It was nearing 10:00pm, on Tuesday, 25 June, 1894, when the number seven Illinois Central overnight train to St. Louis approached the Grand Crossing. After heavy thunderstorms earlier, the evening skies were partly cloudy, warm and humid. The Number seven had paused at 39th street to pick up a few additional passengers. Then, at Hyde Park station on 53rd street, the train switched to express tracks and angled southwest for seven miles until the headlamp illuminated the boom barriers at the Grand Crossing.
All trains, passenger and freight, were required to stop here. The engineers would sound the locomotive whistles to request clearance to proceed. The switchmen would confirm the crossing was clear and then release the gates to swing back, to allow the train to proceed. It had happened hundreds of times every day over the last 30 years. But tonight a crowd of perhaps 5,000 had gathered to witness the opening of those gates. The expectation was that this time something dramatic was about to happen.
Chicago newspapers had been reporting on the miserliness of George Pullman for the last decade, until even the New York Times was forced to admit,, “It has been the policy of the Pullman Palace Car Company to reduce the salaries of its employees until the starvation point is reached”. In 1884 Pullman managers showed up unannounced at the front door of the widow of a Pullman mechanic and her three daughters, and tossed “...their belongings out onto the street”.
A Pullman seamstress reported her father had the misfortune to survive a few weeks after being injured on his Pullman job. After his death, Pullman had docked her pay until his back rent had been paid. Complained another Pullman worker, “One fine morning a number of men will knock on your door...” The company decided when to paint your home, and when to fix your roof or your plumbing, And “....all charges for repairs will be deducted from your wages next pay day...” As early as 1892 almost half of Pullman residents had been forced to take in a boarder at $3 to $5 a week, just to make ends meet. All of this while things were still “normal”.
After the pay reduction, another worker testified under oath he had seen men crying over their paychecks, because, “...they only got 3 or 4 cents after paying their rent.” By the strike, rents in Pullman were $70,000 in arrears, and workers had begun to collapse on the job, “...for want of food.” Upon hearing such complaints a Pullman foreman told his workers, “If you cannot live...go out and hustle for more.” And there can be little doubt some woman were forced to sell their bodies, although Victorian morality forbid admitting wives and mothers would do such things to feed their children. Besides, the Pullman company would consider such behavior grounds for instant expulsion. This was why the workers struck. With the resulting lock-out, the poverty and starvation got only worse.
Chicago Mayor and ex-railroad man Roswell B. Mason – not exactly a bleeding heart - had written George Pullman, “...sixteen hundred families including women and children, are starving...they cannot get work and have not the means to go elsewhere...Some of them worked for your company for many years. They must be people of industry and character or you would not have kept them. Many of them have practically given their lives to you....” The railroad man turned politician explained, “The relief committee on last Saturday gave out two pounds of oat meal and two pounds of corn meal to each family.” But that effort had exhausted the committee's resources.
Pullman vice-president Thomas Wickes responded with the empty platitude, “...it is a man’s privilege to go to work somewhere else.” Of course, during the austerity program, the officers, managers and superintendents of the Pullman Palace Sleeping Car Company had not suffered any pay reductions, nor had the stockholders been denied their dividends.
The public anger at the arrogance of George Pullman explained the crowd at the Grand Crossing (above). No public announcement had been made. No manifesto had been issued. But rumors in Chicago's environs had whispered that five Switchmen had visited the offices of the American Railway Workers. By the estimate of one journalist, there were perhaps 1,500 railroad men in the crowd. But the remaining 3,500 or so were wives and children of workers, and the curious, and, it must be assumed, a scattering of railroad company spies. And when the number seven train sounded it's short whistle, anticipation reached it's peak.
A reporter noted, “The mob began to gather at Grand Crossing at 7:00 o'clock, and by 8:00 0'clock became strong enough to interrupt traffic...Everything, whether it carried a Pullman or not was halted by the mob... Another attempt was made to get an Illinois Central train through, but a man in the crowd threw himself down on the rails in front of the engine and the engineer refused to move the train. The aid of police was requested and the blockade was continued until a detachment of blue coats prevented any further interference with the raising of the gates.”
The term “mob” was a gross exaggeration, since no railroad equipment was damaged, and no workers physically assaulted. And there were no arrests by the police on the ground. But there was never any doubt was to where the sympathies of the crowd lay. The small Grand Crossing police force had even donated $44 to feed the Pullman children.
Watching over the Grand Crossing (above) this night was the ultimate company man, Superintendent Thomas Collins. He had started as an office boy in the late 1860's, then worked 3 years as a telegrapher in Peotone, Illinois, then a supply agent, a dispatcher in Champaign, and then an assistant to the Superintendent building the 40 mile spur line to Dodgerville, Wisconsin. Since 1889 he had been in command of the Grand Crossing. His eldest son Walter worked as the ticket agent in the station there, and his son youngest son Howard expected to also work for the Illinois Central Railroad as soon as he had reached 12 years old.
Seeing the Switchmen were not moving the booms in response to the Number Seven's whistle, Collins walked over to the Switchman. We do not know what Collins said, but reports say “...he expostulated with him but it was of no avail”. As long as the train carried Pullman cars, the booms would not move. And if Collins had moved the booms himself, he would have personally been responsible for any accident which resulted. So the booms remained blocking the rails, and the number seven train did not move one inch closer to St. Louis. In fact no further trains passed through the Grand Crossing that night. It was the beginning of the complete shutdown of the American rail system.
Ray Baker, of the Chicago Record testified under oath, “At the Grand Crossing there was never much disturbance...The strikers and their sympathizers...did not exactly stop the trains, but the gate men had struck, and the engineers refused to cross over until the gates were open, and there was no one to open them, and for that reason the trains were blocked for the evening. There was no physical obstruction at all. No destruction of property took place at all.”
About ninety-minutes later the tower man who controlled the switches at 43rd street simply walked away from his position, leaving two suburban trains without Pullman cars stranded. Shortly thereafter, a freight train, the Michigan Central Fast Mail Train and another Illinois Central passenger train were caught, unable to cross the same unmanned switches. Finally, about 1:00am, a supervisor occupied the 42nd street tower and threw the switches, but that emergency fix was not going to solve the problem George Pullman had created.
By dawn, on Wednesday, 26 June, 1894, all 24 rail lines into and out of Chicago were at a stand still. The Chicago Times praised the strikers for their “...rapidity of conception and execution...”, and noted the action was “...carried on with strict conformity to law and order. With the exception of a crowd attracted out of a curiosity...there was no boisterous talking, no threats were made, and the few squads of police officers sent there to preserve order, had nothing to do”. Four railroads immediately took themselves out of the fight – the Chicago Great Western, the Baltimore & Ohio, the Chicago and Northern Pacific and the Wisconsin Central all agreed to drop Pullman cars from their trains.
The ball, as they say, was again in George Pullman's court.
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