Mr. Cleveland answered, appealing to the Constitution, federal laws, and the grave nature of the situation. United States power, he said, may and must whenever necessary, with or without request from State authorities, remove obstruction of the mails, execute process of the federal courts, and put down conspiracies against commerce between the States. During the Pullman troubles, the judicial department of the United States Government, no less prompt or bold than the Executive, extended the equity power of injunction a step farther than precedents went. After 1887 United States tribunals construed the Interstate Commerce Law as authorizing injunctions against abandonment of trains by engineers. Early in 1894 a United States Circuit judge inhibited Northern Pacific workmen from striking in a body. For contempt of his injunctions during the Pullman strike Judge Woods sentenced Debs to six months' imprisonment and other arch-strikers to three months each under the so-called Anti-Trust Law. [Illustration: Portrait.] Eugene V. Debs. As infringing the right of trial by jury this course of adjudication aroused protest even in conservative quarters. Later, opposition to "government by injunction" became a tenet of the more radical Democracy. A bill providing for jury trials in instances of contempt not committed in the presence of the court commanded support from members of both parties in the Fifty-eighth Congress. Federal decisions upheld workingmen's right, in the absence of an express contract, to strike at will, although emphatically affirming the legitimacy of enjoining violent interference with railroads, and of enforcing the injunction by punishing for contempt. Federal injunctions subsequently went farther still, as in the miners' strike of 1902 during which Judge Jackson of the United States District Court for Northern West Virginia, enjoined miners' meetings, ordering the miners, in effect, to cease agitating or promoting the strike by any means whatever, no matter how peaceful. Speech intended to produce strikes the judge characterized as the abuse of free speech, properly restrainable by courts. Refusing to heed the injunction, several strike leaders were sentenced to jail for contempt, periods varying from sixty to ninety days. Late in July, 1894, the President appointed a commission to investigate the Pullman strike. The report of this body, alluding to the Managers' Association as a usurpation of powers not obtainable directly by the corporations concerned, recommended governmental control over quasi-public corporations, and even hinted at ultimate government ownership. They counselled some measure of compulsory arbitration, urged that labor unions should become incorporated, so as to be responsible bodies, and suggested the licensing of railway employees. The Massachusetts State Board of Conciliation and Arbitration was favorably mentioned in this report, and became the model for several like boards in various States.