The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1894-07-04
Another Great Strike.

cago on Tuesday, June 26, at nine
O'Clock P. NJ. Briefly stated, the cause
is as follows: At the beginning of the
existing business depression the Pull
man Parlor Car Company of Pullman,
ILL.,, was employing nearly 5000 men.
Orders for cars fell off and orders that
had been given were Cancelled. The
experience of the Pullman company
was the experience, with hardly an
exception, of every manufacturing and
business concern in the country. A
large number of men were laid off, and
by November l, 1898, only 1000 were
employed. In order to keep its works
running, the company began to take
orders at cost of production-and in
some cases at less, according to the
presidents statement,-and in April the
force employed had been increased to
1920. A revision in prices had been
made, effecting considerable reduc-
ton in wages, which the company sup
posed, in the absence of any express
sion to the contrary, was, under the
circumstances, satisfactory. The COM
pany claims that it had borne its full
share of the reduction by taking con-
tracts without profit and by eliminating
from its estimates of cost of work the
use of capital and machinery. Early in
May, however, the workmen struck.
All but some 600, of whom very few
were skilled workmen, went out, and,
as the company could not continue
manufacturing with this small force,
the works were closed.
This is the Pullman company's YER
sion of its trouble with its workmen.
1t is charged on the other side that the
company had dealt very harshly with
it's laborers; that in various ways it had
oppressed them, particularly in the
matter of rent of the tenements owned
by the company and occupied by it's
workmen. The Pullman employees pre-
sented their case to the American
Railway Union, and asked its inter-
ference to secure their return to work
at the prices paid before the cut in
wages. The Union could not move
the Pullman company by direct meas
ures. 1t therefore decided to employ
the boycott. 1t notified the railway
companies using Pullman cars of any
description that they must detach such
cars from their trains. Failing to COM
ply with this notice, the employees of the
recalcitrant roads would be ordered to
strike. The order would extend to all
employees in yards and shops and on
all trains-freight or passenger.
The great railway lines centering at
Chicago refused to comply with the
mandate of the American Railway
Union, and their employees, obeying
the orders of the Union, have left the
switches and switch towers unattended,
abandoned the trains and deserted
their engines. The roads extending
from Chicago to the south, and west to
the Pacific coast, are those which are
at present affected, but the business of
the entire country is thrown into con-
fusion and traffic is suspended. The
effect upon the food market in par
ticular is disastrous, and the price of pro-
visions of many kinds, particularly
beef, has been increased. Passenger
traffic is interrupted and the transmits
sion of the mails seriously delayed.
What the issue will be no man at this
date can foretell. The violence inva-
riably attending great strikes has
begun. There has been conflict be-
tween the mob and the civil power
near Chicago. The law went down,
and the state has raised its military
arm for the protection of persons and
property. In stopping the transmission
of the mails the strikers came in con-
flict with the United States, and the aid
of the troops of the general govern
ment has been asked to sustain the
marshals in their efforts to protect the
national interests.
Any line of reasoning that defends
or justihes strikers in their assaults
upon persons or property, is defense
and justification of the acts Of high
waymen. 1t matters not what acts o.
injustice the Pullman company may
have committed. These constitute nc
warrant for inhicting loss, inconve
nience and suffering upon the people o
the country, who know not the Pull
mans and have no interest in thei
affairs. The. demand of the striker
that the railways discontinue to run thu
cars of the Pullman company attached
to their trains is impudent, and it il
tyranny of the rankest type. In refus
ing to comply with the despotic de
mand, the railway managers are simpl
making that resistance to tyrants tina
| is obedience to God. If the civil powe
cannot keep these rioters in subsection
to the laws, the military power SHOULD