Ald. McGillen then said: "You require protection from us. You call on the police, on the county, on the state, and on the nation for protection. Your only valued assets are the patents which the nation gives you in recognition of the genius which built the Pullman car. Remove that asset and you are ruined. You utterly ignore our request. It is not dishonorable men we ask to investigate your affairs. Think of the sickness, starvation, want, disaster and bloodshed which is coming if the strike assumes larger proportions. The climax is fast approaching and who will be to blame. I am here for the common weal, and I hope and beg of you not to refuse." Mr. Wickes: "There is a principle involved. Every business should have the right to dictate to its own labor, we will brook no interference, national, state, county or municipal." Ald. McGillen: "Compulsory arbitration is not a law but it will be if this strike does not stop." Mr. Wickes: "We have nothing to arbitrate." Ald. Warreinner: "We are not asking for arbitration, we want a committee appointed to see if there is need of it. Will you consent to that?" Mr. Wickes: "No." Ald. McGillen: "In the name of humanity let me beseech you to reconsider your negation." Mr. Wickes: "Gentlemen, the Pullman company has nothing to arbitrate, we want to see no committee, the Pullman company cannot recede from its position. This is final." When the committee met again at 4:30 to make its final report, it was completely discouraged. Mr. Elderkin stated the proposition that had been made to the Pullman company and its direct refusal. The alderman begged the labor representatives not to strike and cause widespread suffering. The general manager's and Pullman's position was so clearly defined that it would be impossible for the public to fail to see it in any but its true light. The companies were losing millions of dollars but the general managers had determined if necessary to bankrupt every system in the United States in order to crush labor organizations out of existence. The Pullman matter was something of the past, with them they were after the labor organizations, and they were after them with a vengeance. The government was backing them. The attorney general of the United states,--a corporation attorney as well,--had pledged himself to disrupt every labor organization in the country. President Cleveland, another railroad attorney, had encouraged and abetted them to the same end. With the subsidized press, the bankers unions, the moneycrat manufacturers and the federal courts arrayed against them, what in the name of justice could they expect?