The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1894-11-14
MANY STATEMENTS MADE CLAIMED
TO BE UNTRUE
4 ELL Cooks Gang Hold Up Passenger
Train Near Muscogee, Indian Ter
ritory, and Falling to Get Into the
Express Car, Rob the Passengers-A
Band of Outlaws Unearthed in Cen
trail Kansas.
trail Kansas.
Special to the REcoRD-UNIoN.

tlemen. 1t says in part:
The personal opinions as conveyed in
the report of the Federal Strike Commits
sion are invested with unwonted inter
est to the public at large, from the fact of
the official dignity with which they have
been clothed. All good citizens must of
necessity be Interested in the Commits
sioners' official conclusion, and it appears
to be the part of citizenship to call atten-
ton to, and, if possible, to correct any
oversights or misstatements Of facts into
which the Commissioners may have
fallen.
The report says: "It should be noted
that until the railroads set the ex-
ample a general union of railroad en-
ployeS was never attempted. The union
had not then gone beyond enliStlng men
upon different systems in separate trade
organizations"
This statement is wholly false.
The report says in another place: 1.-THE
order of the Knights OF Labor, with an
estimated mem bership of from 100000 to
10. 900, has always advocated the soliditi-
cation of labor"
The history of railway labor organiza-
tons for the last twenty years is largely
made up OF what the report says was
never attempted. Again and again have
efforts been made to consolidate, federate
or absorb various orders into one- Again
and again instances have shown that dii-
terent classes of LABOR on the same road
and the same classes of labor on different
roads stood together. Again and again
has the allied labor of several companies
been called on the enforce the demand of
one class of labor against one company.
The ignorance of this fact, and OF the
further fact that it was the repeated eX
perieuce of it which at length drove the
railways reluctantly to unite also in SELF
defense, is to anyone at all familiar with
the history of labor organizations almost
incomprehensible. The misstatements
are made the more gross by the import
ance which the commission seems to at
tach to its assertions.
The report, speaking of the Pullman
phase of the trouble, says: 1.-The cut in
wages during this period averaged about
% per cent"
This is not true. The average reduc-
ton for all shop employees was - per
cent.
Again the report says: "Under the
contracts between railway companies and
the Pullman Company, the roads have
paid since 1877 two cents a mile for each
mile run by Pullman cars"
This is not fact, nor from the one form
Of standard" contract placed in evidence
before the commission was it justified IN
concluding it to be fact. The contract
specifically provides for exceptions to
this rate of payment, which enter so
largely IN the aggregate business of the
company with the railways as to totally
talsify the generalization which it made
On page 3oS the report says: Through
out the strike the strife was simply over
handling Pullman cars, the men being
ready to do their duty otherwise"
This is not only untrue, but is a radical
and gross misrepresentation of the entire
circumstances of the strike. 1t is only
necessary to point out that the strike eX-
tended among other roads-to the Michi-
gan Central, Lake Shore. and Wabash
Companies. on which no Pullman cars
We're in operation. The statement quoted
shows an amazing and almost incompre-
hensible misunderstanding of the essen
tial elements of the strike.
Further on the report says in reference
to the Pullman tenants: LAS the bank is
rent collector, 1t presses for the rent, and
is aided in collecting it by knowledge on
the part OF the tenant that by arrears he
may lose his job"
On what was "knowledge' based? Dur
ing all the years there mas never been an
employe who lost his LOB" for the non
payment OF rents, and the employees had
knowledge of ii. How is the statement
reconcilable with the very next sentence:
''At the time OF the strike $4,000 of un-
paid rent had accumulated" And the
debtors still were in possession of their
job.
Further on the report SAYS: sIt is in
evidence, and uncontradicted, that no
violence or destruction of property by
strikers or sympathiZers took place at
Pullman, and that until July Sd no ex-
traordinary protection was had from the
police or military against even anticipated
disorder"
1t was not until July Sd that the service
of the military was called for even in
Chicago itself. The Commission omits TO
mention the extraordinary sprotection''
of the 22l guards of the Pullman Conn
pany who were IN service before the end
of June, and who the danger of antici-
pated disorder being so great were in
creased to 80 IN the first week in july
Moreover, there was violence at Pull
man; physical assaults upon persons who
attempted to return TO work. When the
military were put in the field they were
used at Pullman longer than anywhere
else. Nowhere did the police have more
difficulty than in projecting from yio-
lence those who wished to resume work
at Pullman, Some or all of these acts
were clearly in evidence before your
commission.
Later the report says: There is no
eAyidence before the commission that the
officers of the American Railway Union
at any time participated in or advised in
timidation, violence or destruction of
property"
The evidence before the commission
not only included testimony as TO specific
speeches in which the Vice. President of
the union, amid much grossly violent
lanouage. recommended the use of coup-
ling pins as q method of argument, but
the Vice President himself stated TO your
commission that the language which he
used on those specific occasions he had
also used at hundreds OF other places.
The errors in The report range all the
way from the Inaccurate quotations of
comparatively trivial hgures 10 false
congratulations. There are many other
minor points in your report in which
criticism and correction would be easy.
1t would be equally easy To pillory
the cheap levity with which the commits
sion treats the educational institutions
and the estheiic and sanitary features of
Pullman. But these things-errors of
taste and fallacies in theory-WlIl be ap-
parent enough to the general reader. The
curious accident that the inisstatements
OF fact are all on the same slde-aiI tend
ing TO throw discredit upon the corpora
tions and TO increase the bitterness OF the
iaboring classes against capital-ls an
accident from which one would prefer
not to draw inlerenceS. One conclusion
only may be drawn, which Is that no
matter on what side the errors are, the
more existence of such errors, though