STRIKES. 



SWEDEN AND NORWAY. 7:51 



employment at a loss to the company. Mr. Debs 

 made a formal proposition to the general rail- 

 road managers, agreeing that the men should 

 return to work at once if they could be reinstated 

 without prejudice ; but this* proposition was re- 

 jected by the managers. By this time it was 

 evident that the worst of the strike was over. 

 Federal troops to the number of several thou- 

 sand had been massed in Chicago, and over 

 3.000 deputy United States marshals had been 

 sworn in. Trains were moved at irregular inter- 

 vals, but they were not molested. On July 17 

 Debs, Howard, Keliher, and Rogers were again 

 arrested by the Federal authorities for con- 

 tempt in disregarding an injunction issued by 

 Judges Wood and Grosscup. They were lodged 

 in the Cook County jail, Chicago, from which 

 they issued an appeal to the American people 

 everywhere to boycott the Pullman cars. On 

 the 19th indictments were found against the 4 

 leaders, and 39 others who had been less con- 

 spicuous in the strife. 



President Cleveland, on July 25, appointed 

 Carroll D. Wright, of Massachusetts, United 

 States Commissioner of Labor, John D. Kernan, 

 of New York, and Nicholas E. Worthington, of 

 Illinois, a commission to investigate the strike. 

 The commission began its hearings in Chicago 

 soon afterward. Among those who gave testi- 

 mony were President Debs, of the American Rail- 

 way Union, President Gomphers, of the Amer- 

 ican Federation of Labor, and the general man- 

 agers of all the railroads affected by the strike. 

 Many remedies were suggested to prevent strikes 

 in the future, the chief of them being the Gov- 

 ernment ownership of railroads, the licensing of 

 railroad employees, similar to the system of li- 

 censing steamboat engineers and pilots, arbitra- 

 tion, and restriction of immigration. In Novem- 

 ber the commission made a report of the results 

 of its labors, and recommended the appointment 

 of a national strike commission, with extraordi- 

 nary powers of arbitration; and a bill to that 

 effect was introduced in the House of Repre- 

 sentatives. This bill was amended by the Labor 

 Committee of the House, in accordance with 

 suggestions made by the Brotherhood of Loco- 

 motive Firemen, the Brotherhood of Locomotive 

 Engineers, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Train- 

 men, the Railroad Telegraphers' Order, and Car- 

 roll D. Wright, Commissioner of Labor. As 

 amended, it does not provide for compulsory 

 arbitration, but seeks to protect the rights, priv- 

 ileges, and prerogatives of both capital and labor. 



On Oct. 1, at Chicago, Justice Harlan, of the 

 United States Circuit Court of Appeals, reversed 

 in part the decision of Judge Jenkins, in the 

 case of P. M. Arthur and others against the 

 Northern Pacific Railroad, in which Judge Jen- 

 kins had decided that the men had no right to 

 combine for a strike under certain conditions, 

 chief among which was when there was intent 

 to injure the property or business of the road. 

 Although the case was reversed in part, and the 

 cause remanded, with directions to strike out 

 certain portions of Judge Jenkins's opinion, the 

 effect of the decision was to prevent all strikes, 

 unless they are absolutely peaceable. Early in 

 December, Mr. Olney, Attorney-General of the 

 United States, in his annual report, said : " The 

 relation of the strike to the Department of Justice 



was indirect, and arose only when the railroads 

 of the country became involved and the passage 

 of United States mails and the movements of 

 interstate commerce were interfered with. To 

 compel a settlement of disputes between the 

 Pullman Company and a portion of its employees, 

 nothing less was meditated and aimed at than a 

 complete stoppage of all the railroad transporta- 

 tion of the country, State and interstate, and 

 freight as well as passenger. Such a result, in- 

 volving for a city like Chicago the loss of the 

 very necessaries of life, it seemed to be the duty 

 of the department to prevent by the most vigor- 

 ous use of all the legal weapons at its command." 

 The situation did not improve, and on July 3 it 

 had become so serious that Marshal Arnold, 

 Judge Grosscup, and United States Attorneys 

 Walker and Milchrist joined in a telegram urg- 

 ing the immediate sending of troops to Chicago. 

 This request was complied with, and the result 

 of the legal proceedings referred to and of the 

 manifest determination and readiness of the 

 Executive to carry them into full effect became 

 at once apparent. The strike at Chicago, so far 

 as it involved the obstruction of United States 

 mails and the paralysis of interstate commerce, 

 was practically broken when the United States 

 troops reached that city, and, being broken at 

 Chicago, was in reality broken everywhere else. 

 Substantially the same legal measures were every- 

 where resorted to, and whenever the facts re- 

 quired were enforced by the military power of 

 the United States, and' were attended with the 

 same results. 



The law of the United States under which 

 the Federal authority was enforced was passed 

 April 20, 1871, for the purpose of enforcing the 

 fourteenth amendment. It provides that 



In all cases where insurrection, domestic violence, 

 unlawful combinations, or conspiracies in any State 

 shall so obstruct or hinder the execution of the laws 

 thereof, and of the United States, as to deprive any 

 portion or class of the people of said State of any of 

 the rights, privileges, or immunities, or protection 

 named in the Constitution, and secured by this act, 

 and the constituted authorities of said State shall 

 either be unable to protect or shall from any cause 

 fail in or refuse protection of the people in such rights, 

 such facts shall be deemed a denial by such State of 

 the equal protection of the laws to which they are en- 

 titled under the Constitution of the United States, 

 and in all such cases, or whenever any such insurrec- 

 tion, violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy 

 shall oppose or obstruct the laws of the United States, 

 or the due execution thereof, or impede or obstruct 

 the due course of justice under the same, it shall be 

 lawful for the President, and it shall be his duty^to 

 take such measures, by the employment of the militia, 

 or the land or naval forces of the" United States, or of 

 either, or by other means, as he may deem necessary 

 for the suppression of such insurrection, domestic vio- 

 lence, or combinations. 



On Dec. 14 Judge Woods sentenced Debs to 

 six months' imprisonment for contempt, and the 

 other leaders to three months each. The coun- 

 sel for the imprisoned men appealed the case to 

 the United States Supreme Court, and on Jan. 

 23, 1895, they were released on bail. The trial 

 of Debs and the other leaders for conspiracy was 

 begun in Chicago on the same day. 



SWEDEN AND NORWAY, two kingdoms 

 in northern Europe, united in accordance with 

 the treaty of Kiel under one sovereign by the 



