LABOR DAY Chapter Three

 

Behind the heavy oak doors of the second floor club room the incessant click/clack of the telegraphs was feeding a mounting panic. That morning – Wednesday, 26 June, 1894 - the secretary of the General Managers Association (G.M.A.) dutifully noted each catastrophe as it was reported over the wires. The Railroad Workers strike had quickly spread to Missouri, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, California, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, and North Dakota. But the epicenter remained  Chicago.

 “A.T.& S.F. (Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe) switching engineers, firemen, switch men and foremen in Chicago...went out at midnight....Kansas City switch men refuse this morning to handle Pullman cars. Switch Men...operators and shop men in New Mexico, gone out. Chicago & Alton —No demonstration as yet. Chicago & Erie....the tower man was badly injured by the mob...Chicago and Eastern Illinois, No men refused to work as yet.” The two words hung in the air, inspiring even more paranoia; as yet.

Built by railroads to service their passengers, the olive tinted sandstone of the Grand Pacific Hotel projected solidity and permanence. But after only 21 years,  lack of modern plumbing and electricity were already driving the six story edifice to obsolesce.  In a year it would be torn down, to rise again at half its size but higher.  And today's hysteria in the club room was just another indication of the failure of “Gilded Age” money men to hold back progress and social change. Still they held onto power because each day they did put more money in their already bulging pockets.

Like spiders feeling their web, reporters eagerly waited at head of the grand staircase, should the managers of the 24 railroads servicing Chicago release a joint announcement.  But despite the constant stream of messengers coming and going from the club room, the General Managers were too experienced to show the outside world any blatant joint action, for fear of exposing themselves to the three year old Sherman Anti-Trust act, choosing instead to exercise their power in a shadow play.

The G.M.A. was created by the owners – with congressional approval - in 1872 to solve the “time problem” Every city was it's own time zone, which made coherent schedules almost impossible. Ten years later the G.M.A. had created the four national time zones - Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific. 

Now, under the expert leadership of ex-Confederate Colonel Henry Stevens Haines, the “Chicago scale” set wages and working practices for the entire railroad industry. The G.M.A. now represented 
12 railroads with 40,000 miles of track, 221,000 employees - 25% of all railroad workers nationwide -  with net earnings, as of 30 June, 1894, of $102, 710.00.  Such trusts were now illegal, but the unspoken Chicago G.M.A. agreement kept wages low, hours long and working conditions dangerous. They also black listed nationwide any workers who agitated for better working conditions or higher wages. 

When the switch men refused to open the gates at the Grand Crossing on 25 June, the men were immediately fired, as were any others who supported the Pullman boycott. The American Railway Union promised to assist any fired man, and negotiate to get their jobs back. The press was even sympathetic.  Eugene V. Debs told the nation and warned his union members, “We shall not attempt to cut Pullman cars out of trains, but we shall do all in our power to prevent them from being placed in trains...We do not intend to resort to violence under any circumstances, and if violence is attempted against the property of any railroad company we will send our own men to protect that property....we shall do all in our power to peaceably prevent the running of Pullman sleepers." But the G.M.A. had adopted a plan to destroy the union.

On Friday, 22 June, 1894, even before the ARU and the Switchmen's association decided to support the Pullman strikers, the G.M.A. met with managers of the Pullman Company and jointly decided it was “...the lawful, rightful and duty of....railway companies....to resist...” the Pullman boycott, and to “...act unitedly.” They had decided on a two step policy.

Step one was for the obstinate and inflammatory George Pullman to abandoned his Chicago mansion and retreat to his new summer mansion, “Castle Rest”, half a mile offshore in middle of the St. Lawrence River. 

The press fished around “Pullman Island” for weeks but their lines were only teased when the Sleeper King whispered that he was “...too tired to talk.” That did not sound too obstinate or inflammatory – unless you had been forced into poverty by the man.

More to the point, the General Managers Association decided to attach mail and Pullman cars to as many trains as they could, no matter how short their run. Thus, when the unions refused to move Pullman equipment they were also refusing to move the United States Mail. And that gave the federal government an excuse to get involved in the strike, on the railroad's side. And Democratic President Grover Cleveland's Attorney General needed little encouragement.

At 59 years of age, Bostonian Richard Oleny (above) was just the latest in a long line of railroad lawyer/ politicians going back to Abraham Lincoln, who made his financial and political fortunes  representing the Illinois Central Railroad.  Forty years later Mr. Oleny was paid $8,000 a year as AG in Cleveland's second term, but Oleny's yearly retainer from the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad was $10,000. The C.B. & C. also hosted the General Managers Association in their headquarters at Chicago's Grand Pacific Hotel.

The man Oleny supposedly worked for, Stephen Grover Cleveland,  was the first Democratic President since the Civil War.  He won the popular vote again in 1885 but was defeated by Republican manipulation of the Electoral College.  Cleveland's rematch victory in 1892  depended upon a new coalition between the solid racist "Jim Crow" south - who, in the words of Alabama Senator John T. Morgan, "I hate the ground that man (Cleveland) walks on" -  and the growing industrial working class voters in the northern states. However Oleny had no doubt which was the most favored member of that coalition. 

Oleny quickly dispatched 5,000 “special” federal marshals to Chicago and other hot spots across the nation “to protect railroad traffic”.

More significantly, as he had done in April against Coxey's army, Olney sought a broad injunction to prevent union officials from “compelling or inducing” any railroad employees “to refuse to preform any of their duties”. This injunction was granted by federal judge Peter Stenger Grosscup (below) , who owed his federal seat on the Northern District of Illinois to the influence of none other than George Pullman.

And Grosscup's (above) ruling, granted five days after the start of the strike, on Tuesday, 3 July, 1894, even prohibited union officers, such as reluctant rebel Eugene Debs, from all communications with his members. Even Deb's telegrams urging his members to avoid all violence were now prohibited. The New York Times accurately described Grosscup's ruling as a “Gatling gun” of an injunction.

The Chicago police could not be counted upon to provide the spark needed to create the images the G.M.A. wanted. The police officers of Grand Crossing had contributed $400 of their own money to help feed the starving Pullman strikers. They would enforce the law, but they were not going to turn a blind eye to violent acts committed by railroad agents which would be used to implicate the strikers. 

That was why the Special Federal Marshals had been brought in. They did not know the locals. They had no idea who the local troublemakers were, or the local peacemakers. 

It was a playbook that would be used again in the summer of 2020, when once again the wealthy  sought to portray a largely peaceful protest as a violent anarchy.  In the summer of 1894 the ruling class had already picked their enemy, who they would blame these strikes on - not the Sleeper King, George Pullman, but the founder of the American Railway Union,  Eugene Debs.

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LABOR DAY Chapter One

 

Grains of sand showered upon the smooth iron rails, as the 30 ton hissing beast desperately sought purchase. 

 Like a magician of old, with his gloved hands an engineer coxed the 7,000 horses of the Rodgers  locomotive, forward.  As the sand was crushed beneath the 6 foot drive wheels, the metal and wood millipede jerked at it's couplings, and laboriously began to move. 

Thirteen stories above, the tower clock read 9:30pm, Tuesday, 26 June 1894. When the number seven train pulled out of the Illinois Central Terminal (above) at Michigan Avenue and 12^th Street, Chicago, Illinois, it was already half an hour late.

Behind the coal filled tender the locomotive pulled two dark green Pullman cars, each 48 feet 4 inches long and 9 feet 3 inches wide, carrying 64 passengers, bound via the Main Line for St. Louis, Missouri, 260 miles and 6 hours away. 

But on this night, the number seven train would achieve only seven miles, getting only as far as the Grand Crossing, at 75^th street in South Chicago. What would stop this iron age dragon was not magic, but the collision of one massive ego and  the dreams of common working men being crushed like those grains of sand.

The ego belonged to 63 year old George Mortimer Pullman, "The Sleeping Car King".  He was, says Brandon Weber,  “...the kind of capitalist hated by his employees, his staff, and even some fellow capitalist and government officials."  But, by 1880,  his name was synonymous with luxury rail travel. His company was worth $30 million, and regularly paid stock dividends of 9 ½ %. 

His hand made chandler graced Pullman Palace cars “floated” on “paper wheels”, offering a ride so smooth the passengers slept soundly in their fold down berths (below) while traveling at 40 miles an hour. 

 In 1880 George Pullman consolidated his monopoly, building a new huge factory 12 miles south of Chicago. And he built a 100 acre town to house his 5,000 workers.

But it was a pantomime. The “paper wheels” were compressed for 3 hours under a 650 ton press, then dried for 6 to 8 weeks. Bolted between iron plates these cushions produced, at best, a marginal improvement. 

But George Pullman's advertising convinced the public to willingly pay a premium for not only his ubiquitous sleepers, but regular passenger and freight cars as well, even intercity trolleys – all emblazoned with the proud name of Pullman.

The 20,000 men, women and children of Mr. Pullman's town lived in attractive cottages, in neat repetitive rows, with a town hall, grocery stores, a library, even churches, all just across the railroad tracks from the Pullman factory.

But the “town” was another capitalist shadow play. It was built to make a profit.  There was no city hall, only an Arcade building (above), filled only with Pullman approved shops that paid rent to Mr. Pullman. There were no elected officials, only Pullman managers.  There was only one bar, for visitors and Pullman managers only. To the workers, beer was available only from street vendors. At a premium price, of course.

Workers were required to rent the cottages (above), at premium prices, well above rents charged in surrounding cities.  

Amenities, such as window blinds, were extra. Pullman even made $21,000 a year by overcharging for tap water and natural gas. Pullman inspectors could terminate an employee if the wife's housekeeping did not meet Pullman standards. The offenders were evicted and fired with 10 days notice. 

The village had no independent newspapers. Groceries offered credit, but at usury rates. The library (above) did not loan books, it rented them. 

And as one critic pointed out, George Pullman, "...wasn't a man to let you pray for free" - the churches rented only to Protestants for $60 a month - mostly stood empty. 

As one worker explained, “We are born in a Pullman house, fed from a Pullman shop, taught in a Pullman school (above), catechized in a Pullman church, and when we die we shall be buried in a Pullman cemetery and go the Pullman hell.”

And then in 1893 the Argentinian wheat crop failed, which set off a cascade of English banks calling in loans, including operating loans made to American companies like Pullman. Pullman Vice President Thomas H. Wickes announced 3,000 layoffs, and the income for Pullman carpenters was cut from $13 to just $7 a week. 

However, the rent for a Pullman cottage remained the same. The price for Pullman water and gas lighting stayed the same. 

Worker Thomas Healthcoate swore under oath that “...the average (pay after deductions)...was only 8 cents over the rent, and a man would have to keep his family for two weeks on it.” Finally, on 11 May, 1894, some 2,500  workers in the  Pullman plant peacefully walked away from their tools (above),   As another desperate worker explained, “We struck at Pullman because we were without hope.”

George Pullman, being an autocrat, then locked out the remaining 3,100 "loyal" workers who had stayed on the job. 

The irony is that the 39 year old founder of the American Railroad Union, Eugene Victor “Gene” Debs (above), disliked strikes, “...except as a last resort...”. He warned his members, “...if you are looking for a Moses to lead you out of this capitalist wilderness, you will stay right where you are...You must use your heads as well as your hands, and get yourself out of your present condition..” 

So in the spring of 1894, when George Pullman refused to submit the worker's complaints to arbitration, Debs still counseled compromise.  But on 21 June, a majority of union members voted to issue an ultimatum. Unless Pullman agreed to arbitration in five days all ARU men were to respect the strike by Pullman workers - even though barely a third of Pullman workers were ARU members. 

Early on the afternoon of that Tuesday, 26 June, five members of the The Switchmen Mutual Aid Union,  walked into the red brick and terra-cotta Ashland Block (above), at the corner of North Clark and West Randolph streets in Chicago. 

Sitting as it did, catty-cornered from the Cook County Court House, the Ashland Block was filled with lawyers (including Clarence Darrow) and corporations, including railroad offices. The ground floor Illinois Central ticket office faced Randolph Street (above right), the Pennsylvania Railroad ticket office was in the Mezzanine, and the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul railroad ticket office faced Clark Street (above, left). The five switchmen, all employed by the I.C. rode the elevator to the 4^th floor and entered suite 21, headquarters of the American Railway Union.

They had come to ask the union officers just what they were authorized to do when ordered to switch a train carrying a Pullman Car. The Switch Men were willing to support the Pullman factory workers and their starving families. But if they were fired – as they surely would be – would the American Railway Union support the members of the smaller Switchmen Mutual Aid Union,  with "strike pay" ? 

The elected officers of the ARU , including Eugene Debs (above, right), gathered in conference. It was, as the saying goes, “Crunch Time”. The ARU had to now put their money and the future of their union on the line - to pledge their lives, their fortunes and sacred honor, to paraphrase the Declaration of Independence – to support their  fellow workers, even if they were not members of their union. Were they willing to do that?

The answer, when it came, was a thunderclap. Yes. If ordered to allow any train including Pullman Cars, to cross any switch point, ARU members nationwide were to refuse. ARU engineers were not operate any locomotives pulling Pullman cars, until the Pullman Company ended the lockout and  agreed to submit worker complaints to arbitration. Although Union President Eugene Debs might be opposed to direct confrontation with railroad management, the union he had created just a year ago, was now committed to it. And it would happen first on the Illinois Central Railroad.

The I.C. was crucial because it leased it's tracks to Cornelius Vanderbilt's New York Central Railroads as well as his Michigan and his St. Louis lines. These 4 pairs of tracks ran south along the edge of Lake Michigan, before, at 53^rd street,  angling westward. Then, less than a mile after the Woodlawn Street station at 63^rd street, boom barriers required all trains to halt before the Grand Crossing at 75^th street.

The Grand Crossing had come into existence in 1850 after The Michigan Southern Railroad merged with the Northern Indiana and Chicago Railroad. The  purpose of this corporate merger, and the completion of the new line's terminal at South LaSalle Street Station (above), was to block the expanding Central Illinois from reaching downtown Chicago. 

But the Construction Chief for the I.C. was a 53 year old bull headed man named Roswell B. Mason. (above)  Mason kept his crews laying track until, in April of 1852, they were within a hundred yards of the four parallel Michigan Southern tracks at 75^th Street and Woodlawn Avenue.  The M.S refused to negotiate with the I.C. for a right-of-way.

So, after the sun set one night, thugs kidnapped the sole guard posted along the Michigan Southern right of way. And when the first Michigan Southern train arrived the next morning they discovered the Illinois Central tracks now passed right through the Michigan rails, on junctions called frogs.

They called what followed a frog war, but it was really a year long game of Russian roulette played with other people's lives. As soon as the I.C. had built it's new station (above) both railroads began to run trains through the 90 degree crossing at speed, with no warning between the companies.

Then on the Monday evening of 25 April, 1853, the game ran out when two passenger trains collided at the Grand Crossing, killing 18 out right and injuring another 40 souls. 

The political reaction was regulations which required  wooden gates - "boom barriers"-  blocking access to the crossing from all four directions. All trains were now had to stop short of the Grand Crossing and wait until switchmen - hired by both railroads -  could verify the crossing was clear before lifting the barriers and allowing each train to safely continue.

And that is how the Grand Crossing became the flash point in the Pullman Strike of 1894.

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