Annals of the great strikes in the United States

The Tidal Wave Reaches the Illinois Metropolis—The Bad Elements Restive—The Tramps Marching in by Hundreds—Chances for Plunder—The Commune Commences—Boastful Manifestos—Absurd Demand—The Social Atmosphere Grows Misty—Precautionary Measures by Civil and Military authorities—Noisy Demonstrations of the Internationalists—Citizens Philip Van Patten and George Schilling.

While the whole country was in an uproar, from the Wabash to the Delaware, and from the Chemung to the Kanawha, and the indications pointed to a greater uprising, and the development of passions of deeper intensity, as the movement among the working classes expanded, the eyes of the people of the entire West were turned with anxiety toward Chicago, the metropolis of the lakes. There was a feeling abroad, that Chicago occupied a peculiarly critical position in relation to the great uprising which was shaking the social and political structures of our country to their deepest foundations. Chicago is great in point of population, great in its commercial enterprise, great in the stores of wealth collected by her energetic merchants and bankers, great in the number and the magnificence of her public and private buildings; and above all, Chicago is great in the number and character of the daily newspapers issued from her printing offices. Furthermore, Chicago is great in the history of the country, on account of having been the scene of the greatest conflagration known in the annals of time; and Chicago is great as being the seat of more startling and sensational developments than any or all other American cities. Probably the reason for the general belief in the truth of the last statement is to be sought, in the fact that Chicago newspapers are confessedly in advance of all other newspapers in the world, as chroniclers of occurrences. They are emphatically daily records of all events in which any human being can possibly have any interest.

But with all its greatness, Chicago has its vileness also. Its great population is, perhaps, as much of a conglomerated mass, of as many races, kindreds and tongues, as the inhabitants in any other city in the world can be. There are English, Welsh, Irish, French, Polish, Bohemian, Italian, Russian, Danish and Swedish people among its hundreds of thousands of inhabitants. Chicago was long ago noted as having an unusually large number of Socialists, Internationalists, Spiritualists, and other peculiar people, among its inhabitants. It was the first city in this country, in which communism had the boldness to come out and avow itself openly. It was known generally, that the so-called “dangerous classes” were disproportionately numerous in Chicago, and hence the shudder of dread, with which men contemplated the bare possibility that these chronic lawbreakers might become the masters of the city, and compel obedience to any decree they might conclude to issue. If such crimes as theft, arson, and murder, could be committed by the wholesale in Pittsburgh, a much smaller city, what might not the proportionately larger class of roughs in Chicago do, when once they triumphed over all lawful authority, as they did in Pittsburgh? Men asked themselves this question as the advancing wave of discontent and passion rolled from the East, in resistless might toward the West, and wondered what answer time would give. Chicago was regarded as a place where the most serious consequences of the Great Strikes should be expected. And the sympathies of millions of people were evoked in its behalf. The city of the Great Conflagration might also become the scene of the greatest riots recorded in the history of the world. All hoped that it might escape, but all feared that it would not escape a visitation of the excitement, and many doubted the ability of the civil authorities to meet with a general uprising of “the dangerous classes” in that city.

The first intimation of the outbreak of the discontented in that city were received with a feeling of profound concern. The whole population of the great Northwest was interested. The great city, it was feared, was destined to undergo an ordeal, such as it had not before endured, overwhelming as had been the disasters which had swept over it. The torch alone, might light the fires of a greater conflagration than that which consumed temples, palaces, marts, and dwellings, during that memorable October night in 1871, and yet more awful things than that might happen, for with the devastation of the flames, death might revel in a horrible carnival. And men trembled at the suggestion of such a possibility.

The concessions made by numbers of the railway companies running into Chicago, prevented any strike among their employes, and thus withdrew from the movement a very large number of men, who became at once the friends of order, and the stern upholders of the law, instead of being doubtful friends, if not positive foes, of the law and order party. Again, the acts of pillage, arson, and murder, committed by roughs who had attached themselves to the cause of the laborers, at Baltimore and Pittsburgh, had put the striking workingmen on their guard against affiliations with such characters. The honest workingmen of the land turned away in disgust from the Socialists, and other agitators, who had in the very beginning of the movement come forward and assumed the control to promote their own visionary, not to say vicious, schemes. The American workingmen are not thieves, incendiaries, and murderers, but honest, true men, as a class, who were engaged in an effort to redress certain wrongs, of which they believed themselves to be victims. At first they were glad to welcome to their ranks, and thank for their assistance, all who came, professing sympathy. But when they saw the deeds of the Communists and roughs in Baltimore and Pittsburgh, which they did long before the waves of the labor-movement had reached Chicago and St. Louis, they were disgusted, felt themselves outraged, and dishonored by the association, and were ready to assist anybody representing the ideas of social order and political stability, to put down the howling mobs wherever they might appear.

These two causes—the action of the railway companies conceding the demands of the employes, and the conduct of the mobs of roughs, who had at first joined the workingmen in their movement, had prepared the way for the maintenance of law and order in Chicago. There could be no very serious infractions of the peace of the community, except by the class—already under the ban of the law—known as roughs. The workingmen neither had occasion, nor desire to become thieves, incendiaries, and murderers, nor to have association with persons of that character. They were not only, as a class, withdrawn from a position of active enmity against the good order of society, but had been transferred to the side which favored the preservation of order. Therefore the chances for Chicago to escape pillage and destruction were good, notwithstanding the immense number of visionary men, professional thieves, and idle and vicious characters to be found there, who were interested, or thought they were, in destroying all order and inaugurating a reign of terror.

Nevertheless Chicago was destined to be shaken as if by a mighty tempest. The Communists and the vicious of all classes and trades were sufficiently numerous to create no little trouble. It was well to be prepared to act with promptness and celerity, and make quick, sharp work with public offenders. And the Chicago officials had made ample preparations, so that when the announcement was made that the strikes had been inaugurated in Chicago, the municipal authorities were ready. The announcement did not cause any smiting together of knees, as in some other cities.

The strike of railroadmen in Chicago was commenced Monday night, July 23rd. The first announcement of trouble came from the men employed by the Michigan Central Railroad as switchmen. These were joined the following morning, by the entire force of firemen and brakemen employed by that Company. They claimed that they were forced to take the step by the arrogance, penuriousness, and unkindness of the managers of the road. Having abandoned their places, the strikers gathered in force on Tuesday morning, the 24th, and, in a body, visited the other railroad employes in the city, and induced them all, with the exception of employes of the Chicago and Northwestern, to quit work. Before noon on the 24th, only one railroad which was running trains out of Chicago had any freight trains moving on their tracks.

As soon as the announcement of the strike among railroadmen had spread through the city, a mob, among whom were few or no strikers, but composed largely of disreputable characters, was speedily assembled, to the number of about five hundred men, and started out on a career of lawlessness on the West Side. These ruffians visited manufactories, and all other places where men were employed, and compelled the workmen to desist from their labors.

Before sundown of the 24th, the railroad offices in the city, and the depots and yards of all the railroads wore a quiet and desolate appearance. The great traffic of a mighty city had suddenly ceased. The wheels of commerce stood still, and silence fell upon the lately bustling marts. The railroad companies had anticipated the strikes, and had sent away as many cars from the city yards as possible.

The mob, which commenced its march in the morning, and paid attention first to the railroad shops, continued all day performing its evil mission. The closing of the workshops of the railroad companies, which had been accomplished without difficulty, emboldened the self-constituted guardians of the rights of workingmen, and they proceeded next to the shops, founderies, mills and lumber yards, to command the laborers employed in them to cease from their toil.

Meanwhile the band, which started out in the morning with five hundred men, had grown to a multitude of two thousand men, and had been divided into sections. This mob was largely composed of boys, ranging in age from sixteen to twenty years. The mob did not respect the wishes of the laborers in the shops of the Chicago and Northwestern Railway, who had not struck, but compelled them to quit.

Mayor Heath was not idle during this eventful day. Determined to preserve the public peace, and maintain good order in the city, he was taking such steps as would give him control of an available force of picked men, sufficient in numbers and appointments to enforce his orders when the time should arrive for decisive action. All the afternoon, the Chief Magistrate of the city was engaged in selecting and swearing in a select body of citizens to act as special police during the continuance of the crisis. Nor was he content with these precautionary measures alone. In view of the threatened danger, he had conferred with the military commanders stationed in Chicago, and through them had induced the Federal Administration to order to that city the Twenty-second United States Infantry, then doing duty in Dakota. This regiment was to have gone further East, but the threatening aspect of affairs at Chicago, was sufficient reason for a halt there.

In the meantime, as the day wore away, the city exhibited evidence of the general uneasiness which pervaded the public mind. Late in the evening the Blue Island avenue cars were stopped for about an hour, by one of the gangs, into which the mob had been divided. The rumor spread with great rapidity, that the mob proposed to stop all travel on the horse-car lines, and this served to increase the excitement on the streets. But there was really no occasion for the intensity of interest manifested. The leaders of the gang which had stopped the cars, were promptly arrested and locked up by the police, and the cars continued to run as usual.

The wildest reports of the action of the mob were in circulation by nightfall. It was a field day for the Press reporters, who seemed ubiquitous, narrowly watching every movement, seizing upon the most trifling incident, and elaborating from it whole columns of matter. In former days, chroniclers of great events would not have occupied so much space in detailing the circumstances attending the shock of mighty armies in battle, as was used by the press reporters in Chicago in reporting the movements of a parcel of discontented men, and a multitude of street boys. The parade of the mob was the most formidable part of the trouble of the day. In truth, there had been no attempt at incendiarism, few altercations, and scarcely a single breach of the peace. The lawlessness of the gangs were manifested in no other way than interfering with peaceable citizens, to prevent them from pursuing their usual avocations. Upon the whole, it was a very good natured sort of mob, indulging in pleasantries while engaged in violating the law, by trenching on the rights of others. But the conduct of the mob on the 24th, was only a prelude to more dangerous demonstrations, and more decisive actions. Collisions had been expected, but, as the evening advanced, far into the night, no intelligence of conflicts had been received, and gradually the streets were deserted by the crowds which had thronged them, and the great city sank into a profound repose soon after midnight. The eventful day had passed, and no stirring or startling occurrence had taken place.

Wednesday, July 25th, dawned mistily upon the city. Clouds of vapor hung suspended over Lake Michigan, and shadowed the streets, and palaces of Chicago. There was gloom on the faces of men as well as on the face of nature. The apprehension of conflicts, of incendiary torches, of disaster and death, had a strong hold on the public mind.

Early in the day, it was announced that the Union Stock and Rolling Mills, and Malleable Iron Works on the North Side, had closed, thus transferring three hundred industrious men to the ranks of the idlers. It was this rapid increase in the number of idle men, that served to increase the general uneasiness. There is mischief in idleness, and this was a time when men dreaded any enlargement of the possible elements of mischief-making.

The first conflict between the mob and the representatives of lawful authority took place on the morning of the 25th. A section of the mob was moving on Twenty-second street, when it was met by a squad of police officers. The mob was largely composed of a class of persons, to be found in all cities, who regard police officers as their natural foes. Being now in a large body together, it occurred to them that an excellent opportunity was afforded to have revenge on their enemies, hence they proceeded to treat the officers to a shower of stones, and then advanced upon them with sticks. The police officers were prepared for them, and drawing their pistols, they advanced upon the crowd, fired their pistols, charged with blank cartridges, then advanced briskly, club in hand, to the assault. The officers of the law were quickly among the rioters, applying their clubs in a way exceedingly unpleasant to the lawbreakers, who speedily scattered, some of them with bleeding heads. Two of the officers were struck, but received slight injuries.

Another section of the rowdies, seized the Phœnix Distillery, compelled the employes to quit work, drove the proprietors from the place, and closed the establishment. The proprietors applied to the United States army officers for protection, and re-instatement.

On the North Side, the rabble who were assuming to regulate other people’s affairs, showed themselves particularly incompetent to govern their own actions in a proper manner. They were very noisy, and made themselves particularly obnoxious by lawless deeds. This crowd showed a decidedly bellicose disposition, and amused themselves by smashing windows and defacing buildings in all cases where objection was made to their proceedings. At the North Side Rolling Mills, a large company of strikers defied the police, and compelled them to retire discomfited from the field. The police returned to their station-houses, and the strikers marched on.

The excitement in the city was growing hour by hour. Men were uncertain, apprehensive, fearful. What would come of all this? What did the mighty movement that now extended from the Atlantic to the Pacific mean? What would become of government, society, institutions, the hopes of mankind, if the element which had suddenly exhibited so much zeal, vigor, and organization, should succeed in their purposes? These were questions presented to the minds of all, but answered satisfactorily by no one.

Early in the morning of Wednesday, a gang of some twenty or thirty rowdies boarded a passenger train on the Illinois Central Railroad, just before it left the depot. When it had gone a short distance, they compelled the engineer to back up, and return to the depot-yard. Another gang attempted to stop the dummy, which runs from the Union Stock Yards. In this purpose they were thwarted by the coolness and daring of the conductor, who, with drawn revolver in hand, defied the roughs, and proceeded on his way.

One of the sections which visited a large white lead and oil manufactory, not meeting with the cordial reception they believed themselves entitled to receive, expressed their disgust by attacking the building with a perfect shower of stones. They succeeded in destroying a considerable amount of glass, which was in the windows. A few sailors joined in the general sentiment of workingmen on a strike, and struck for an advance of wages. But the masses of the jolly tars did not take kindly to the fashion of the land-lubbers, and as a consequence the sailors’ strike was a failure.

There was a collision between a band of rioters and policemen at the corner of Twelfth and Canal streets. The police were successful in vanquishing the roughs, struck a goodly number with clubs, severely bruising a few, and arresting quite a number of them.

All saloons were closed on the West Side at an early hour in the day. Later orders were issued by the Mayor to close all saloons in the city. The penalty for refusing to comply with the order was the revocation of their licenses. No one had been killed in all the encounters between police officers and the mob, though a number of the former had received ugly cuts and bruises, and many of the latter had suffered from severe beatings inflicted by the strong arms of the officers wielding their clubs.

The arrival of a portion of the Twenty-Second Regiment of United States infantry, from Dakota, was an event which cheered the hearts of the law-abiding citizens, if it did not have the effect of striking terror into the souls of the riotous mob.

All the afternoon the strikers—or rather the mob, for there were very few railroadmen or strikers from shops and factories, among the crowds which marched around to order the stopping of work—continued their parade begun the day before. Many shops were visited, many honest men were intimidated from earning bread for their families.

The City Council had a session in the afternoon, and adopted a series of resolutions, supporting the measures taken by the Mayor, for the preservation of peace, and authorizing him to make whatever expenditures might be deemed necessary, in order to protect the lives and property of the citizens. In addition, a measure was introduced and referred to the Committee on Finance, authorizing the Mayor to borrow the sum of half a million of dollars, to be expended on public improvements, in order that those idle might be furnished employment. This action of the City Council fairly illustrates the condition of the public mind, as it was manifested in Chicago on the 25th of July, 1877. The Mayor issued another proclamation reiterating his requests, that patrols be formed, and that idlers and curious people, and especially women and children, keep off the streets, and ordering police and citizens to arrest disorderly persons. The authorities would not be responsible for consequences of the collection of people in a crowd.

The merchants held a meeting, and made arrangements for an organized body of special police, composed of merchants and employes, who should not disband until peace was restored.

As yet, no real difficulty had been encountered. The citizens were excited; the discontented and dangerous elements were fully aroused, and the aspect of affairs were certainly threatening. There was not wanting evidence that a large number of people in that city would hail with keen satisfaction the inauguration of a reign of terror, such as had been experienced at Pittsburgh, only more terrible because of the greater number of people involved.

Meanwhile, the various sections of the “Workingmen’s Party of the United States”—the Internationalists were suddenly galvanized into energetic life by the events which had been taking place everywhere—were holding meetings daily and nightly, in many different parts of the city, enrolling new members and doing a remarkable amount of talking about their purposes, and their readiness to assert their “rights,” and make war on society to the extent of subverting the established political and social institutions of the country. The Communists were in their element. The citizens, Philip Van Patten, and George Schilling, leaders of the Internationalists were unusually alert. They were taking counsel with their followers continually.

On the night of the 25th, a mass meeting, under the auspices of the Workingmen’s Party of the United States, was held at Madison and Market streets. This meeting was attended by perhaps one thousand eight hundred, or two thousand persons. The same evening a meeting of the Labor League was held at Maskell’s Hall, on Desplaines street. All day the sections of the mob had been going about the streets, interfering with the men in various manufactories, compelling men to close up, and doing many unlawful and malicious acts. But they were not wearied at night. The various halls where the members of the trades’ unions met, were well filled. And yet the throngs in the street were not less numerous. Even the workingmen, and the Internationalists seemed to have been surprised by the suddenness and evident momentum of the popular movement in Chicago.

Messrs. Van Patten, Schilling, Parsons, and other members of “The Workingmen’s Party of the United States,” do not seem to have fully comprehended the nature of the movement in progress around them. During the early part of the day these men, who composed “The Executive Committee,” issued an address to workingmen, in which they advised them, under any circumstances, to keep quiet until they should have given the crisis due consideration. An Executive Committee, they announced, had been appointed to receive delegates from every shop, mill, and trades’ union wherever there were one hundred united, to lay out a plan how to work and better their situation. They were invited to appoint delegates and send them at any time after eight o’clock that night.

It was announced that The Executive Committee would sit all night at No. 113 Milwaukee avenue.

The place selected for the meeting that night was not deemed suitable, and it had been the purpose of the leaders to change the place of meeting to Milwaukee avenue. It was too late. By seven o’clock a large crowd had gathered, and there was all the material for a first-class communistic meeting, and very soon a regular mass meeting was organized on the west side of Market street. Some one arose and commenced making a speech, but the tenor of his remarks was not satisfactory to his audience, and a clamor was raised which compelled him to desist. Then another man, whose name was not announced, arose, and in fervid tones, and florid rhetoric, commenced to animadvert upon the conduct and purposes of the capitalists, and to paint in horrid colors the terrible slavery of the workingmen. He dwelt with telling emphasis upon the wickedness of Thomas A. Scott, John W. Garrett, and men like them, and declared that the press was owned and controlled by men who were in alliance with these arch-enemies of the laboring masses. This orator of “The Workingman’s Party of the United States,” soon concluded his remarks, as the crowd seemed to be altogether too merry in mood to attend to the long-drawn sentences of any man for any considerable length of time.

A Mr. Malton followed, and opened up a plan to heal all the wounds. His proposition was to send a delegation to Washington, demand that the President should convene Congress at once, that Congress should be instructed by the people to authorize the issue of Treasury notes, to the workingmen, worth dollar for dollar in Government bonds, to be redeemable within sixty days, in order that the laboring masses might be saved from starvation. The ideas of Mr. Malton, were hailed with delight by the mass of men before him.

An ex-soldier of the Union army, next mounted the stage. He showed a crippled and distorted hand, which, he said, was the result of wounds received “while fighting for this glorious country.” Five other scars of bullet wounds, he declared, adorned his body. He said when he entered the army, he was promised a life of honor and emolument in case he should be wounded in his country’s service. “How had these promises been carried out?” Here he was a cripple, and receiving the beggarly pittance of six dollars a month. The promises made him were infamous lies. What cared the men who had reaped benefits from his services, for him now in his distress? He was in favor of making the bondholders, and social thieves, and political knaves feel the weight of an indignant people’s wrath. “The veteran,” continued at some length. Some one else took the stand and harangued the crowd for awhile in much the same strain.

The crowd was a very orderly one. It was composed of all classes of citizens. Many had gone from mere curiosity. There was no breach of the peace or other disorderly manifestations. Notwithstanding this fact, about this time a squad of police officers made their appearance, marching briskly down Market street, and immediately charged the crowd congregated there, and very quickly dispersed them. It has not yet been made apparent by what right a peaceable assemblage of men were thus assailed by the representatives of lawful authority. But it was not a favorable time for a strict observance of the inhibitions of the supreme law of the land—the Constitution of the United States—by the police authorities of Chicago. It was assumed, that such meetings were about to, or might possibly lead to, a breach of the peace, then or at some other time. So the people were driven away.

At Maskell’s Hall, on Desplaines street, another meeting was held. This one was under the auspices of the Labor League of Chicago. But the views advanced by the speakers were not much less impracticable than those entertained by the speakers at the meeting of the Internationalists. The speech of the evening was delivered by Mr. John McGiloray. A brief synopsis of his remarks will serve to show the spirit of the laboring men, in the great movement in progress.

Mr. McGiloray asserted, that “the workingman was the power of the world; labor had arisen in all its power, and demanded better times. What was the cause of the bad times was a question. If a man deposited his vote in the ballot box wisely, there would be no trouble in the country.” He would not attempt to make them believe that it was necessary for the Government to own the railroads nor the telegraph. Years ago there were two parties in the country; they fought, and the weaker was brought under, and slavery was abolished. They were merely machines, not valued as even slaves would be, but used eight or ten hours and thrown aside. They had the right to choose their employers, and these employers had the liberty to discharge their men. The dollar of the fathers was good during the war; debts were paid with greenbacks, and justly. The European capitalists did not like greenbacks. Like Shylock, they wanted flesh, but not only flesh, but blood, and so the British corporations secured, with the use of a good deal of money, the act demonetizing the silver, which from time immemorial had been a good currency. The speaker said he had seen a newspaper which begged and cried for the demonetizing of silver, now crying for the remonetizing of silver, and the repeal of the Resumption Act. It showed on the whole that the logic of circumstances was stronger than the arguments of any petty paper. Specimen bricks were used to show their wares by the owners of silver mines out West, that they who saw might buy. Such a specimen, although an unworthy one, was President Garrett, of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, who said he had a surplus of thirty-three million dollars. This gentleman said that hard times existed, and on this account the wages of his men must be reduced. Again, Henry Ward Beecher, the reverend gentleman, said that men could live on bread and water (hisses); he had physical ability which had been tested in various ways. Mr. McGiloray then read an extract from the Times giving Henry Ward Beecher’s opinion on the strike. He advised his hearers if they struck, to strike quietly and decently, and not to go into incendiarism, and then the authorities would have no right to interfere. They could not hurt the railroad companies nor the insurance companies by setting fire to their property. All the property damaged must be paid by the workingmen, for the city, county, and State would have to pay, and with the present County Commissioners who were inclined in a fair way to extras, they would get the full value of the property. He was glad that the railroads were partly acceding to the demands of the men. The cause of the trouble was the laws, not made by workingmen, but by lawyers, who knew little or nothing of the wants of the people. There were not enough workingmen in the halls of Congress. The railroads had speculative men to push them; they were too many, consequently they went into the hands of the Receiver. Congress, instead of giving to railroads subsidies, should colonize the farmer on the Government lands, and should loan to him in place of the capitalists. The city was overloaded with men. There had been hard times, and men had felt pinched. There had been no over production but an under-consuming.

Alderman Frank Lawler and others addressed the meeting, and advocated the workingman’s cause.

So the day passed, the night came, and the crowds of men, women, and children thronged the streets by thousands. There had been no very serious conflicts during the day, and no lives had been lost. The police had been active and vigilant, the mob had been noisy, but not very combative. A hundred different places had been closed by striking workingmen and mobs of vicious idlers, throwing out of employment ten or fifteen thousand persons. The railroads had ceased to move freight trains. All commercial business had been suspended, and the situation of the city had become exceedingly critical.

The appearance of Chicago during the night of the 25th, reminded one of the situation in New York during the great draft riots of 1864. There was an uncounted number of tramps, thieves, pimps and vicious idlers of every grade, intermixed with the workingmen, encouraging them in their strike against their employers, and counseling them to proceed to extreme and lawless measures. In the neighborhood of Lake street, half intoxicated, slatternly, frail women of the lowest type, joined the throngs of roughs who frequent that locality, and made night hideous with their obscene exclamations, and horrible profanity. Of such as these were the petroleuses of the Parisian Commune of 1871. In certain parts of the city, unusual quiet prevailed during the afternoon and evening. All the saloons had been closed, the Mayor had sworn into service two thousand special policemen, General Torrence had called out two militia regiments, who were in their armories awaiting orders; several companies of the Twenty-Second United States Infantry were quartered in the Tabernacle, so as to be accessible to any possible scene of conflict in the city, and the Committee of Safety felt assured, that the law-abiding citizens would triumph over any possible mob of rioters. Including police, militia, United States regulars, and independent military companies, acting as a posse, it was estimated that there were no less than fifteen thousand men under arms, and ready for action on call, in Chicago, on the night of the 25th of July, 1877. The sentiment in favor of the maintenance of the law was strong and decisive.