This was followed by the reply of Mr. Debs in the issue of the Social Democratic Herald of June 4 and republished in the issue of June 25, as follows:
The brief article I had in the Herald of April 9 in reference to the wage reduction forced upon the coal miners by the mine owners, assisted by the national officers of the United Mine Workers, has not been ignored as Mr. Mitchell said it would be when it was first brought to his attention. It required Mr. Mitchell to summon the aid of his colleagues, six weeks of time and several columns of space to point out the “misstatements,” and so hopeless did they find the task that they had to confess failure in vulgar resort to personal detraction.
The alleged reply consists wholly of words. From first to last it is a quibble over minor points. Every material fact is evaded; every irrelevant detail is brought out and made to do duty in the circular procession.
The essential truth of my statement has not and will not be denied. It cannot be answered by personal abuse, nor extinguished by a deluge of meaningless words.
Suppose I were foolish enough to pose as a “martyr,” what has that to do with the case? Does it alter the fact that Mr. Mitchell, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Lewis used all the power of their official positions to help the operators reduce the wages of the miners, and this after Mr. Mitchell had proved conclusively that the reduction was “unwarranted” and after he had declared he would never consent to it?
Never mind about the “diseased imagination,” the “crucified martyr,” and the particular hour of adjournment. Is the above statement true or is it false?
Mr. Mitchell virtually admits it and his explanation places him in the attitude of a general on a field of battle, first assuring his soldiers that their cause is just and that they must face the enemy like men, and then, on the eve of the fight, turning about and saying to the same soldiers who had so lustily cheered him: “I have been in conference with the general on the other side and he has convinced me that we are taking desperate chances of being whipped, and so I advise that you accept the terms of the enemy and retreat from the field without a fight.”
As to the personal insinuations which are supposed to serve where argument fails, I regret as much as Mr. Mitchell seems to enjoy the meagerness of my service to the working class, but little as that service may amount to, I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is not of a quality to inspire the capitalist press to convince me that I am the greatest labor leader on earth.
And little as I may claim, as compared with Mr. Mitchell, there is yet enough to include an almost fatal sunstroke, sustained on a public highway, the only place allowed me under a federal injunction, while rallying a body of coal miners to unite in the fight for an increase of wages and join the United Mine Workers of America.
Mr. Mitchell claims that I accused him of dishonesty. I deny it. No such charge was made by me. I am concerned with acts and facts and not with motives. Mr. Mitchell’s honesty is not in question. Let that be conceded. Results remain the same.
Now what are the questions in controversy?
First—In my article of April 9 I incorporated a press dispatch sent out by the Pittsburg Post on March 6, saying that it, the Post, had it upon the “best authority” that there would be no strike, that the miners would accept the reduction, and that a two years’ contract would be signed.
The dispatch was sent out after the convention of miners at Indianapolis had turned down the ultimatum of the operators, and a strike seemed so imminent that the press uniformly declared that “only a miracle could prevent it.”
The prediction made in the dispatch came true to the letter. There was no strike, the reduction was accepted and the contract was made for two years.
The dispatch was undoubtedly sent out on the “best authority.” It was true prophecy. Now, the question is, Who is the “best authority” as to whether the miners will strike or not? Did the Post speak upon such authority? The outcome verifies it. Again, did the Post have such authority, or did it lie? The Post is friendly to Mr. Mitchell; will he say it lied? Will he have the Post name its “best authority”?
I inferred that the Post’s “best authority” was Mr. F. L. Robbins, leader of the mine owners, who lives in Pittsburg, where the Post is published, and I then asked, “Did Robbins, leader of the operators, have an understanding with Mitchell, president of the miners,” and I answered, “It must be admitted that it looks that way.”
This is the point that excites the wrath of the union officials. I now repeat it. To me it looks that way. I cannot avoid that conclusion.
The only error I made was in the date of adjournment. The convention adjourned March 7, not the 5th. Upon this point I stand corrected, but it is wholly immaterial. The convention refused the ultimatum of the operators on the 5th, the press reports saying “the vote was cast in the face of the opposition of President Mitchell and the other national officers.” Next day the Post sent out its prophetic dispatch. That is the point at issue, the action of the convention and the Post’s prophetic announcement next day. The date of adjournment does not alter the fact in the smallest degree.
“But,” says Mr. Mitchell, “Mr. Robbins had not returned to Pittsburg and therefore could not have given the Post the information—that disposes of the ‘misstatement.’” Not quite. The Post had a representative at Indianapolis and there are telegraph wires between there and Pittsburg.
When I said that in my opinion there was an “understanding” between Robbins and Mitchell I simply meant what I said. The men are on friendly personal terms. There is nothing wrong about that. When “they shook hands in the presence of the delegates and engaged in earnest conversation and were loudly applauded by the convention” there was no objection to that.
But the miners voted down the operators in spite of Mitchell’s protest. That is a fact, is it not?
And when the operators were voted down Mitchell and the national officers of the union appealed to the referendum.
Would they have resorted to the referendum if the delegates had voted to accept instead of rejecting the reduction?
The national officers also had themselves authorized by the delegates to “explain the situation” to the local unions in sending out the vote, and this “explanation” took every form that could be devised to whip the rank and file into submission to the operators.
As an instance of this “explanation” the speech of Mr. Lewis at Linton was a shining success. He was given full credit by the capitalist press for having turned defeat into victory and carrying the day for the reduction and against the strike.
But to complete the evidence. When the operators were turned down by the miners’ convention and a strike seemed inevitable, the Pittsburg Post coolly declared that it had it upon the “best authority” that there would be no strike, that the miners would give in; and then it went on to state precisely what the basis of final settlement would be and that the contract would be signed for two years. Less than two weeks later all these things came to pass to the very letter.
Now this “best authority” was doubtless Robbins speaking through the “returning operators” mentioned in the dispatch, who knew that the matter would go to the local unions, and had the assurance that Mitchell and the national officers would use all their influence in favor of the reduction and that with the national officers on their side the referendum vote would defeat the strike and enforce the reduction.
In other words, the operators felt certain that the union officials could and would swing the vote of the organization and the prophecy that was fulfilled was made accordingly.
But even if Mr. Mitchell gave the operators no single word of assurance, his actions and utterances were sufficient and the fact remains unchanged. They knew his position and counted on his influence, and he did not disappoint them.
Notwithstanding this more than 67,000 members of his organization, representing its highest intelligence, voted against the reduction, rejecting his advice and impeaching his leadership, and I happen to know that a large proportion of them heartily approve and are ready to stand by every statement contained in my article.
Here are a few lines just received from a member of the Miners’ Union: “I want to thank you for telling the truth about the settlement. The operators beat us with the help of our own officers. Six months ago a man would have been mobbed if he had said a word about Mitchell in this neighborhood. Now you can hear him condemned everywhere. You have more friends among the miners here today than John Mitchell.”
The four alleged “misstatements” Mr. Mitchell claims to have disposed of in his attempted denial are in fact one and the same, and hinge upon the simple error in the date of adjournment, which, as I have shown, is utterly inconsequential and has no bearing whatever upon the material facts of the statement which stand as wholly unimpeached as when they were first written down.
To sum up, here is substantially what I stated: That Mr. Mitchell led the miners in their conference with the operators; that he said: “This year the demands of the miners referring to the absolute run of mine basis and the present wage scale must be met or the mines will cease to produce coal,” that he demanded a uniform wage for all inside and outside labor and a 7-cent differential; that he advised his followers to stand firm; that he declared he would never yield; that the United Mine Workers would take no backward step; that the reduction proposed by the operators was unwarranted and would not be accepted; that last year’s earnings of the Pittsburg Coal Co. were $20,000,000, showing a large increase in profits; that he and the miners were “terribly in earnest,” etc., etc.
I have the reports before me and the proof that this was his attitude and these his utterances is simply overwhelming.
What next? Why, a few days later, we hear him saying to his followers: “Your national officers want you to accept this cut.”
What do you think of it, Mr. Mitchell?
Would it be possible for an enemy to place you in a more unfavorable light than you are placed by your own official words and acts?
You said all these things and did not mean them. You yielded one point and then another, after declaring you would not yield; finally when you had surrendered all your demands you declared that you would insist upon the old scale, and that you would not recede from it. But you did recede from it. You not only yielded everything you originally demanded but you agreed to a reduction. Not only this, but you did all in your official power to enforce that reduction.
Are these facts or are they falsehoods, and if they are facts they accord perfectly with your capitalistic philosophy that “there is no necessary conflict between capital and labor.” It is only necessary for labor to have leaders with the civic federation label upon them and peacefully submit to slavery and degradation.
What right has Mr. Mitchell to talk about the capitalist press as the “paid agents of capital”? Is it not the capitalist press that has poured out its fulsome eulogy upon Mr. Mitchell and heralded him as the greatest leader of labor in all history?
It is my right, Mr. Mitchell, to arraign that press as the enemy of labor, but not your right, for you are a prime favorite with that press and the class who own that press, and when you denounce it you are guilty of ingratitude to the power that largely made you what you are.
Is it a sure sign that I am trying to destroy the Miners’ Union because I am opposed to the reduction of the miners’ wages? Is this the best specimen of pure and simple labor union logic these gentlemen have to offer?
What I am really trying to destroy is the mine owners’ influence in the Mine Workers’ Union. To that I plead guilty and there I draw the line. The operators know it and hate me accordingly. The mine workers, most of them, do not, as yet, know it and they share the hatred of their masters. But I can wait.
It is true that the district convention of miners, held here, denounced me; it is also true that I said in reference to such action that “labor may generally be relied upon to crucify its friends.” This Mr. Mitchell is pleased to call a “whine.” These words were used to characterize the action of the men who said, “We have got to denounce Debs to set ourselves right with the operators.” They understood me and this is sufficient. And mark me, Mr. Mitchell, and don’t forget it, that body of miners, or their successors, will rescind those resolutions, and when they are finally directed where they properly belong you may have less occasion than you fancy you now have, even with the operators on your side, for self-congratulation.
In the meantime I have no resentment but entire sympathy for those who denounced me. They acted for their masters and simply emphasized their own wage slavery.
Mine Owner Robbins was wise when he said to the miners’ delegates: “The union between the operators and miners has been a partnership for several years that I have been proud of.”
There is a whole volume in that paragraph.
And there is another in the utterance of Vice President T. L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers when the strike seemed certain: “If Senator Hanna had lived there would have been no strike. His influence would have been powerful enough to force the operators to listen to reason.”
What a commentary upon the United Mine Workers and its leaders!
Operator Robbins and labor leader Mitchell and his colleagues, Governor Peabody and President Gompers, David Parry and Sherman Bell all belong to the same capitalist political party that supports the same capitalist administration that assassinates eight-hour and anti-injunction bills and treats labor like a galley slave.
To me it seems not only like sarcasm but positively tragic to hear Mr. Mitchell and his colleagues boast of the “great benefits” that have come to the miners and the “substantial” things they are now enjoying in face of the fact that thousands of them are totally idle, that those employed in the coal fields of Indiana today do not average above two days of work a week, that they are in debt, housed in shacks and eke out a miserable existence as the coal digging victims of wage slavery.
These miners get 85 cents for digging a ton of coal for which the people in that immediate vicinity pay $3.50. The operators, of course, get rich; the miners, of course, stay poor. Truly, an ideal arrangement.
Small wonder that the “interstate movement” perfectly suits the operators, that the United Mine Workers under the leadership of Mitchell, Wilson and Lewis is so satisfactory to them that they agree to collect its dues by deducting them from the wages of the miners, without which the union would go to pieces; and this is one of the reasons why Mr. Mitchell did not dare to break with Mr. Robbins, and why Mr. Mitchell helped Mr. Robbins to force the wage reduction upon the miners.
Mr. Mitchell has profound regard for the good will of the capitalist and great consideration for his feelings, interests and general importance, so great that he issues a proclamation to the miners of the country calling upon them to refrain from work while a capitalist is being buried, with not the remotest thought of showing such extreme respect to the memory of the dead when instead of a rich capitalist it is only a hundred and eighty poor coal diggers, stark and mutilated, blown up in a mine through the criminal negligence of the capitalist owners for whom they were digging up profits.
Mr. Mitchell sees “no necessary conflict between labor and capital.” Then why the United Mine Workers? What excuse has it to exist? Its whole record is one of conflict, honorable conflict, waged under difficulties and involving hunger, rags and death, and every page of it tells in harrowing phrase of the necessary conflict between the capitalist and the wage worker, the exploiter and his victim, the master and his slave.
If there is no “necessary” conflict, why any at all? Why do not the operators raise wages instead of lowering them? What have the miners been striking for all these years? Is it not because they have had to fight tooth and nail for every particle they have ever received? Has all this been unnecessary? Does Mr. Mitchell draw salary as president of the Mine Workers to continue this “unnecessary” conflict, or to put an end to it by letting the operators control his union and advising the miners to thankfully accept what the operators see fit to allow them?
It is doubtless because he sees no “necessary” conflict between capital and labor that Mr. Mitchell is a Republican in politics. He also claims to be a friend of President Roosevelt—and so is Sherman Bell.
Mr. Mitchell’s friend Roosevelt hasn’t the power as chief executive and commander-in-chief of the nation to prevent the snuffing out of a state constitution, the brutal banishment of Mother Jones, the burial alive of that real labor leader, C. H. Moyer, and the murder and mobbing of miners in Colorado by the military criminals in authority.
Grover Cleveland served the capitalists by invading the state of Illinois and Theodore Roosevelt serves them just as loyally by keeping out of Colorado.
President Roosevelt may be your friend, Mr. Mitchell, but he is not the friend of the exploited class you are supposed to stand for. He is not my friend, nor do he and I belong to the same party, or stand for the same principles.
Mr. Mitchell says “there is no necessary conflict between capital and labor.” I say there is no possible peace between them. Every hour of truce is at the price of slavery. This is Mr. Mitchell’s fundamental error. From this all others spring and he has yet to face their consequences.
Personally, I have not the slightest feeling about the matter. There was a time when I admired and applauded Mitchell’s leadership. I thought I saw the coming of a man. But alas! Little by little I have seen him succumb to the blandishments of the plutocrats. He is today their beau ideal as a labor leader.
The man was never born who can honestly serve both capitalist and wage worker, both master and slave.
Time will tell!
There is a mass of evidence and other matter I have had to omit. Space will not allow its use and I have already exceeded proper bounds. I have a proposition:
Messrs. Mitchell, Wilson and Lewis allude to themselves as “men who are the equals of Mr. Debs physically, morally and intellectually.” Good! Now, then, I want the truth and shall assume that these gentlemen want the same. There is not space in a paper for full discussion of this question, nor is such discussion satisfactory or final. I aver that the essential facts set forth in my article in the Herald of April 9 are true and can be maintained by overwhelming proof. Mr. Mitchell says there is scarcely a truthful statement in the entire article. He also says “there is no necessary conflict between capital and labor.” I challenge Mr. Mitchell to meet me upon these issues before the members of his own organization, the miners of Illinois, his own state, and of Spring Valley, the city in which he lives. Mr. Mitchell may have both Mr. Wilson and Mr. Lewis to help him.
Let the case be presented to the miners whose union I am charged with attempting to destroy and let them render the verdict.
Supplementary to the above the following and final letter of Mr. Debs appeared in the same paper July 2, 1904:
Some time ago I said that John Mitchell, president of the United Mine Workers, and Francis L. Robbins, president of the Pittsburg Coal Company, understood each other perfectly in reference to the settlement of the threatened coal strike which reduced the miners’ wages; and that Mr. Robbins and the operators had the assistance of Mr. Mitchell in enforcing the reduction and were able to predict it with accuracy long before it was finally agreed to by the rank and file of the miners. Mr. Mitchell denied this over his signature and Mr. Robbins, according to the Pittsburg Labor World, said it was a “contemptible lie.”
The Pittsburg Dispatch of June 7 has an extended account of an incident that may not be corroborative but it is certainly significant, and, like the proverbial straw, shows which way the wind blows.
Mr. Mitchell has gone to Europe and it is not my purpose to attack him in his absence but simply to put this incident on record for future reference.
The article in question is headed with a five-column cut of an elaborate banquet scene, the guests consisting of mine owners, mine workers and capitalist politicians. At the table of honor are Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Robbins, with Patrick Dolan, district president, between them as the central figure and toastmaster of the evening.
Mr. Dolan’s boast is that he has never read a book on economics and he proves it daily in his works. In a recent action for libel brought against a local paper by a couple of organizers for the Socialist Labor Party, Mr. Dolan testified for the defendant. In answer to a question he said that Socialism and anarchy were one and the same thing. Asked how that was he said: “They are both against the flag.” If the rearmost straggler in the rank and file were as far advanced as Mr. Dolan, his leader, the darkness would be complete and the cause of labor all but hopeless.
Such a leader is conclusive evidence that there are vast stretches between his followers and daylight.
What Mr. Dolan does not know about labor makes him hate Socialism and fits him to preside at a banquet where workers are used as dummies to renew allegiance to the reign of their masters.
The Dispatch article has the following double-column headlines:
“MINERS START A BOOM FOR COMBINE LEADER”—“F. L. ROBBINS APPROVED FOR UNITED STATES SENATOR AT DINNER IN HONOR OF LABOR OFFICIALS”—“THEIR GRACEFUL COMPLIMENT.”
The account in part follows:
“In the presence of the recipient of the honor, coal operators and organized coal miners of western Pennsylvania formally proposed Francis L. Robbins, president of the Pittsburg Coal Company, for the United States senate at a banquet last night at the Henry Hotel. The banquet was in honor of John Mitchell, president of the United Mine Workers, and District Secretary William Dodds to wish the two godspeed on a European tour they are about to make in the interest of their organization. Even Mitchell joined in the tribute to Robbins, which was taken up by others.”
“Although hailed as the next senator from Pennsylvania, Mr. Robbins confined his remarks to an eulogy of Mitchell and Dodds.”
“Mitchell and Dodds were presented with diamond mementoes of the esteem of the operators and miners.”
“Secretary Dodds started the Robbins movement. Dodds is secretary of a district of 37,000 organized miners. He formally proposed Mr. Robbins for United States senator. The coal president was cheered for several minutes. He said he attended the banquet to do honor to two friends.”
“The presence of operators and miners,” said Mr. Robbins, “defines the proper relation between capital and labor, employer and employed. One thing has led up to the present state of affairs: Miners recognize that conservative men must be placed at the head of their organization.” * * *
“If the future shows a change it will be because labor does not continue to put conservative men at the head of their organization.”
“THE ONLY MENACE TO ORGANIZED LABOR NOW IS SOCIALISM, AND SOCIALISM MUST BE RELEGATED TO THE REAR.”
“Mr. Mitchell then spoke and among other things is reported as saying that:
“He believes harmonious relations between organized capital and organized labor can be obtained without labor surrendering any of its rights or capitalism surrendering its rights.”
The foregoing appeals strongly for comment, especially the statement of Mr. Robbins, coal baron and labor leader, that Socialism is a menace to organized labor, but I will only say that Mr. Robbins knows quite well that Socialism is a menace only to the class suggested by his name and that this prompts him to assail it while he places diamond decorations upon the “conservative” leaders of his coal-digging wage-slaves.
The fact that Mr. John Mitchell, labor leader, sees nothing wrong in accepting a diamond badge from the rich and designing exploiters of his poor and pilfered followers; that he evidently has not the least conception of what such a testimonial really symbolizes, may serve sufficiently in mitigation to shield him from merited contempt and condemnation.
The editions of the Herald containing the letters were speedily exhausted, and as there seemed to be an increasing interest in the controversy it was finally concluded to publish the correspondence in pamphlet form to supply the great demand.
CELL OCCUPIED BY DEBS IN WOODSTOCK JAIL
In the July issue of McClure’s Magazine ex-President Grover Cleveland has an article on “The Government in the Chicago Strike of 1894.” That there may be no mistake about the meaning of “government” in this connection it should be understood that Mr. Cleveland has reference to the Federal government, of which he was the executive head at the time of the strike in question, and not to the State government of Illinois, or the municipal government of Chicago, both of which were overridden and set at defiance by the executive authority, enforced by the military power of the Federal government under the administration of Mr. Cleveland.
The ex-President’s article not only triumphantly vindicates his administration but congratulates its author upon the eminent service he rendered the republic in a critical hour when a labor strike jarred its foundations and threatened its overthrow.
It may be sheer coincidence that Mr. Cleveland’s eulogy upon his patriotic administration and upon himself as its central and commanding figure appears on the eve of a national convention composed largely of his disciples, who are urging his fourth nomination for the presidency for the very reasons set forth in the article on the Chicago strike.
However this may be, it is certain that of his own knowledge ex-President Cleveland knows nothing of the strike he discusses; that the evidence upon which he acted officially and upon which he now bases his conclusion was ex parte, obtained wholly from the railroad interests and those who represented or were controlled by these interests, and it is not strange, therefore, that he falls into a series of errors beginning with the cause of the disturbance and running all through his account of it, as may be proved beyond doubt by reference to the “Report on the Chicago Strike” by the “United States Strike Commission” of his own appointment.
Simply one of the many battles that have been fought and are yet to be fought in the economic war between capital and labor. Pittsburg, Homestead, Buffalo, Latimer, Pana, Cœur d’Alene, Cripple Creek and Telluride recall a few of the battles fought in this country in the world-wide struggle for industrial emancipation.
When the strike at Chicago occurred did President Cleveland make a personal examination? No.
Did he grant both sides a hearing? He did not.
In his fourteen-page magazine article what workingman, or what representative of labor, does he cite in support of his statements or his official acts? Not one.
I aver that he received every particle of his information from the capitalist side, that he was prompted to act by the capitalist side, that his official course was determined wholly, absolutely, by and in the interest of the capitalist side, and that no more thought or consideration was given to the other side—the hundreds of thousands of workingmen whose lives and whose wives and babes were at stake—than if they had been so many swine or sheep that had balked on their way to the shambles.
From the Federal judge who sat on the bench as the protege of the late George M. Pullman, to whose influence he was indebted for his appointment—as he was to the railroad companies for the annual passes he had in his pocket—down to the last thug sworn in by the railroads and paid by the railroads (p. 340 report of Strike Commission) to serve the railroads as United States deputy marshal, the one object of the Federal Court and its officers was, not the enforcement of law and preservation of order, but the breaking up of the strike in the interest of the railroad corporations, and it was because of this fact that John P. Altgeld, Governor of Illinois, and John P. Hopkins, Mayor of Chicago, were not in harmony with President Cleveland’s administration and protested against the Federal troops being used in their state and city for such a malign purpose.
This is the fact and I shall prove it beyond doubt before this article is concluded.
The late Judge William A. Woods figured as one of the principal judges in the Chicago affair, issuing the injunctions, citing the strikers to appear before him and sentencing them to jail without trial, but President Cleveland discreetly omits all reference to him; and although he introduces copies of many documents, his article does not include copies of the telegrams that passed between Judge Woods from his home at Indianapolis and the railroad managers at Chicago before he left home to hold court in the latter city.
Judge Woods had the distinction of convicting the writer and his colleagues without a trial and of releasing William W. Dudley of “Blocks of Five” memory in spite of a trial.
Judge Woods is dead and I do not attack the dead. I have to mention his name, and this of itself is sufficient.
During the strike the late George M. Pullman was summoned to appear before the Federal Court to give testimony. He at once had his private car attached to an eastbound train and left the city, treating the court with sovereign contempt. On his return, accompanied by Robert Todd Lincoln, his attorney, he had a tete-a-tete with the court, “in chambers,” and that ended the matter. He was not required to testify, nor to appear in open court. The striker upon whom there fell even the suspicion of a shadow of contempt was sentenced and jailed with alacrity. Not one was spared, not one invited to a “heart-to-heart” with his honor, “in chambers.”
In reviewing the article of ex-President Cleveland I wish to adduce the proof of my exceptions and denials, as well as the evidence to support my affirmations, but I realize that in the limited space of a single issue it is impossible to do this in complete and satisfactory manner; and as the case is important enough to be revived, after a lapse of ten years, by Mr. Cleveland, and as the side of labor has never yet reached the people, I am prompted to suggest a fair and full hearing of both sides on the public rostrum or in a series of articles, and I shall be happy to meet Mr. Cleveland or any one he may designate in such oral or written discussion, and if I fail to relieve the great body of railroad men who composed the American Railway Union of the criminal stigma which Mr. Cleveland has sought to fasten upon them, or if I cannot produce satisfactory evidence that the crimes charged were instigated by the other side—the side in whose interest President Cleveland brought to bear all the powers of the Federal government—I will agree to publicly beg forgiveness of the railroads, apologize to the ex-President and cease my agitation forever.
It is easy for Mr. Cleveland and others who were on the side of the railroads to introduce copies of documents, reports, etc., for the simple reason that the Federal Court at Chicago compelled the telegraph companies to deliver up copies of all our telegrams and copies of the proceedings of the convention and other meetings of the American Railway Union, including secret sessions, but the Federal Court did not call upon the railroads to produce the telegrams that passed among themselves, nor between their counsel and the Federal authorities, nor the printed proceedings of the General Managers’ Association for public inspection and as a basis for criminal prosecution.
Nevertheless, there is available proof sufficient to make it clear to the unprejudiced mind, to the honest man who seeks the truth, that the United States government, under the administration of President Grover Cleveland, was at the beck and call of the railroad corporations, acting as one through the “General Managers’ Association,” and that these corporations, with the Federal Courts and troops to back them up, had swarms of mercenaries sworn in as deputy marshals to incite violence as a pretext for taking possession of the headquarters of the American Railway Union by armed force, throwing its leaders into prison without trial and breaking down the union that was victorious, maligning, brow-beating and persecuting its peaceable and law-abiding members and putting the railroad corporations in supreme control of the situation.
That was the part of President Cleveland in the Chicago strike, and for this achievement the railroad combine and the trusts in general remember him with profound gratitude, and are not only willing but anxious that he shall be President of the United States forevermore.
In the closing paragraph of his article Mr. Cleveland compliments his administration upon having cleared the way “which shall hereafter guide our nation safely and surely in the exercise of its functions which represent the people’s trust.” The word “people’s” is not only superfluous but mischievous and fatal to the truth. Omit that and the ex-President’s statement will not be challenged.
How did President Cleveland begin operations in the Chicago strike. Among the first things he did, as he himself tells us, was to appoint Edwin Walker as special counsel for the government.
Who was Edwin Walker?
“An able and prominent attorney,” says Mr. Cleveland.
Is that all?
Not quite. At the time President Cleveland and his Attorney-General, Richard Olney, designated Edwin Walker, upon recommendation of the railroads, as special counsel to the government, for which alleged service he was paid a fee that amounted to a fortune, the said Edwin Walker was already the counsel for the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway.
CORRIDOR IN WOODSTOCK JAIL WHERE DEBS EXERCISED
Turning for a moment to “Who’s Who In America,” we find:
“Walker, Edwin, lawyer, * * * removed to Chicago in 1865; has represented several railroads as general solicitor since 1860. Illinois counsel for C., M. & St. P. R. R. since 1870; also partner in firm of W. P. Rend & Co., coal miners and shippers. Was counsel for the railway companies and special counsel for the United States in the lawsuits growing out of the great railroad strike of 1894.”
Here is the situation: There is a conflict between the General Managers’ Association, representing the railroads, and the American Railway Union, representing the employes. Perfect quiet and order prevail, as I shall show, but the railroads are beaten to a standstill, utterly helpless, cannot even move a mail car, simply because their employes have quit their service and left the premises in a body. Note also that the employes were willing to haul the mail trains and all other trains, refusing only to handle Pullman cars until the Pullman Company should consent to arbitrate its disagreement with its striking and starving employes. But the railroad officials determined that if the Pullman cars were not handled the mail cars should not move.
This is how and why the mails were obstructed and this was the pretext for Federal interference. In a word, President Cleveland, obedient to the railroads, took sides with them and supported them in their conflict with their employes with all the powers of the Federal government.
To bear out these facts it is not necessary to go outside of the official report of the Strike Commission, which anyone may verify at his pleasure. The only reason I do not incorporate the voluminous evidence is that the space at my command must be economized for other purposes.
It is thus made clear that President Cleveland and his Cabinet placed the government at the service of the railroads.
Edwin Walker, their own attorney, made the agent of the government and put in supreme command of the railroad and government forces! What an unholy alliance! And what a spectacle and object lesson!
Upon Walker’s representations Cleveland acted; upon Walker’s demand, the Federal soldiers marched into Chicago; upon Walker’s command, the great government of the United States obeyed with all the subserviency of a trained lackey.
Suppose that President Cleveland had appointed Clarence S. Darrow, attorney for the American Railway Union, instead of Edwin Walker, attorney of the General Managers’ Association, as special counsel for the government!
And suppose that Darrow had ordered the offices of the General Managers’ Association sacked, the books, papers and correspondence, including the unopened private letters of the absent officers, packed up and carted away and the offices put under the guard of Federal ruffians, in flagrant violation of the Constitution of the United States, as was done by order of Walker with the offices of the American Railway Union!
And suppose, moreover, that the American Railway Union, backed up by Darrow, agent of the United States government, had sworn in an army of “thugs, thieves and ex-convicts” (see official report of Michael Brennan, superintendent of Chicago police to the Council of Chicago) to serve the American Railway Union as deputy United States marshals and “conservators of peace and order!”
And suppose, finally, that the expected trouble had followed, would anyone in possession of his senses believe that these things had been done to protect life and property and preserve law and order?
That is substantially the case that President Cleveland is trying to make for himself and his administration out of their participation in the Chicago strike.
The implication that runs through Mr. Cleveland’s entire article is that the railway corporations were paragons of peace and patriotism, law and order, while the railway employes were a criminal, desperate and bloodthirsty mob which had to be suppressed by the strong arm of the government.
No wonder the ex-President is so dear to the iron heart of the railroad trust and every other trust that uses the government and its officers and soldiers to further its own sordid ends.
Let us consider for a moment these simple questions:
Who are the more law-abiding, the predatory railroad corporations or the hard-worked railroad employes?
What railroad corporation in the United States lives up to the law of the land? Not one.
What body of railroad employes violates it? Not one.
The railroad corporations are notorious for their brazen defiance of every law that is designed to curb their powers or restrain their rapacity.
The railroad corporations have their lobby at Washington and at every State capital; they bribe legislators, corrupt courts, debauch politics and commit countless other legal and moral crimes against the commonwealth.
The railway employes are a body of honest, useful, self-sacrificing, peace-loving men, who never have been, and never will be, guilty of the crimes committed by their corporate masters.
And yet President Cleveland serves the corporate masters and exalts and glorifies the act while he attempts to absolve the criminals and fasten the insufferable stigma upon honest men.
Nothing further is required to demonstrate beyond all cavil the capitalist class character of our present government.
Now for a few facts about the strike. It began May 11, 1894, and was perfectly peaceable and orderly until the army of “thugs, thieves and ex-convicts,” as Superintendent of Police Brennan called them in his official report to the Council of Chicago, were sworn in as deputies by the United States marshal at the command of Edwin Walker, attorney of the General Managers’ Association and special counsel to the government. Let us quote the report of the Strike Commission, consisting of Carroll D. Wright, Commissioner of Labor, who served ex-officio; John D. Kernan, of New York, and N. E. Worthington, of Illinois, two lawyers, appointed by President Cleveland.
Let it be noted that the railway employes, that is to say, labor, the working class, had no representative on this Commission.
From the report they issued we quote as follows:
“It is undoubtedly true that the officers and directors of the American Railway Union did not want a strike at Pullman and advised against it. * * * (P. xxvii.) (Yet the people were told over and over and still believe that Debs ordered the strike.)
“It should be noted that until the railroads set the example a general union of railroad employes was never attempted.” (P. xxxi.)
“The refusal of the General Managers’ Association to recognize and deal with such a combination of labor as the American Railway Union seems arrogant and absurd when we consider its standing before the law, its assumptions, and its past and obviously contemplated future action.” (P. xxxi.)
“* * * the rents (at Pullman) are from 20 to 25 per cent higher than rents in Chicago or surrounding towns for similar accommodations.” (P. xxxv.)
“The strike occurred on May 11, and from that time until the soldiers went to Pullman, about July 4, 300 strikers were placed about the company’s property, professedly to guard it from destruction or interference. This guarding of property in strikes is, as a rule, a mere pretense. Too often the real object of guards is to prevent newcomers from taking the strikers’ places, by persuasion, often to be followed, if ineffectual, by intimidation and violence. The Pullman Company claims this was the real object of these guards. These strikers at Pullman are entitled to be believed to the contrary in this matter, because of their conduct and forbearance after May 11. It is in evidence, and uncontradicted, that no violence or destruction of property by strikers or sympathizers took place at Pullman, and that until July 3 (when the Federal troops came upon the scene) no extraordinary protection was had from the police and military against even anticipated disorder.” (P. xxxviii.)
This paragraph from the report of Mr. Cleveland’s own Commission is sufficient answer to Mr. Cleveland’s article. It is conclusive, crushing, overwhelming.
There was no trouble at Pullman, nor at Chicago, nor elsewhere, until the railroad-United States deputy marshals were sworn in, followed by the Federal troops.
Governor Altgeld, patriot and statesman, knew it and protested against the troops.
Mayor John P. Hopkins knew it and declared that he was fully competent to preserve the peace of the city.
Michael Brennan, superintendent of the Chicago police, knew it and denounced the deputy marshals Edwin Arnold’s hirelings, the General Managers’ Association’s incendiaries and sluggers, as “thugs, thieves and ex-convicts.”
These were the “gentlemen” President Cleveland’s government pressed into service upon requisition of the railroads to preserve order and protect life and property, and this is what the ex-President calls “the power of the National government to protect itself in the exercise of its functions.”
As to just what these “functions” are when Grover Cleveland is President, the railroad corporations understand to a nicety and agree to by acclamation.
The only trouble, when the “deputies” were sworn in, followed by the soldiers, was that there was no trouble. That is the secret of subsequent proceedings. The railroads were paralyzed. Profound peace reigned. The people demanded of the railroads that they operate their trains. They could not do it. Not a man would serve them. They were completely defeated and the banners of organized labor floated triumphant in the breeze.
Beaten at every point, their schemes all frustrated, outgeneraled in tactics and strategy, the corporations played their trump card by an appeal to the Federal judiciary and the Federal administration. To this appeal the response came quick as lightning from a storm cloud.
Peace and order were fatal to the railroad corporations. Violence was as necessary to them as peace was to the employes. They realized that victory could only be snatched from labor by an appeal to violence in the name of peace.
First, deputy marshals. The very day they were appointed the trouble began. The files of every Chicago paper prove it. The report of the Strike Commission does the same.
That was what they were hired for and their character is sufficient evidence of their guilt.
Second, fires (but no Pullman palace cars were lighted) and riots (but no strikers were implicated).
Third, the capitalist-owned newspapers and Associated Press flashed the news over all the wires that the people were at the mercy of a mob and that the strikers were burning and sacking the city.
Fourth, the people (especially those at a distance who knew nothing except what they saw in the papers) united in the frenzied cry: “Down with anarchy! Down with the A. R. U.! Death to the strikers!”
The first trouble instigated by the deputy marshals was the signal for the Federal Court injunctions, and they came like a succession of lightning flashes.
Next, the general offices of the American Railway Union were sacked and put under guard and communication destroyed. (Later Judge Grosscup rebuked the Federal satraps who committed this outrageous crime, but he did not pretend to bring them to justice.)
Next, the leaders of the strike were arrested, not for crime, but for alleged violation of an injunction.
Next, they were brought into court, denied trial by jury, pronounced guilty by the same judge who had issued the injunction, and sent to jail for from three to six months.
The Supreme Court of the United States, consisting wholly of trained and successful corporation lawyers, affirmed the proceeding and President Cleveland says that they have “written the concluding words of this history.”
Did the Supreme Court of the United States write the “concluding words” in the history of chattel slavery when it handed down Chief Justice Taney’s decision that black men had “no rights that the white man was bound to respect?”
These “concluding words” will but hasten the overthrow of wage slavery as the “concluding words” of the same Supreme Court in 1857 hastened the overthrow of chattel slavery.
The railroad corporations would rather have destroyed their property and seen Chicago perish than see the American Railway Union triumphant in as noble a cause as ever prompted sympathetic, manly men to action in this world.
The late Mayor Pingree of Detroit came to Chicago with telegrams from the mayors of over fifty of the largest cities urging that there should be arbitration. (P. xxxix, Report of Strike Commission.) He was turned down without ceremony, and afterwards declared that the railroads were the only criminals and that they were responsible for all the consequences.
June 22, four days before the strike against the railroads, or, rather, the boycott of Pullman cars, took effect, there was a joint meeting of the railroad and Pullman officials. (P. xlii, Report of Strike Commission.) At this meeting it was resolved to defeat the strikers, wipe out the American Railway Union, and, to use their exact words, “that we act unitedly to that end.”