History of the United States Volume V Part 14

[1887-1902]

In March, 1894, bands of the unemployed in various parts of the West, styling themselves "Commonweal," or "Industrial Armies," started for Was.h.i.+ngton to demand government relief for "labor." "General" c.o.xey, of Ohio, led the van. "General" Kelly followed from Trans-Mississippi with a force at one time numbering 1,250. Smaller itinerant groups joined the above as they marched. For supplies the tattered pilgrims taxed the sympathies or the fears of people along their routes. Most of them were well-meaning, but their dest.i.tution prompted some small thefts. Even violence occasionally occurred, as in California, where a town marshal killed a Commonweal "general," and in the State of Was.h.i.+ngton, where two deputy marshals were wounded. The Commonwealers captured a few freight trains and forced them into service.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Hundreds of men marching.]

c.o.xey's army on the march to the Capitol steps at Was.h.i.+ngton.

Only c.o.xey's band reached Was.h.i.+ngton. On May Day, attempting to present their "pet.i.tion-in-boots" on the steps of the Capitol, the leaders were jailed under local laws against treading on the gra.s.s and against displaying banners on the Capitol Grounds. On June 10th c.o.xey was released, having meantime been nominated for Congress, and in little over a month the remnant of his forces was s.h.i.+pped back toward the setting sun.

The same year, 1894, marked a far more widespread and formidable disorder, the A. R. U. Railway Strike. The American Railway Union claimed a members.h.i.+p of 100,000, and aspired to include all the 850,000 railroad workmen in North America. It had just emerged with prestige from a successful grapple with the Great Northern Railway, settled by arbitration.

The union's catholic ambitions led it to admit many employees of the Pullman Palace Car Company, between whom and their employers acute differences were arising. The company's landlordism of the town of Pullman and petty shop abuses stirred up irritation, and when Pullman workers were laid off or put upon short time and cut wages, the feeling deepened. They pointed out that rents for the houses they lived in were not reduced, that the company's dividends the preceding year had been fat, and that the acc.u.mulation of its undivided surplus was enormous.

The company, on the other hand, was sensible of a slack demand for cars after the brisk business done in connection with World's Fair travel.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Town in background, lake in foreground.]

The town of Pullman.

The Pullman management refused the men's demand for the restoration of the wages schedule of June, 1893, but promised to investigate the abuses complained of, and engaged that no one serving on the laborer's committee of complaint should be prejudiced thereby. Immediately after this, however, three of the committee were laid off, and five-sixths of the other employees, apparently against the advice of A. R. U. leaders, determined upon a strike.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Portrait.]

George M. Pullman.

Unmoved by solicitations from employees, from the Chicago Civic Federation, from Mayor Pingree of Detroit, indorsed by the mayors of over fifty other cities, the Pullman Company steadfastly refused to arbitrate or to entertain any communication from the union. "We have nothing to arbitrate" was the company's response to each appeal. A national convention of the A. R. U. unanimously voted that unless the Pullman Company sooner consented to arbitration the union should, on June 26th, everywhere cease handling Pullman cars.

[Ill.u.s.tration: About one hundred tents in background, several hundred people in the foreground.]

Camp of the U. S. troops on the lake front, Chicago.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Hundreds of railroad cars, some burning.]

Burned cars in the C., B. & Q. yards at Hawthorne, Chicago.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Railroad crossing, houses in the background.]

Overturned box cars at crossing of railroad tracks at 39th street, Chicago.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Portrait.]

Hazen S. Pingree.

At this turn of affairs the A. R. U. found itself confronted with a new antagonist, the a.s.sociation of General Managers of the twenty-four railroads centering in Chicago, controlling an aggregate mileage of over 40,000, a capitalization of considerably over $2,000,000,000, and a total workingmen force of 220,000 or more. The last-named workers had their own grievances arising from wage cuts and black-listing by the Managers' a.s.sociation. Such of them as were union men were the objects of peculiar hostility, which they reciprocated. Thus the Pullman boycott, sympathetic in its incipience, swiftly became a gigantic trial of issues between the a.s.sociated railroad corporations and the union.

For a week law and order were preserved. On July 2d the Federal Court in Chicago issued an injunction forbidding A. R. U. men, among other things, to "induce" employees to strike. Next day federal troops appeared upon the scene. Thereupon, in contempt of the injunction, railroad laborers continued by fair means and foul to be persuaded from their work.

Disregarding the union leaders' appeal and defying regular soldiers, State troops, deputy marshals, and police, rabble mobs fell to destroying cars and tracks, burning and looting. The mobs were in large part composed of Chicago's semi-criminal proletariat, a ma.s.s quite distinct from the body of strikers.

The A. R. U. strike approached its climax about the 10th of July.

Chicago and the Northwest were paralyzed. President Cleveland deemed it necessary to issue a riot proclamation. A week later Debs and his fellow-leaders were jailed for contempt of court, and soon after their following collapsed.

Governor Altgeld, of Illinois, protested against the presence of federal troops, denying federal authority to send force except upon his gubernatorial request, inasmuch as maintaining order was a purely State province, and declaring his official ignorance of disorder warranting federal intervention.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Portrait.]

Gov. John P. Altgeld.

Mr. Cleveland answered, appealing to the Const.i.tution, federal laws, and the grave nature of the situation. United States power, he said, may and must whenever necessary, with or without request from State authorities, remove obstruction of the mails, execute process of the federal courts, and put down conspiracies against commerce between the States.

During the Pullman troubles, the judicial department of the United States Government, no less prompt or bold than the Executive, extended the equity power of injunction a step farther than precedents went.

After 1887 United States tribunals construed the Interstate Commerce Law as authorizing injunctions against abandonment of trains by engineers.

Early in 1894 a United States Circuit judge inhibited Northern Pacific workmen from striking in a body. For contempt of his injunctions during the Pullman strike Judge Woods sentenced Debs to six months'

imprisonment and other arch-strikers to three months each under the so-called Anti-Trust Law.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Portrait.]

Eugene V. Debs.

As infringing the right of trial by jury this course of adjudication aroused protest even in conservative quarters. Later, opposition to "government by injunction" became a tenet of the more radical Democracy.

A bill providing for jury trials in instances of contempt not committed in the presence of the court commanded support from members of both parties in the Fifty-eighth Congress. Federal decisions upheld workingmen's right, in the absence of an express contract, to strike at will, although emphatically affirming the legitimacy of enjoining violent interference with railroads, and of enforcing the injunction by punis.h.i.+ng for contempt.

Federal injunctions subsequently went farther still, as in the miners'

strike of 1902 during which Judge Jackson of the United States District Court for Northern West Virginia, enjoined miners' meetings, ordering the miners, in effect, to cease agitating or promoting the strike by any means whatever, no matter how peaceful. Speech intended to produce strikes the judge characterized as the abuse of free speech, properly restrainable by courts. Refusing to heed the injunction, several strike leaders were sentenced to jail for contempt, periods varying from sixty to ninety days.

Late in July, 1894, the President appointed a commission to investigate the Pullman strike. The report of this body, alluding to the Managers'

a.s.sociation as a usurpation of powers not obtainable directly by the corporations concerned, recommended governmental control over quasi-public corporations, and even hinted at ultimate government owners.h.i.+p. They counselled some measure of compulsory arbitration, urged that labor unions should become incorporated, so as to be responsible bodies, and suggested the licensing of railway employees. The Ma.s.sachusetts State Board of Conciliation and Arbitration was favorably mentioned in this report, and became the model for several like boards in various States.

The labor question and other problems excluded from public thought a change in our dealings with our Indian wards that should not be overlooked. Up to 1887 the Indian village communities could, under the law, hold land only in common. Individual Indians could not, without abandoning their tribes, become citizens of the United States. Such a legal status could not but discourage Indians' emergence from barbarism.

A better method was hinted at in an old Act of the Ma.s.sachusetts General Court, pa.s.sed so early as October, 1652.

"It is therefore ordered and enacted by this Court and the authority thereof, that what landes any of the Indians, within this jurisdiction, have by possession or improvement, by subdueing of the same, they have just right thereunto accordinge to that Gen: 1: 28, Chap. 9:1, Psa: 115, 16." This old legislation further provided that any Indians who became civilized might acquire land by allotment in the white settlements on the same terms as the English.

In 1887, the so-called "General Allotment" or "Dawes" Act, empowered the President to allot in severalty a quarter section to each head of an Indian family and to each other adult Indian one eighth of a section, as well as to provide for orphaned children and minors, the land to be held in trust by the United States for twenty-five years. The act further const.i.tuted any allottee or civilized Indian a citizen of the United States, subject to the civil and criminal laws of the place of his residence.

The Dawes Act was later so amended as to allot one-eighth of a section or more, if the reservation were large enough, to each member of a tribe. The amended law also regulated the descent of Indian lands, and provided for leases thereof with the approval of the Indian Department.

This last provision was in instances twisted by white men to their advantage and to the Indians' loss; but on the whole the new system gave eminent satisfaction and promise.

CHAPTER IX.

NEWEST DIXIE