page_title: Pullman Strike
section_title: Politics
hierarchical_section_title: Pullman Strike / Aftermath / Politics
caption_attribution_description: English: Political cartoon from the July 21, 1894 cover of Harper's Weekly. The political cartoon is labeled "The Vanguard of Anarchy" and depicts Eugene Debs the leader of the American Railway Union being carried on a throne among a procession which carries a standard that states anarchy. The political cartoon is commenting on the Pullman Strike of 1894 which Eugene Debs led.
context_page_description: The Pullman Strike was a nationwide railroad strike in the United States that lasted from May 11 to July 20, 1894, and a turning point for US labor law. It pitted the American Railway Union against the Pullman Company, the main railroads, and the federal government of the United States under President Grover Cleveland. The strike and boycott shut down much of the nation's freight and passenger traffic west of Detroit, Michigan. The conflict began in Pullman, Chicago, on May 11 when nearly 4,000 factory employees of the Pullman Company began a wildcat strike in response to recent reductions in wages. A total of 30 workers were killed.
  Most of the factory workers who built Pullman cars lived in the "company town" of Pullman on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois. The industrialist George Pullman had designed it ostensibly as a model community. Pullman had a diverse work force. He wanted to hire African-Americans for certain jobs at the company. Pullman used ads and other campaigns to help bring workers into his company.
  When his company laid off workers and lowered wages, it did not reduce rents, and the workers called for a strike.
context_section_description: Following his release from prison in 1895, ARU President Debs became a committed advocate of socialism, helping in 1897 to launch the Social Democracy of America, a forerunner of the Socialist Party of America. He ran for president in 1900 for the first of five times as head of the Socialist Party ticket.
  Civil as well as criminal charges were brought against the organizers of the strike and Debs in particular, and the Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision, In re Debs, that rejected Debs' actions.  The Illinois Governor John P. Altgeld was incensed at Cleveland for putting the federal government at the service of the employers, and for rejecting Altgeld's plan to use his state militia rather than federal troops to keep order.
  Cleveland's administration appointed a national commission to study the causes of the 1894 strike; it found George Pullman's paternalism partly to blame and described the operations of his company town to be "un-American". In 1898, the Illinois Supreme Court forced the Pullman Company to divest ownership in the town, as its company charter did not authorize such operations, and the land was annexed to Chicago. Much of it is now designated as an historic district, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
caption: Harper's Weekly labeled Eugene Debs and the strike organizers as "The Vanguard of Anarchy", July 21, 1894.
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