"Sacrifices have been made, but they will have their compensations. Indeed, if lessons shall be taught by experience, the troubles now so widely deplored will prove a blessing of inestimable value in the years to come. The difference that led up to the present complications need not now be discussed, every consideration of duty and patriotism demands that a remedy for existing troubles be found and applied. The employes purpose to do their part by meeting their employers half way. Let it be stated that they do not impose any condition of settlement except that they be returned to their former positions; they do not ask recognition of their organization or any organization.
"Believing this proposition to be fair, reasonable and just it is respectfully submitted with the belief that its acceptance will result in the prompt resumption of traffic, the revival of industry, and the restoration of peace and order.
Respectfully yours,
E. V. Debs, Pres.
G. W. Howard, V. Pres.
S. Kelliher, Secy.
American Railway Union."
The proposition was rejected and spurned by the General Managers Association.
Is there a man so utterly lost to the sense of justice, that would conscientiously dispute the manly fairness of this communication?
The object of the general managers was too apparent, their position was clearly defined. Their determination to wipe out of existence all railroad organizations was as fixed and unmovable as the Rock of Gibraltar and why should they recede from their position?
The federal courts and federal government (owned and controlled by the corporations) decided that the constitutional rights of free speech and trial by jury, equal rights to all and special privileges to none, was a farce. In their narrow money-loving minds there could be no rights for honest labor, and determined there should be no rights for a workingman. After this decision of the general managers the American Railway Union could do nothing but fight out the battle to the bitter end.
Eugene V. Debs,—representing a body of honest toilers with no other motive than to obtain for them living wages, his heart overflowing with generous impulses and humane kindness, his noble nature revolting against the tyrannical oppression of his fellow man by the soulless corporations, a man who loves his country with patriotic devotion,—for these reasons and no other, was indicted and arrested on the charge of criminal conspiracy, while John M. Egan—representing the General Managers Association, a giant monopoly and powerful money grasping trust, built on the people's land and with the people's money, a combination foreign to American institutions, usurping the functions of the government with avowed intent and purpose to take away the rights of organization from the working man and reduce him to a condition of absolute slavery,—was allowed to continue his nefarious work without interruption. Surely this partial, one-sided distribution of justice, openly and defiantly administered, deserves the severest condemnation of every loyal American citizen.
The Pullman boycott had now ceased to be the point at issue in the strike. It was now the life or death of railroad organizations.