A Wisdom Archive on Pullman Strike

He was jailed later that year for his part in the Pullman Strike, which grew out of a strike by the workers who made Pullman's cars and who appealed to the ARU at its convention in Chicago, Illinois for support. Debs tried to persuade the ARU members who worked on the railways that the boycott was too risky, given the hostility of both the railways and the federal government, the weakness of the ARU, and the possibility that other unions would break the strike. The membership ignored his warnings and refused to handle Pullman ...

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At the time of his arrest, Debs was not a Socialist. However, while jailed for mail obstruction, he read the works of Karl Marx and after his release in 1895, he started his socialist political career. The experience radicalized Debs still further. He was a candidate for President of the United States in 1900 as a member of the Social Democratic Party. He was later the Socialist Party of America candidate for President in 1904 ...

Read more here: » Eugene V. Debs: Encyclopedia II - Eugene V. Debs - Socialist leader

Debs was born in Terre Haute, Indiana (where he lived most of his life), to middle-class immigrant parents, from Colmar, Alsace. At the age of fourteen, he left home to work on the railroads, becoming a fireman. He returned home in 1874 to work as a grocery clerk, and the next year was a founding member of a new lodge of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen. He rose quickly in the Brotherhood, becoming first an assistant editor for their magazine and then the editor and Grand Secretary (in 1880). At the same time, he became a prominent figure in the community and was elec ...

Read more here: » Eugene V. Debs: Encyclopedia II - Eugene V. Debs - Rise to prominence

Eugene Debs was born in Terre Haute, Indiana (where he lived most of his life), to middle-class immigrant parents, from Colmar, Alsace. At the age of fourteen, he left home to work on the railroads, becoming a fireman. He returned home in 1874 to work as a grocery clerk, and the next year was a founding member of a new lodge of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen. He rose quickly in the Brotherhood, becoming first an assistant editor for their magazine and then the editor and Grand Secretary (in 1880). At the same time, he became a prominent figure in the community and was elec ...

Read more here: » Eugene V. Debs: Encyclopedia II - Eugene V. Debs - Rise to prominence

On June 16, 1918 Debs made an anti-war speech in Canton, Ohio, protesting World War I, and was arrested under the Sedition Act of 1918. He was convicted and sentenced to serve ten years in prison and disenfranchised for life. Debs made his best-remembered statement at his sentencing hearing: "Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and w ...

Read more here: » Eugene V. Debs: Encyclopedia II - Eugene V. Debs - Return to prison

After the national railroad strike of 1877, which was only put down with the intervention of federal troops, Congress passed the Arbitration Act of 1888, which authorized the creation of arbitration panels with the power to investigate the causes of labor disputes and to issue non-binding arbitration awards. The Act was a complete failure: only one panel was ever convened under the Act, and that one, in the case of the Pullman Strike, only issued its report after the strike h ...

Read more here: » Railway Labor Act: Encyclopedia II - Railway Labor Act - Historical antecedents to the RLA

On August 12, 1833, the Town of Chicago was incorporated with a population of 350. The first boundaries of the new town were Kinzie, Desplaines, Madison, and State streets, which included an area of about three-eighths of a square mile (1 km²). Within 7 years the town had a population of over 4,000. Chicago was granted a city charter by Illinois on March 4, 1837. The opening of the Illinois and Michigan Canal in 1848, allowed shipping from the Great Lakes through Chicago to the Mississippi River and so to the Gulf of Mexico. The firs ...

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Altgeld ran for Congress in Illinois's Fourth Congressional District in 1884. Although this district was heavily Republican, Altgeld garnered 45.5 percent of the vote in his race against incumbent George Adams, a better showing than well-known Democrat Lambert Tree had made two years earlier. As a Republican leader recalled, "He (Altgeld) was not elected, but our executive committee was pretty badly frightened by the strong canvass he made." He was elected to a j ...

Read more here: » John Peter Altgeld: Encyclopedia II - John Peter Altgeld - Political life

The great railroad strike of 1877 started on July 17 in Martinsburg, West Virginia, in response to the cutting of wages for the second time in a year by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. Striking workers would not allow any of the stock to roll until this second wage cut was revoked. The governor sent in state militia units to restore train service, but the soldiers refused to use force against the strikers and the governor called for federal troops. Meanwhile, the strike spread to Baltimore, causing violent street battles between the strik ...

Read more here: » Great railroad strike of 1877: Encyclopedia II - Great railroad strike of 1877 - The Strike

Due to the geography of Chicago, early citizens faced many problems. The prairie bog nature of the area provided a fertile ground for disease-carrying insects. Early on, Chicago's population and commerce growth was stymied by lack of good transportation infrastructure. History shows that this problem was soon remedied. During spring Chicago was so muddy from the high water that horses would be stuck, past their legs in the street. One dirt road was so hazardous that it became known as the "Slough of Despond". Comical signs proclaiming "Fastest route to China" or "No Bottom Her ...

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In 1871, most of the city burned in the Great Chicago Fire. The damage from the fire was immense; 300 people died, 18,000 buildings were destroyed and nearly 100,000 of the city's 300,000 residents were left homeless. One of the factors contributing to the fire's spread was the abundance of wood; the streets, sidewalks and many buildings were built of wood. The fire led to the incorporation of stringent fire-safety codes that included a strong preference for masonry construction. Unfortunately, the soft, swampy ground near the lake proved un ...

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After the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, union organizers planned for their next battles, while politicians and business leaders took steps to ensure that such chaos could not recur. Many states enacted conspiracy statutes. States formed new militia units, and National Guard armories were constructed in a number of cities. For workers and employers alike, the strikes had shown the power of workers in combination to challenge the status quo. They were driven, as a Pittsburgh state militiaman, who ordered was out to break the 1877 strike, poin ...

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While no complete accounting of the economic losses caused by this strike exists, it is known that the engineers' and firemen's brotherhoods lost approximately $600,000 over the forty-five days of the strike, while for the Burlington Railroad the losses were at least $2,100,000. In Pittsburgh, it was estimated that property damage reached over three million dollars, with Chicago, Baltimore and other cities facing losses of a similar magnitude.

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Altgeld, the son of John P. Altgeld (born 1818) and Mary (born 1821), was born in Niederselters, Prussia (now in Hessen, Germany). He came to America early in life with his father's family, who settled on a farm near Mansfield, Ohio. He left home at age 16 to join the Union Army (lying about his age), where he fought in Virginia with an ill-fated regiment and nearly died of fever. He then worked on his father's farm, studied in the library of a neighbor and at a private school in Lexington, Ohio, and for two years taught school. After a brie ...

Read more here: » John Peter Altgeld: Encyclopedia II - John Peter Altgeld - Early years