Violence and the Labor Movement

by Robert Hunter

Perhaps the most extensive use of these so-called detectives was at the time of the great railway strike of 1894. The strike of the workers at Pullman led to a general sympathetic strike on all the railroads entering Chicago, and from May 11 to July 13 there was waged one of the greatest industrial battles in American history. A railway strike is always a serious matter, and in a short time the Government came to the active support of the railroads. At one time over fourteen thousand soldiers, deputy marshals, deputy sheriffs, and policemen were on duty in Chicago. During the period of the strike twelve persons were shot and fatally wounded. A number of riots occurred, cars were burned, and, as a result of the disturbances, no less than seven hundred persons were arrested, accused of murder, arson, burglary, assault, intimidation, riot, and other crimes. The most accurate information we have concerning conditions in Chicago during the strike is to be found in the evidence which was taken by the United States Strike Commission appointed by President Cleveland July 26, 1894. There seems to be no doubt that during the early days of the strike perfect peace reigned in Chicago. At the very beginning of the trouble three hundred strikers were detailed by the unions to guard the property of the Pullman company from any interference or destruction. "It is in evidence, and uncontradicted," reports the Commission, "that no violence or destruction of property by strikers or sympathizers took place at Pullman." [(24)] It also appears that no violence occurred in Chicago in connection with the strike until after several thousand men were made United States deputy marshals. These "United States deputy marshals," says the Commission, "to the number of 3,600, were selected by and appointed at the request of the General Managers' Association, and of its railroads. They were armed and paid by the railroads." [(25)] In other words, the United States Government gave over its police power directly into the hands of one of the combatants. It allowed these private companies, through detective agencies, to collect as hastily as possible a great body of unemployed, to arm them, and to send them out as officials of the United States to do whatsoever was desired by the railroads. They were not under the control of the army or of responsible United States officials, and their intrusion into a situation so tense and critical as that then existing in Chicago was certain to produce trouble. And the fact is, the lawlessness that prevailed in Chicago during that strike began only after the appearance of these private "detectives."

It will astonish the ordinary American citizen to read of the character of the men to whom the maintenance of law and order was entrusted. Superintendent of Police Brennan referred to these deputy marshals in an official report to the Council of Chicago as "thugs, thieves, and ex-convicts," and in his testimony before the Commission itself he said: "Some of the deputy marshals who are now over in the county jail ... were arrested while deputy marshals for highway robbery." [(26)] Several newspaper men, when asked to testify regarding the character of these United States deputies, referred to them variously as "drunkards," "loafers," "bums," and "criminals." The now well-known journalist, Ray Stannard Baker, was at that time reporting the strike for the Chicago Record. He was asked by Commissioner Carroll D. Wright as to the character of the United States deputy marshals. His answer was: "From my experience with them I think it was very bad indeed. I saw more cases of drunkenness, I believe, among the United States deputy marshals than I did among the strikers." [(27)] Benjamin H. Atwell, reporter for the Chicago News, testified: "Many of the marshals were men I had known around Chicago as saloon characters.... The first day, I believe, after the troops arrived ... the deputy marshals went up into town and some of them got pretty drunk." [(28)] Malcomb McDowell, reporter for the Chicago Record, testified that the deputy marshals and deputy sheriffs "were not the class of men who ought to be made deputy marshals or deputy sheriffs.... They seemed to be hunting trouble all the time.... At one time a serious row nearly resulted because some of the deputy marshals standing on the railroad track jeered at the women that passed and insulted them.... I saw more deputy sheriffs and deputy marshals drunk than I saw strikers drunk." [(29)] Harold I. Cleveland, reporter for the Chicago Herald, testified: "I was ... on the Western Indiana tracks for fourteen days ... and I suppose I saw in that time a couple of hundred deputy marshals.... I think they were a very low, contemptible set of men." [(30)]

In Mr. Baker's testimony he speaks of seeing in one of the riots "a big, rough-looking fellow, whom the people called 'Pat.'" [(31)] He was the leader of the mob, and when the riot was over, "he mounted a beer keg in front of one of the saloons and advised men to go home, get their guns, and come out and fight the troops, fire on them.... The same man appeared two nights later at Whiting, Indiana, and made quite a disturbance there, roused the people up. In all that mob that had hold of the ropes I do not think there were many American Railway Union men. I think they were mostly roughs from Chicago.... The police knew well enough all about this man I have mentioned who was the ringleader of the mob, but they did nothing and the deputy marshals were not any better." [(32)] For some inscrutable reason, certain men, none of whom were railroad employees, were allowed openly to provoke violence. Fortunately, however, they were not able to induce the actual strikers to participate in their assaults upon railroad property, and every newspaper man testified that the riots were, in the main, the work of the vicious elements of Chicago. They were, said one witness, "all loafers, idlers, a petty class of criminals well known to the police." [(33)] Malcomb McDowell testified concerning one riot which he had reported for the papers: "The men did not look like railroad men.... Most of them were foreigners, and one of the men in the crowd told me afterward that he was a detective from St. Louis. He gave me the name of the agency at the time." [(34)]

Mr. Eugene V. Debs, the leader of that great strike, in a pamphlet entitled The Federal Government and the Chicago Strike, calls particular attention to the following declaration of the United States Strike Commission: "There is no evidence before the Commission that the officers of the American Railway Union at any time participated in or advised intimidation, violence or destruction of property. They knew and fully appreciated that, as soon as mobs ruled, the organized forces of society would crush the mobs and all responsible for them in the remotest degree, and that this means defeat." [(35)] Commenting upon this statement, Mr. Debs asks: "To whose interest was it to have riots and fires, lawlessness and crime? To whose advantage was it to have disreputable 'deputies' do these things? Why were only freight cars, largely hospital wrecks, set on fire? Why have the railroads not yet recovered damages from Cook County, Illinois, for failing to protect their property?... The riots and incendiarism turned defeat into victory for the railroads. They could have won in no other way. They had everything to gain and the strikers everything to lose. The violence was instigated in spite of the strikers, and the report of the Commission proves that they made every effort in their power to preserve the peace." [(36)]

This history is important in a study of the extensive system of subsidized violence that has grown up in America. Nearly every witness before the Commission testified that the strikers again and again gave the police valuable assistance in protecting the property of the railroads. No testimony was given that the workingmen advocated violence or that union men assisted in the riots. The ringleaders of all the serious outbreaks were notorious toughs from Chicago's vicious sections, and they were allowed to go for days unmolested by the deputy marshals—who, although representatives of the United States Government, were in the pay of the railroads. In fact, the evidence all points to the one conclusion, that the deputy marshals encouraged the violence of ruffians and tried to provoke the violence of decent men by insulting, drunken, and disreputable conduct. The strikers realized that violence was fatal to their cause, and the deputy marshals knew that violence meant victory for the railroads. And that proved to be the case.

Before leaving this phase of anarchy I want to refer as briefly as possible to that series of fiercely fought political and industrial battles that occurred in Colorado in the period from 1894 to 1904. The climax of the long-drawn-out battles there was perhaps the most unadulterated anarchy that has yet been seen in America. It was a terrorism of powerful and influential anarchists who frankly and brutally answered those who protested against their many violations of the United States Constitution: "To hell with the Constitution!" [(37)] The story of these Colorado battles is told in a report of an investigation made by the United States Commissioner of Labor (1905). The reading of that report leaves one with the impression that present-day society rests upon a volcano, which in favorable periods seems very harmless indeed, but, when certain elemental forces clash, it bursts forth in a manner that threatens with destruction civilization itself. The trouble in Colorado began with the effort on the part of the miners' union to obtain through the legislature a law limiting the day's work to eight hours in all underground mines and in all work for reducing and refining ores. That was in 1894. The next year an eight-hour bill was presented in the legislature. Expressing fear that such a bill might be unconstitutional, the legislature, before acting upon it, asked the Supreme Court to render a decision. The Supreme Court replied that, in its opinion, such a bill would be unconstitutional. In 1899, as a result of further agitation by the miners, an eight-hour law was enacted by the legislature—a large majority in both houses voting for the bill. By unanimous decision the same year the Supreme Court of Colorado declared the statute unconstitutional. The miners were not, however, discouraged, and they began a movement to secure the adoption of a constitutional amendment which would provide for the enactment of an eight-hour law. All the political parties in the State of Colorado pledged themselves in convention to support such a measure. In the general election of 1902 the constitutional amendment providing for an eight-hour day was adopted by the people of the State by 72,980 votes against 26,266. This was a great victory for the miners, and it seemed as if their work was done. According to all the traditions and pretensions of political life, they had every reason to believe that the next session of the legislature would pass an eight-hour law. It appears, however, that the corporations had determined at all cost to defeat such a bill. They set out therefore to corrupt wholesale the legislature, and as a result the eight-hour bill was defeated. After having done everything in their power, patiently, peacefully, and legally to obtain their law, and only after having been outrageously betrayed by corrupt public servants, the miners as a last resort, on the 3d of July, 1903, declared a strike to secure through their own efforts what a decade of pleading and prayers had failed to achieve.

I suppose no unbiased observer would to-day question that the political machines of Colorado had sold themselves body and soul to the mine owners. There can surely be no other explanation for their violation of their pledges to the people and to the miners. And further evidence of their perfidy was given on the night of September 3, 1903, at a conference between some of the State officials and certain officers of the Mine Owners' Association. Although the strike up to this time had been conducted without any violence, the State officials agreed that the mine owners could have the aid of the militia, provided they would pay the expenses of the soldiers while they remained in the strike district. Two days later over one thousand men were encamped in Cripple Creek. All the strike districts were at once put under martial law; the duly elected officials of the people were commanded to resign from office; hundreds of unoffending citizens were arrested and thrown into "bull pens"; the whole working force of a newspaper was apprehended and taken to the "bull pen"; all the news that went out concerning the strike was censored, the manager of one of the mines acting as official censor. At the same time this man, together with other mine managers and friends, organized mobs to terrorize union miners and to force out of town anyone whom they thought to be in sympathy with the strikers.

In the effort to determine whether the courts or the military powers were supreme, a writ of habeas corpus was obtained for four men who had been sent by the military authorities to the "bull pen." The court sent an order to produce the men. Ninety cavalrymen were then sent to the court house. They surrounded it, permitting no person to pass through the lines unless he was an officer of the court, a member of the bar, a county official, or a press representative. A company of infantrymen then escorted the four prisoners to the court, while fourteen soldiers with loaded guns and fixed bayonets guarded the prisoners until the court was called to order. When the court was adjourned, after an argument upon the motion to quash the return of the writ, the soldiers took the prisoners back to the "bull pen." The next day Judge Seeds was forced to adjourn the court, because the prisoners were not present. An officer of the militia was ordered to have them in court at two o'clock in the afternoon, but, as they did not appear at that time, a continuance was granted until the following day. On September 23 a large number of soldiers, cavalry and infantry, surrounded the court house. A Gatling gun was placed in position nearby, and a detail of sharpshooters was stationed where they could command the streets. The court, in the face of this military display, cited the Constitution of Colorado, which declares that the military shall always be in strict subordination to the civil power, and pointed out that this did not specify sometimes but always, declaring: "There could be no plainer statement that the military should never be permitted to rise superior to the civil power within the limits of Colorado." [(38)] The judge then ordered the military authorities to release the prisoners, but this they refused to do.

At Victor certain mine owners commanded the sheriff to come to their club rooms, where his resignation was demanded. When he refused to resign, guns were produced, a coiled rope was dangled before him, and on the outside several shots were fired. He was told that unless he resigned the mob outside the building would be admitted and he would be taken out and hanged. He then signed a written resignation, and a member of the Mine Owners' Association was appointed sheriff. With this new sheriff in charge, the mine owners, mine managers, and all they could employ for the purpose arrested on all hands everybody that seemed unfriendly to their anarchy. The new sheriff and a militia officer commanded the Portland mine, which was then having no trouble with its employees, to shut down. By this order four hundred and seventy-five men were thrown out of employment. In these various ways the mobs organized by the mine owners were allowed to obliterate the Government and abolish republican institutions, under the immediate protection of their leased military forces.

At Telluride, also, the military overpowered the civil authorities. When Judge Theron Stevens came there to hold the regular session of court he was met by soldiers and a mob of three hundred persons. Seeing that it was impossible for the civil authorities to exercise any power, he decided to adjourn the court until the next term, declaring: "The demonstration at the depot last night upon the arrival of the train could only have been planned and executed for the purpose of showing the contempt of the militia and a certain portion of this community for the civil authority of the State and the civil authority of this district. I had always been led to suppose from such research as I have been able to make that in a republic like ours the people were supreme; that the people had expressed their will in a constitution which was enacted for the government of all in authority in this State. That constitution provides that the military shall always be in strict subordination to the civil authorities." [(39)]