"We began organizing the Pullman employes in March of this year. Early in May they struck. The strike was voted by themselves not by the American Railway Union, indeed we advised against the strike.
"Immediately after the strike was called I accompanied a committee of forty-three representing every branch of the Pullman service to a conference with Mr. Wickes at Pullman. Mr. Pullman refused to arbitrate but promised to give their grievances immediate attention if they would return to work. I inquired of Mr. Wickes if there would be any prejudice against the members of the committee and was assured by him that there would not be. After receiving this assurance from Mr. Wickes, I advised the men to go back to their work, which they did. Next day three of the committee were discharged, not on order or with the knowledge of Mr. Wickes or Mr. Pullman, but by some under boss in the shops. This so incensed the rest of the employes who considered it a breach of promise that they unanimously struck again.
"June 12, the convention of the American Railway Union met in Chicago. The Pullman strikers were represented by seven or eight delegates. The situation at Pullman received consideration. A joint committee representing the convention and the Pullman strikers was appointed to wait on the Pullman company. The committee was informed that the Pullman company would confer with only its employes, consequently this body was discharged and a committee consisting of Pullman employes appointed. The action of the Pullman company was reported to the American Railway Union convention whereupon each delegate wired his local union for instructions. The result of this was that the members of the American Railway Union all over the country voted to discontinue handling Pullman cars if at the end of five days from that date the Pullman company refused to arbitrate with its employes.
"In this connection I wish to say that Mr. Pullman stated to the committee of forty-three, in my hearing, that his employes at that time owed him $70,000 for rent and that he had not pushed them for payment which fact clearly shows that his men were not making enough to pay rent."
Mr. Wright: "That was the boycott order, was it?"
Mr. Howard: "I do not use the word boycott. The action taken was simply that members of the American Railway Union would not handle Pullman cars.
"Two days before the limit of five days—the dates I do not now recall—but I will furnish them—the General Managers' Association took action declaring that they would share the expense of whipping the American Railway Union.
"Pullman would not arbitrate and first the men on one road then on another refused to handle Pullman cars. They did not decline to handle other cars, but switchmen, you understand, would not attach Pullmans to trains. Engineers, conductors, firemen and trainmen would not take out trains which Pullman cars were attached to. There was no attempt to interfere with the mails but on the contrary every effort in our power was made to help the roads carry them. The companies held the mails in their determination to attach Pullman cars to trains.
"Of my personal knowledge I know of a road that abandoned a mail train to take out an excursion train, not having crews to take out both. In another instance I know of a mail train going out on the order of the railway officials after the Pullmans had been cut off by the employes. Things went on in this way for several days. No violence was committed by the employes and the police were in full control of the situation to prevent violence from outsiders.
"The first pistol was drawn by one Miller, an employe of the Tribune at Blue Island, wholly without cause, and after the troops were on the ground. The violence that was afterward committed was not as was believed by members of the American Railway Union but by outsiders—some acting in passion, because they saw in the presence of the soldiers an instrument of tyranny. Others in a spirit of mischief and love of destruction and others still—hired by the General Managers in order to create public sentiment against us. Yesterday I gave the mayor of Chicago the name of a man who claimed, while under the influence of liquor to have received $400 for burning cars. The Committee of safety, at Springfield, sent us the names of three men who quarreled about the division of $500 received for burning cars. $200 of which was paid in advance by John M. Eagan, of the General Managers' Association."