Annals of the great strikes in the United States

Excitement in East St. Louis—Scenes on “Bloody Island”—Council of the Trainmen—A Night at Heim’s Hall—Hite’s Thrilling Oratorical Flight—“Oppressed Labor”—“The Executive Committee”—Bold Jack Benson—Organized for Business—Across the Great Bridge—Trains Stopped—Slight Dissension Among the Strikers—Blue Coats in the Early Morning—General Jeff. C. Davis Moves Over—Resigning Potentates—Governor Cullom—General Bates—Exemplary Conduct of the Strikers—The Last Scene.

At East St. Louis the situation on the morning of the 22d of July, bid fair to be one of great moment to East St. Louis; while those who knew the situation across the river were already beginning to appreciate what an awful calamity might befall St. Louis if the railroad strikers should take it into their heads to play as desperate a game as was played at Pittsburgh. East St. Louis is situated on the Illinois bank, and as its name implies is East of St. Louis, being directly opposite. It was once an island, a wild tract of land, and is famous in history as “Bloody Island,” on account of the many duels fought on its shores, in the early history of St. Louis, when the code was recognized among “gentlemen of honor” as the only way to settle disputes of a serious character, and the only proper way of avenging wounded honor. Since the reign of railroads it has been the converging point of a network of all the railways approaching from the East, and has naturally become a populous and important point. It will therefore at once be seen that as the railroads which fed St. Louis with freight and passengers converged here, and thence across the great bridge and through the tunnel to the Union Depot, the strikers would be almost invincible if they could but once gain a firm foothold at East St. Louis. They were not slow in finding out, nor were the railway companies long in ascertaining that the enemy had met them, and that they were in the hands of the foe.

At twelve o’clock, on the night of July 21st, the brakemen, firemen, and some switchmen, employed on the numerous lines of railroads centering at East St. Louis, had struck for the same pay as had been received before the January reduction. Reports had come in over the Ohio and Mississippi road, that “the boys at Seymour, Indiana, had set the ball to rolling the night previous.” The news spread from mouth to mouth. The Toledo, Wabash and Western employes were receiving the same pay as had been previously given before the general reduction on the other roads, but the employes on this line, ceased work in order to assist their fellow workers, on the other roads.

Meetings had been appointed for Saturday night, at eight o’clock, P. M., and by that hour East St. Louis presented a livelier scene than it had ever presented before. At the time appointed every one, from humble section hands to the skilled engineers, were alive to the importance of the event. The meeting was appointed for Heim’s Hall, a spacious place, but its dimensions were not sufficient to contain the crowd, and other meetings were held in the open air, addressed by speakers who were fired with enthusiasm in behalf of the laboring men.

There was nothing to do on the tracks, because the General Freight Agents had telegraphed from St. Louis to Sub-agents at East St. Louis not to let any freight go until further orders. Thus, for the first time, people began to see that the pulsation in the great rail artery, which crossed the bridge, had stopped, and for the first time they realized the condition this predicament had placed on the commerce of the largest city west of the Mississippi, and hundreds flocked over from St. Louis to the Eastern suburb, to read the men who had dared to place the embargo upon traffic, and to listen to the stories of their wrongs as portrayed by their leaders.

The meeting at Heim’s Hall was presided over by a man by the name of George Kessenger, brakeman on the Wabash Line. A damper was cast over the meeting by a call from a few lookers-on present, for a speech from Hon. Luke H. Hite, ex-member of the Illinois Legislature, a lawyer, and of some prominence in the city, but hardly to be called a workingman in the sense the strikers viewed the matter. Mr. Hite is a leading politician of St. Clair County, in which East St. Louis is located, and did not wait for a second asking to mount the platform, where he dwelt upon the relation of capital to labor. He said that the war just inaugurated was a war of the laboring men to gain what was their own. He severely denounced the system of paying high salaries to railroad officers, and “sapping,” as he said, “the very vitals of the laboring men to support the luxuries of the officers.” Mr. Hite’s speech was of such tone and character as caused it to be received with great applause, and in some instances, violent vociferation. After portraying the wrongs of the strikers in their most exaggerated colorings, he told them that they held the key, and they could lock or unlock the commerce of a great city, even shut it out from the world. Great excitement here prevailed. Voices of “we will hold it!” “All h—l can’t stop us!” were heard from various parts of the crowd. Perhaps no speech could have added more fuel to the flame than Mr. Hite’s. A thrilling orator; possessed of no mean intellectual capacity; he fired minds that might have otherwise thought differently of the movement with the morrow’s dawn. Other speeches followed until midnight found the strikers at fever heat, inspired by the spirit of leaders, some of whom were demagogues, but others, as thoroughly in earnest as Patrick Henry or Oliver Cromwell in their respective revolutionary times. Cheer after cheer was given by the rank and file for the men who had espoused their cause, and the few merchants and citizens who had come across the river from St. Louis, to see what they supposed were a handful of ragged men, went back to the city shaking their heads ominously. To add to the fears of the law-abiding, all sorts of rumors flew through the air. It was whispered that there was a car-load of gunpowder on the track, and that it was to be used in blowing down the sides of the tunnel. Another was that there were several car loads of coal oil at the freight depots, which the strikers could at once run on to the bridge, and in a few moments destroy the Eastern approach, which is composed of wood-work. Other wild flights of imagination were indulged in, and there was no wonder that the visitors from the Western end of the bridge were frightened at its prospect, or that the humble burghers of East St. Louis, passed a restless night.

Before the close of the Saturday night meetings, a fair organization was furnished for carrying out a programme of operations. Committees were appointed, as general conference bodies, to act together in electing an Executive Committee, which was to be considered the head of authority by all the strikers, and their orders were to be obeyed strictly. The following were the committee appointed.

Ohio and Mississippi—P. Rodgers, J. Lynch and Dan Burke.

Vandalia—J. McCarthy, Chas. Hunt and Wm. Walpole.

Indianapolis and St. Louis—Wm. Blanchard, Con. Connors and John Rouch.

Union Railway and Transit Company—Jack McCabe, Joe James and Wm. Shea.

Foreman Switchmen—Jas. Lynch, Tim Sullivan and Dennis Rush.

These Committees, met in secret session the next day and elected an Executive Committee, but the names of the members, were not publicly announced.

Monday, the 23rd, opened on a strange scene at East St. Louis. The Executive Committee at once determined not to stop passenger trains, but to stop all freight trains. There were at least five hundred strikers at East St. Louis. They took possession of the Relay Depot, where all passenger trains meet, captured the telegraph wires leading to the Union Depot, and in the early part of the morning kept up a constant clicking with their co-workers at the Union Depot, each party keeping the other posted in relation to the operations in progress. The Executive Committee in East St. Louis kept constantly closeted in a small shed, in which the East St. Louis end of the telegraph terminated, and from a small window issued their orders, which were carried out by subalterns. One of the first orders issued that showed a spirit of determination was to order the cattle yards, large enclosures, about two miles east of the bridge, to close, and allow no stock to leave the yards or to enter them. Feed, however, was allowed to be transferred to the stock, and the strikers at East St. Louis avowed their intention of carrying on the war on humanitarian principles. Mayor Bowman, who was powerless in the hands of so large a force as was marshalled at the Relay Depot, could do nothing with his dozen policemen, and the Sheriff of the county, after having viewed the crowd, concluded they were too many for him, and returned to Belleville, the county-seat of St. Clair county, some fourteen miles distant, where a company of militia, under Captain Andel, had been duly sworn into service on the 4th day of July. The militia were not ordered out at that time by Governor Cullom, of Illinois, as he did not wish to precipitate a repetition of the Pittsburgh troubles. No sooner had the strikers found out their strength in East St. Louis than various orders were given by the committee to request laborers at the different car shops to desist from work. In every case the laborers threw aside their aprons and their tools, and swelled the number of strikers who stood around the Relay Depot, but were not put on duty as railroad guards. The first day closed in East St. Louis with the strikers triumphant and greatly encouraged. The campaign had been carefully and coolly conducted.

Mayor Bowman had been requested by the East St. Louis Executive Committee, to go across to St. Louis and ascertain what the railroad companies would agree to do. That evening, Monday the 23rd, he made a speech to the strikers, giving the result of his trip across the river.

Mr. Bowman’s speech met with applause in spots where the companies were favorable to a compromise, and at the conclusion, the crowd dispersed, somewhat conciliated, and more than ever determined to win in the strike.

Thus far no passenger trains had been stopped. One freight train had attempted to go out on the Chicago and Alton road, but it was quickly mounted, the engineer pulled from his place, and the fire in the engine furnace, extinguished.

Tuesday morning “opened dark o’er head,” but the ardor of the strikers had not cooled, but on the contrary increased in intensity. Strikers in large numbers had passed the night as they did every night while they held the situation, in guarding railroad property, twenty million dollars worth of property was thus placed in the hands of these men to guard against tramps, and the ever present mob which associate themselves with a movement of this kind, for the purpose of plunder. To the honor of the strikers, be it said, that though the strike lasted ten days, not a pound of freight was stolen, nor a dollar’s worth of property destroyed.

Early on Tuesday, the 25th, two of the members of the Executive Committee committed the first blunder, the occasion of a small dissension in their ranks. Without having a conference with the other members of the committee, they decided to stop passenger trains. The other three members of the committee were in St. Louis, and had been there all night for the purpose of further planning the campaign. The first train stopped was the Vandalia mail and express. As all trains have to stop at the Relay Depot in East St. Louis before switching on to their respective roads, there was no chance for trains to run the blockade, even though no obstructions had been placed on the tracks. No sooner had the Vandalia train, arrived at the Relay Depot, at 9:30 in the morning, than Jack Benson, the boldest of all the strikers, stepped between the mail coach and the next passenger coach and told the conductor to go on as they did not wish to obstruct the mails. Immediately at least five hundred strikers, together with two or three hundred miners who had joined in the movement, surrounded the train, and with their whooping and cheering succeeded in frightening the conductor, as well as a number of ladies on the train, whose minds were fresh from reading the terrible record of the Pittsburgh riots, and who feared a mob would ensue. Benson was backed by another member of the committee, and conductor Mac Mahon surrendered the situation. At this time, another member of the committee arrived on the spot, and denounced the movement as premature, and that the two strikers had acted without authority. He said that if trains were to be stopped, they should be stopped at the Union Depot, and not subject the passengers to be dumped out that far away from home. After a half hour’s delay, the whole train was allowed to proceed.

This little break was the first made in the strike, and resulted in a telegram from the East St. Louis Executive Committee, asking the latter to stop all passenger trains from going out at Union Depot. But the St. Louis committee were not to be governed by this order, and were discreet enough to pay no attention to it, and all trains desiring to depart were allowed to do so. The managers of the Ohio and Mississippi, and the St. Louis and Southeastern—both being in the hands of receivers by the decree of the United States Court, determined only to send mail cars, without passenger coaches.

In the afternoon of Tuesday, a large delegation seized three coal flats and an engine, and in command of the Executive Committee, went across the bridge and forming in line at the Union Depot, marched to the Missouri Pacific Car Works, and stopped the men at that establishment.

That night the East Louis strikers seized several coal flats and went across to St. Louis, where they joined in the procession which marched through that city.

During these two eventful days, the miners of St. Clair county had been holding meetings at Belleville, at which some loud talk and braggadocio had been indulged in by fiery leaders. Resolutions were adopted, by the miners, setting forth their sympathies in the work the railroad employes were engaged in, and assuring them that one thousand men were at their command at any time, should they be needed. As before stated, a large number of miners from the coal regions in the vicinity of Belleville repaired to East St. Louis as spectators, but subsequently, as will be seen, left the field as soon as danger approached.

Wednesday and Thursday were uneventful days in that week of the strike at East St. Louis, with the exception of the total stoppage of all trains on Thursday, by the railway companies themselves. At the meeting of the East St. Louis Strikers Executive Committee on Friday morning, four of the five resigned, and their places were filled. Jack Benson alone remained firm. The cause of the resignation was probably the fear of Governor Cullom’s appearance on the field, and the results which might follow his order for all the militia of Central and Southern Illinois to repair at once to East St. Louis. Four other bold strikers were at once put in the place of men who resigned, and the new committee at once resolved that, as one of them expressed it, they would “hold the strike, even against the legions of hell.”

Saturday morning opened bright and lovely, and while the rays of the sun as it rose, reddened the windows of the tall houses, lining the levee in St. Louis, General Jefferson C. Davis, with four hundred and some odd men of the United States army, eight companies in all, were taken on board the St. Louis Harbor Boat (Elon G. Smith) about 3:30 A. M., at the arsenal, whence they proceeded to the bridge, landing about a quarter of a mile south of the structure. They passed up to the roundhouse, but found no one there; they went to the Relay Depot where was found a large body of “strikers.” They were ordered to disperse, which request they complied with.

Company E made three arrests; no one hurt; not a single shot was fired. One of the members of Company D captured a musket. Three freight trains have had their engines fired, and were sent over. The members of the crew of the Elon G. Smith congratulated Captain J. F. Morehead for the manner in which the short campaign was conducted.

The eight companies of General Davis’ regulars were stationed all along the lines of the different railroads, with the exception of one company, to guard the Relay Depot. All the passenger trains leaving the Union Depot were allowed to proceed on their way without obstruction from the strikers.

By Sunday morning, ten companies of militia from the interior of the State had arrived in East St. Louis. Over these General Bates was placed, as commanding officer. The militia were distributed at different points, and had little to do except to guard railroad property. The Sabbath passed off quietly, and the back-bone of the strike at that point was broken. There was a quieter appearance on Monday morning, July 30th, than at any time during the strike. What had become of the strikers? was a conundrum not easy to be answered. Where, for a week, the strikers had held high carnival, soldiers of the United States and militia-men were seen in military squads, some in guard of the Relay Depot, some guarding property, and others camped about in the vicinity with their stacked arms close at hand. There was a military aspect in the view which carried the spectator back to the days of the Confederate war. Colonel James Roe, United States Marshal for the Southern District of Illinois, had quietly arrived on Saturday night, and was left in charge by Governor Cullom, of all the militia, and requested by the Governor to decide all matters of dispute, and, in fact, direct the campaign. Colonel Roe, while an aged man in appearance, was young in intellect, and to him much of the credit of an early termination of the strike in East St. Louis is due. He had hardly arrived on the ground when he put detectives, which he had brought with him from Springfield and Chicago, on the track of the leaders conducting the strikes. The detectives were not long in ascertaining the prime movers, and as fast as they were discovered, warrants were sworn out against them. These warrants embraced in their comprehensiveness all the members of the original Executive Committee, together with the added members of the new, nine in all. These warrants were not served immediately after being sworn out except in two cases. These two were served on two of the existing committee, Benson and Gainey, who were immediately arrested by the militia, and placed in the guard-house, which consisted of an empty freight car, and were taken that night to Springfield, where they were subsequently tried, found guilty of contempt of court in disobeying the decree of the court in interfering with trains on the Ohio and Mississippi, and St. Louis and Southeastern Railroads.

By Tuesday, the historic “Bloody Island” of East St. Louis, presented pretty much the same appearance as it did before the strike, the cheerful whistle of the engine was heard on all the tracks, and the busy bustle in making up freight trains, was noticed on every hand. Passenger trains were leaving on time, without the least molestation, either at East St. Louis or any other points on the different roads. Occasionally a lone striker could be seen pensively contemplating the scenes of which he and his companions were but yesterday masters, but most of the strikers were scattered to the winds. Their leaders had been captured or had deserted, there was nothing to keep the organization together, and it disbanded. The number of arrests made in East St. Louis during the strike, were but twenty-seven, most of whom were “taken in” as suspicious characters. All but the two taken to Springfield, were released on Tuesday. By Thursday of the second week of the strike, the militia-men had left for their homes, and the United States troops alone remained, under charge of Colonel Smith, to guard Government property. These troops remained at East St. Louis for two weeks, when, it having been ascertained that the strikers had all gone to work, and were showing no hostilities, the troops were ordered to the arsenal, in St. Louis. In the conclusion of this chapter, it must be admitted, and cheerfully acknowledged, that the conduct of the strikers was most exemplary. Led on by hot-headed politicians, in the out-start, their leaders as well as the rank and file remained cool and determined till overpowered by the soldiery, and throughout the strike, not only did no destruction to life or property, but even took upon themselves the duty of conserving the peace, and guarding the property which they had assumed temporary charge of. One touch of the fire brand in certain localities, where miles and miles of cars stood, piled as it were together, and there would have been a conflagration, such as would have made the horrors of Pittsburgh pale into insignificance. As it was, there was not a drop of blood shed, nor a particle of property injured, and when they saw that capital as it always has, had crushed them, and scattered their hosts, they went back to their labors, determined to accept the situation.