The Pullman Palace Car Company built a model town for its workers, presumably for their comfort and uplift, but also for profit. Rents there were twenty to twenty-five percent higher than in surrounding communities, but many consented to live there, since it was subtly made clear that those who wanted jobs had better do so. During the depression of 1893, half Pullman’s workers were laid off and the rest took a twenty percent wage cut, but no reduction in rents was made. Early in May 1894 a committee of employees asked for the restoration of their former wages, but were refused. On May 10 three of the committee were fired. On May 11 Pullman workers walked out and asked the American Railway Union, with which they were affiliated, to aid their strike. On June 26, the A.R.U. began to refuse to handle Pullman cars. Soon the railroad strike spread across two-thirds of the country. By June 28, all traffic on the twenty-four lines out of Chicago was halted; workers derailed freight cars, obstructed tracks, threw switches, pulled scab engineers off trains.
The railroad organization, the General Managers Association, persuaded the Chicago police to break up strikers’ demonstrations and to assist them, got the United States Marshal to appoint 2,000 deputies, paid by the railroads, who were described by the Superintendent of Police as “thugs, thieves, and ex-convicts.” But the deputies were unable to start the trains running again. Next the G.M.A. turned to the federal government. On July 2 Attorney-General Richard Olney, an ex-railroad lawyer and a railroad director, obtained a federal injunction preventing the blocking of trains, issued on the grounds that the federal mails were being interfered with. When the injunction was defied, President Cleveland sent federal troops to Chicago despite the objections of Illinois Governor Altgeld. Large-scale street fights broke out, and crowds burned freight cars and stoned trains. On July 6, hundreds of cars were burned and the state militia was sent in. On July 7, four were killed and twenty wounded in battles between the militia and the crowds. By the next day there were 14,000 police, militia, troops, and the federal marshals in Chicago, and the strike was put down. Eugene Debs and other strike leaders were arrested for contempt and conspiracy, and Debs served six months in jail. In at least seven other states violence took place, and thirty-four were killed.
The account of the fighting on July 7 is taken from the Chicago Times, July 8, 1894. See Almont Lindsey: Pullman Strike (1942); see also Stanley Buder: Pullman: An Experiment in Industrial Order and Community Planning, 1880–1930 (1967).
Company C, Second Regiment, I. N. G. Capt. Mair, disciplined a mob of rioters yesterday afternoon at Forty-ninth and Loomis Streets. The police assisted, and taking up the work where the militia left off, finished the job. There is no means of knowing how many rioters were killed or wounded. The mob carried off many of its dying and injured. The returns, so far as the police, hospital, and physicians’ reports give two dead, eight fatally hurt, and 17 injured.
At 3 o’clock yesterday morning the troop, numbering forty men, went out with the work train on the Wabash road as far as Sixty-ninth Street. On account of the mobs encountered at every crossing, the wrecking crew was unable to do any work and they started back over the Western Indiana tracks. They were then transferred to the Grand Trunk tracks. While the train was at work at Forty-ninth and Loomis Streets the crowd so increased in numbers that it was seen a conflict was inevitable. With the troops were eight police, who had been with the train during the entire day. The wrecking crew had been clearing up overturned cars and drawing spikes near Frazer Street. Soon after 3 o’clock this work was completed. The soldiers and police were gathered about the crew, all of them being the center of a howling, hooting mob of thousands. The work at this point was just about completed at 3:30 P.M., when the crowd, worked to the highest pitch of excitement, began hurling rocks at the policemen and soldiers.
Attacks Leading Up to the Shooting
The wrecking train had been the target for hundreds of missiles of every sort since its work began. Several of the police officers and militia had been struck and the order was at last given to return the fire at the next serious volley of stones. It was not long coming. The engine and wreck car were moved slowly west along the track when a crowd was seen collecting at the crossing where a car had been fired and another derailed a short time before. Many women were seen in the front ranks of the gathering mobs. Their talk was vile in the extreme. They suddenly vanished as if by order of the leader of the rioters, and the small boy element fled. Some of the men retired to ambush.
Evidently an attack was planned. The engine stopped and preparations made toward the work of putting the derailed box car on the track. Several stones and sticks were thrown, but they fell short.
Then a missile struck the cab of the engine and rebounding struck a policeman. He fired instantly point blank at the mob. The rioters broke and ran to the cover of the sheds and stables in the alley between Loomis and Bishop Streets. Others ran into near-by saloons. The next instant a shot came from one of the sheds, and with it a shower of stones. The police answered with shots, which returned by the rioters in ambush.
Captain Mair, in command of the militia, formed his men and withstood the attack in silence. Suddenly one of the rocks struck Lieut. Harry Reed, and the blood flew from a gash in his temple. Satisfied that further delay would be folly, the militia waited but an instant for the fatal command to fire. It came:
“Make ready, aim, fire.”
First Volley into the Insurrectionists
The first straggling volley fired in the Debs insurrection rang out. Some of the shots went wild. Others which followed were better aimed. A half dozen men were struck by bullets. Some ran screaming down the street. Three lay prostrate in the alley from which most of the stones came.
From 5,000 rioters a fierce yell went up. To say that the mob went wild is but a weak expression. The men acted like maniacs and demons. Fear was unknown in the moments that followed. Nothing but the second and third volleys promptly fired saved the little band of soldiers from total annihilation. Like wild animals the leaders of the mob left ambush and threw themselves on the soldiers even while the bullets were flying as fast as the men could load. The police had emptied their revolvers and were reloading.
The command to charge was given. A moment’s hesitancy would have been fatal. Both the mob and the soldiers made a rush for the crossing and there they met and there the last shots were fired. From that moment only bayonets were used. Time and again the soldiers charged north on Loomis Street and east on Forty-ninth. The rioters gave ground slowly. Bayonets were too much for them. A dozen men in the front line of rioters received bayonet wounds. Stones and clubs were frequently used. A few more shots were fired and the mob fled. Again it rallied and charged the troops. Up and down the street they fought for several minutes. An occasional shot was fired either by policemen or officers. The soldiers used only their bayonets.
The Engineer Forced to Retreat
The fight was still on when the engineer on the wrecking engine was attacked by a mob which came from the south along Loomis. To save himself and his train he started it westward and the troops followed. Some of the rioters took this for a retreat and thought to score a victory by another attack. The company wheeled about with every man in line, column front. The last charge was made and the mob driven almost a block north on Loomis. The troops marched back amid a shower of stones thrown from between the houses on both sides of the street. The engine which they had been sent out to guard was half a mile away. They followed and overtook it at Ashland Avenue.
With Lieut. Reed partly unconscious and several of his men suffering from blows Capt. Mair gave the word to board the train and this was done. Before the police could reach the train, however, the engineer started ahead at full speed and, with the wounded Lieutenant, the troops were taken to the Dearborn Street Station.
POLICE HAVE A HARD FIGHT FOR LIFE
After the Soldiers Leave the Mob Closes in
and Two Calls for Help Are Made
When the train pulled away with the soldiers, leaving the police, the mob gave a yell of exultation and closed in on all sides. The shower of stones and railroad iron was terrific. The police backed up against each other and prepared to sell their lives dearly. Face to face with the muzzles of their revolvers, the crowd hesitated an instant. Officer Ryan, revolver and club in hand, fought his way to the nearest patrol box and called a patrol wagon. Lieut. Keleher of the Halsted Street Station responded with twelve men. While the wagon was on the way the rioters again closed in on the police. The little body of officers retreated slowly west on Forty-ninth Street under a shower of stones, holding the mob at bay with their revolvers. A part of the mob turned its attention to undoing the work done by the wrecking party. It set a car on fire, broke the switch, and tore up the rails. Then they again turned their attention to the police. In the meantime an alarm of fire was sent in, and with it a second call for police assistance. To this Capt. O’Neill and thirteen men responded.
By this time Lieut. Keleher had arrived. He found the situation serious. The mob was increasing every minute and bent on the destruction of the officers. He charged the mob with the patrol horses on the dead run. The crowd parted. When the railroad crossing was reached the eight policemen were being roughly handled. Keleher and his men jumped from the wagon and clubbed their way through to the band of officers. Then all started back against the crowd. Keleher was hit with a stone. Officer Lyons got hold of the man and put him under arrest. At this minute Capt. O’Neill and his men arrived. At the sight of further reinforcements the crowd fell back for a minute and at this instant up came Fire Marshal Fitzgerald, in response to the fire alarm. The strikers surrounded him, forced his horse into a ditch, upset the wagon and threw him out. Scrambling to his feet he drew his revolver and fought his way to the police line.
Police Fire and Break the Mob
But the presence of reinforcements held the mob in check only a moment. Tearing up cobble stones the mob made a determined charge. The situation was too dangerous for further temporizing. No command to fire was given, but the word was passed along the line for each officer to take care of himself. One by one, as occasion demanded, they fired point blank into the crowd. After a few shots the crowd wavered and then beat a retreat, after replying to the shots with a shower of stones. Several disabled rioters lay on the ground. The police followed with their clubs. A wire fence incloses the track. The rioters had forgotten it; when they turned to fly they were caught in a trap.
The police were not inclined to be merciful and driving the mob against the barbed wires clubbed it unmercifully. The crowd got away as best it could. Then O’Neill and his men went west on Forty-ninth Street and Keleher went east. As they went they knocked the rioters right and left. The crowd outside the fence rallied to the assistance of the rioters being driven by the police. The shower of stones was incessant.
At Fraizer and Forty-ninth Streets is a saloon kept by Max Preja. He is said to be an Anarchist. Flying strikers rushed into this saloon. O’Neill and his men followed them. As the police neared the saloon, windows in neighboring houses were thrown open and shots were fired. They flew too high. The police returned the fire and broke open the door of the saloon. They were greeted with a shower of stones and billiard balls. The officers forced the rioters up-stairs, sparing only old men and women. Rioters jumped from the windows. Everybody in the crowd except the bartender was driven into the street and for blocks in all directions.
Wounded Men Left on the Ground
The ground over which the fight had occurred was like a battlefield. The men shot by the troops and police lay about like logs. Hats knocked off and coats thrown off to lessen weight in the flight were scattered about, while on the Loomis Street crossing, where the eight police officers had made their stand, were fully 500 stones that had been thrown by the mob. In the alley between Bishop and Loomis Streets lay “Engine” Burke, dying from a wound in the left side. As the police lifted him up he was about breathing his last, and when they carried him into the drug store he died. The police say he was a character who gave them a world of trouble. Close by him was Thomas Jackman with a bullet wound in his stomach, from which he cannot recover. Henry Williams, who had been shot in the leg, was lying west of Loomis Street, and Tony Gagaski was near him with a bullet wound in his arm. The ambulances were called and the wounded that could be found were taken to the Union Hospital in Englewood.