The Legislature of Illinois was in session at the time under review, and in March, 1877, the Socialist leaders entered into a discussion of the necessity of forcing that body to pass the bills then pending before it with reference to the establishment of a bureau of statistics on wages and earnings, cost and manner of living, fatal accidents in each branch of labor and their causes, coöperation, hours of labor, etc., and for the collection of wages. They urged that the laboring classes should demand these measures and insisted that the “boss classes, the capitalistic classes, the aristocrats, who lived in riot and luxury on the fruit which labor had tilled and ought to enjoy,” should not stand in the way of their passage. Time and again they rang the various changes on the “iniquity and inequalities of the present social system,” and fairly howled themselves hoarse in declaring that “the Labor party was organized not only to destroy that system, but to secure a division of property, which Socialism demanded and was determined to have.” Early in July, 1877, the firemen and brakemen of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad began a strike at Baltimore against a reduction of wages. This strike soon reached Martinsburg, W. Va., and caused an immense blockade of freight traffic. The strikers finally grew so riotous that the local authorities were powerless, and President Hayes, being appealed to by the Governor of Maryland, issued a proclamation. United States troops were at the same time dispatched from Washington and Fort McHenry to the scene of disturbances, and order was finally brought out of chaos. Following close upon the heels of this strike came one on the Pennsylvania Railroad at Pittsburg, against an order doubling up trains and thus dispensing with a large number of employés. The railroad people, in explanation of their action, showed that during June preceding not only had there been a great depreciation of railroad stocks, but a shrinkage in the value of railroad property from 20 to 70 per cent., caused by a great falling-off in business. It is needless for the purpose of this chapter to recount the wild scenes of riot and bloodshed that ensued at Pittsburg, when troops numbering two thousand, sent from Philadelphia, engaged in deadly conflict with the unbridled mob and when millions of dollars’ worth of property was destroyed by the incendiary torch.