The employees, obedient to the order of the convention, at
once, on the 26th, refused to haul Pullman cars. The switchmen,
in the first place, refused to attach a Pullman car to a train,
and that is where the trouble began; and then, when a switchman
would be discharged for that, they would all simultaneously
quit, as they had agreed to do. One department after another
was involved until the Illinois Central was practically
paralyzed, and the Rock Island and other roads in their turn.
Up to the first day of July, or after the strike had been in
progress five days, the railway managers, as we believe, were
completely defeated. Their immediate resources were exhausted,
their properties were paralyzed, and they were unable to
operate their trains. Our men were intact at every point, firm,
quiet, and yet determined, and no sign of violence or disorder
anywhere. That was the condition on the thirtieth day of June
and the first day of July.
The officers of the Railway Union from their headquarters in the city
of Chicago gave directions for the maintenance and management of the
strike, which were quickly transmitted to distant railroad points and
were there promptly executed. As early as the 28th of June, two days
after the beginning of the strike ordered by the Railway Union at
Chicago, information was received at Washington from the Post-Office
Department that on the Southern Pacific System, between Portland
and San Francisco, Ogden and San Francisco, and Los Angeles and San
Francisco, the mails were completely obstructed, and that the strikers
refused to permit trains to which Pullman cars were attached to run
over the lines mentioned. Thereupon Attorney-General Olney immediately
sent the following telegraphic despatch to the United States district
attorneys in the State of California:
WASHINGTON, D. C., June 28, 1894.
See that the passage of regular trains, carrying United States
mails in the usual and ordinary way, as contemplated by the
act of Congress and directed by the Postmaster-General, is not
obstructed. Procure warrants or any other available process
from United States courts against any and all persons engaged
in such obstructions, and direct the marshal to execute the
same by such number of deputies or such posse as may be
necessary.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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