The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1926-07-29
Lincoln's Son Helped to
Cruelty the Workers
Under Capitalist System
BY J. LOUIS ENoDAHL.

DOBERT TODD LINCOLN, the
IL only son of the civil war presi-
dent, is dead and with him ends the
name.
Abraham Lincoln, the father, died
a martyr to the cause of emancipa-
ton; the son ended his days in the
lap of luxury and ease.
Lincoln, the father, helped strike
the chains of chattel slavery from
the limbs of millions of black men.
Lincoln, the son, helped fasten the
chains of wage slavery on the limbs
of labor, of all colors.
Both the father and son were law
yers. Both entered the politics of
their day. Both were human symbols
of the deep-going struggles of their
times.
Abraham Lincoln typified the ener-
getic, industrial north struggling
against the landed, slave-holding
aristocratic south. Lincoln became
the political head, in Washington, Of
youthful American capitalism in its
great crisis. He was its war presi-
dent. The success of 1.-THE North"
unleashed the forces of capitalism
over the whole nation, not only for
"The North" but also for "The
South" In fact, the capitalist devel-
opment of 1.-THE South" dates prac-
tically from the ending of the civil
war.
Robert Todd Lincoln, the son, just
coming to manhood in the heat of
the civil war, became the embodi-
ment of the social forces let loose by
that war.
He was a captain under General
Grant and saw the fall of Petersburg
and the surrender of General Lee at
Appomattox. He saw an old social
institution die. Then he became
secretary of war in President Gar
fields cabinet in 1881. Later he went
as American ambassador to London,
returning in the panic year Of 1898.
Lincoln, the son, Immediately took
up the practice of law in Chicago,
becoming special counsel for the
Pullman company, Just organized in
1867. Evidently Lincoln, the son, did
well as corporation lawyer, for he
rose rapidly in the favor of the para
site stockholders.
1t was in 1893 that the Pullman
company reduced wages one-fourth
altho the cost Of everything In It's
model town, of rent, water, gas and
other fundamental necessities re-
main the same.
Gustavus Myers, in his History
of Great American Fortunes" tells
of the conditions at Pullman, that
Lincoln, the son, as lawyer was call
ed on to defend, in these words:
"As the average yearly pay of at
least 4,497 of the company's wage
workers was little more than $500,
or to be exact, $613.S6-this reduc-
ton of Zone fourth), in a large num-
Der of cases, was equivalent to
forcing these workers. to yield up
their labor for substantially nothing.
Numerous witnesses testified before
the special commission appointed la
ter by President Cleveland, that at
times their bi-weekly checks ran
variously from four cents to one
dollar. The company could not pro-
duce evidence to disprove this.
These sums represented the COM
pany's Indebtedness to them for
their labor, after the company had
deducted rent and other charges.
Such manifold robberies aroused the
bitterest resentment among the COM
pany's employees, since especially it
was a matter of authentic know
ledge, disclosed by the company's
own reports, that the Pullman fac
tories were making enormous pro-
fits. At this time, the Pullman
workers were $4,000 in arrears to
the company for rent alone"
These were the conditions that led
up to the historic Pullman strike
that was inaugurated May IL, 1894.
Carroll d. Wright, for a time
United States commissioner of labor,
said of this struggle, and the greater
strike following, that 1t was prob
ably the most expensive and far
reaching labor controversy which