Montana labor news., 1938-12-29
NO INJUNcTIONS DURING
STRIKES TN MONTANA

TO QanUle Fullndl cars, linus Sf
ed the great railroad strike of J s..
Within ltwenty-four hours afteJ s
strike started at Livingston s a
train was running on the Nc = n.
Pacific. Half an hour after 8 g.
ston the railway men at { ado
Springs went out. From B 0 to.
Golden Gate the railroad quit
work and the great Anne rail-
roads lay paralyzed.
Judges got busy and notions
were issued against the .. kers in
every state where the strike existed.
Judge Lands of baseball fame en-
joined Debs and the executive coun-
ell of the A. R. U. On July 3rd
Judge Knowles in the federal court
at Helena issued an injunction
against all strikers in Montana
which concerned every railroad in
the state except the B. A. and P. and
the Great Northern. On July 5th
the strikers at Livingston showed
mass contempt for the court by
standing en- masse between five and
six hundred strong on the tracks,
blocking the passage of a train
manned by officials of the com
pany. The courts were powerless
to act; ITO h with the injunc-
ton" was heard throughout the
length and breadth of the land; a
spirit of revolt existed everywhere,
while the men on the N. P. sang to
the tune of John Brown, We'll
hang Judge Jenkins on a sour apple
tree"
Grover Cleveland decided to act
and the entire U. S. army was
placed at the disposal of the rail-
road General Managers Association
to break the strike; the army was
reinforced by the various state
militia.
Debs and the executive board of
the A. R. u, except Martin Elliot,
a Butte %switchman, were arrested.
Ut took a week longer to get Elliot,
who was captured at Hammond,
Indiana, directing the strike.) Judge
Lands sentenced Debs to six
months in the Woodstock, Ill, jail
and the executive board to three
months. Jim Calderhead, president
of the local union of the A.. R. U.
at Butte, was arrested for being
president of his union and was
sentenced to sixty days in the Silver
Bow county Jail, which he served.
Elliot, after serving his sentence, re-
turned to Butte, a blacklisted man.
Being a member also of the Butte
Engineers Union, he secured a job
as an engineer at the Hennessy
building, which he held until he
died. Martin Elliot was elected to
the legislature in 1896 and intro
duced the first bill for the initiative
and referendum.)
AS the army broke the strike the
injunctionists took courage and
issued warrants for the arrest of
strikers, especially those who were
officers of local unions; thousands
of strikers throughout the land were
given jail sentences for contempt of
court. Some of these served a year
in Jail. Many strikers hid in the
mountains until things quieted down
so they could leave the country.
The boycott on Pullman failed.
The American Railway Union was
smashed by the army and the strike
and the spirit of organized labor
broken, but not for long. Strikers
crushed to earth doth rise again.
The first meeting to form the
Montana Federation of Labor was
held within sixty days after the
loss of the A. R. U. strike.
The Spanish-American War start
ed in 1898 and with it a boom in
the growth of organized labor.
Strike followed strike and i%njunc-
tons likewise. In 1900 the inter-
national association of Machinists
fought everywhere for a nine-hour
day to have themselves plastered
by court orders but the m~achinists
won.
Debs gave his service in 1902 to
assist the United Mine Workers or
ganize in West Virginia. A Judge
in West Virginia placed a perpetual
injunction on Debs to prevent him
from speaking in that state, but
Debs spoke many times afterwards
in the coal fields of West Virginia.
The miners employed in the N. P.
Ry. mines at Red Lodge, Montana,
went on strike and Immediately
Judge Henry of Livingston slapped
an injunction on them; the judge
even went so far as to enjoin Ma
than S%methurst, the union check
weigh man, for the rest of his
natural life from crossing the creek
which flows through Red Lodge.
Nathan crossed the creek many
times before he died regardless of
the injunction.
Early in the century the Typo
graphical Union put on a campaign
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