Today is one of those days when the #stampoftheday provides an uncanny connection to current events.
The stamp is a 22-cent stamp from 1942 picturing Grover Cleveland, the only man to serve two non-consecutive terms as president from 1884-1888 and 1892-1896. The connection to current events is that in July 1894, Cleveland, against the wishes of the governor of Illinois, sent federal troops to Chicago to violently quell protests. And the connection to today is that the federal troops withdrew on July 20, 1894.
The dispute began when, in response to financial reverses related to the economic depression that began in 1893, the Pullman Palace Car Company, the leading manufacturer of railroad cars, cut the already low wages of its workers by about 25 percent. However, the firm did not introduce corresponding reductions in rents and other charges in Pullman, its company town near Chicago, where most Pullman workers lived.
In response, the workers went on strike in May 1894. In late June, the American Railway Union announced its members would not handle Pullman cars or any trains with Pullman cars until the dispute was settled or the railroads severed their ties with Pullman. By June 30, 125,000 workers on 29 railroads had quit work rather than handle Pullman cars and much of the nation’s rail traffic had been brought to a halt.
Eugene V. Debs, the union’s president (who later ran unsuccessfully for president as a socialist), urged members to refrain from violence. But on June 29, after he spoke a large and peaceful gathering in Blue Island, Illinois, groups within the crowd became enraged, set fire to nearby buildings, and derailed a locomotive that was attached to a U.S. mail train. Other violent incidents became increasingly common.
Illinois Governor John Peter Altgeld began sending state militiamen to quell the growing violence. But in early July, a majority of the president’s cabinet supported Attorney General Richard Olney’s demand that federal troops be sent to Chicago to end the “reign of terror.” Using the attack on the mail train as justification, on July 2, Olney obtained the first federal court injunction ever issued to break a strike. The next day, President Cleveland ordered federal troops to Chicago. Governor Altgeld was outraged and immediately wired the president, saying, “Surely the facts have not been correctly presented to you in this case, or you would not have taken the step, for it seems to me unjustifiable.”
Strikers reacted angrily to the presence of 6,000 federal and state troops, 3,100 police officers, and 5,000 deputy marshals in the city. On July 4 they and their sympathizers overturned railcars and erected barricades to prevent troops from reaching the rail yards. On July 6 some 6,000 rioters destroyed hundreds of railcars in the South Chicago Panhandle yards. And on July 7, National Guardsmen fired into a mob, killing between 4 and 30 people and wounding many others.
That same day federal officers arrested Debs and four other ARU leaders for contempt of court and for criminal conspiracy to interfere with the U.S. mail. All five were soon released on a $10,000 bond. At this point, Debs tried to call off the strike, urging that all workers except those convicted of crimes be rehired without prejudice. But the federation of railroads that had overseen the response to the strike, refused and instead began hiring nonunion workers.
The size and ferocity of the disturbances caused at least some parts of American society to turn against the strikers. Congress supported Cleveland’s use of troops, and the mainstream press, in Chicago and elsewhere, turned against Debs, the union, and labor in general. Facing such shows of force and diminishing public support, the strike dwindled, and trains began to move with increasing frequency until normal schedules had been restored. Federal troops were recalled on July 20. The Pullman Company, which reopened on August 2, agreed to rehire the striking workers on the condition that they sign a pledge never to join a union.
In December 1894 Debs and his codefendants were tried (only on the contempt charge), convicted, and sentenced to three to six months in prison. Debs and the others remained free on bail, while their attorneys, who by now included Clarence Darrow, appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which unanimously ruled against them. Debs and the other ARU leaders then served their sentence and, and, while confined, Debs began his journey from labor activism to socialism.
And, for what it’s worth, the “electric eye” on the envelope does not refer to some sort of special surveillance of citizens. Rather, it refers to a device introduced in the late 1930s that employed a beam of light (along with markings in the margins and gutters of sheets of stamps) to facilitate more accurate perforation of stamps during the stamp manufacturing process. Of course, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that some conspiracy theorist of the time thought otherwise. But I’m certain they were wrong.
Hopefully, the federal government’s current effort to make yet another uninvited insertion into local affairs, will not be a violent as the Pullman protests. In addition, hopefully, those participating in the protests, will not turn to the kinds of violence that might undermine their cause. And, finally, hopefully things will turn out better than things did for those protesting Pullman’s wage cuts.
Be well, stay safe, fight for justice and work for peace.