed by their leaders, and under cover of night, trouble began, and this is what the corporations wanted. Peace and order were fatal to them as turbulence and violence were fatal to the union. They understood this perfectly. Hence the deputies and disorder. Immediately these thugs began to perform, the capitalist papers and Associated Press flashed broadcast the falsehood that the strikers were on the warpath and threatened destruction to every living thing. The falsehood caught on like magic. Far and wide the cry went up: “Down with the A. R. U.! Down with anarchy!” The tide turned. The triumphant union and defeated corporations changed places. With practically the whole population aroused against the A. R. U. every outrage upon it was not only possible, but perpetrated with mad zeal in the name of patriotism. The A. R. U. had no press, no way of getting its side before the people, and thousands of the very workers in whose behalf it was fighting and had staked everything, turned upon it and joined in the flood of angry denunciation that was launched upon it.
Injunctions by the hundred were issued and served by all the courts between the Ohio and the Pacific. A half dozen burly ruffians, by order of the federal authorities—precisely whom could never be learned—backed up a cart at the union headquarters, forced their way into the offices, sacked them, taking records, books, private papers and unopened letters, without warrant of any description, nailing up the headquarters and hauling the booty to the federal building.
How is this for a specimen of “law and order” the capitalist class and their brood of hirelings so ceaselessly harp about?
In violation of law and precedent and in defiance of the protest of the governor of Illinois, the mayor of Chicago and an overwhelming majority of the people, Grover Cleveland, then President of the United States, forced the federal troops into the state for the sole purpose of aiding the corporations to crush the union and defeat the strike, and when history shall be truthfully written, this crime will make the name of Cleveland the synonym of infamy forever.
Thousands of falsehoods were coined and circulated by the capitalist press, shifting the blame of lawlessness and crime from the instigators to innocent men; the leaders were arrested without charges and jailed without trial, headquarters were broken up, a special grand jury was sworn in expressly to indict, a notorious capitalist union-hater being made foreman, and a hundred other flagrant violations of the law and outrages upon justice were committed in the name of law to defeat justice and enthrone corporate rapacity.
The venality of capitalist government never made so bold an exhibition of itself. It was scandalous beyond expression and shocking to the last degree. Every department of the federal government was freely placed at the service of the railroad corporations and Republican and Democratic officials vied with each other in cheerful and servile obedience to their masters.
When the government and its capitalist lackeys had completed their service as corporation scavengers, General Miles, the military satrap, like a vulture stuffed with carrion, pompously exclaimed at a plutocratic banquet in honor of his gallant services:
“I have broken the backbone of this strike.”
Such sublime heroism in such a holy cause, Grover Cleveland, Nelson Miles, et al., will not be forgotten nor remain unrewarded.