I obtained information from telegrams received in our Central Committee rooms, from all parts of the country, also from committees appointed to investigate the authenticity of reports received from different parts of the country where the strike extended.
The general accounts I quote largely from the "Chicago Times," a paper whose honorable and manly stand throughout that great struggle, gained for it a world wide reputation for honesty and fairness.
The accounts herein contained are truths pure and simple, and upon these truths I base the merits of this book.
Very respectfully,
W. F. Burns
CHAPTER I.
THE AMERICAN RAILWAY UNION.
In order to give a clear conception of the greatest strike in the history of railroad organizations, it will be necessary to go back to the birth of the American Railway Union.
This organization was instituted on the 17th day of August, 1893, in the city of Chicago, and owes its existence to its present leader Eugene V. Debs.