In June, 1894, the great Pullman strike was fought and won, but victory
was turned into defeat by the Federal administration using the courts
and the soldiers to imprison the leaders and crush the strike. The
railroad corporations then resolved to annihilate the A. R. U. Debs was
indicted for various crimes, the railroad corporations demanding that he
be prosecuted for conspiracy, treason and murder. Many predicted that he
would be hanged. He was imprisoned several times and served six months
in Woodstock Jail for contempt of court. While serving at Woodstock, he
was taken daily to Chicago, a distance of 55 miles, under escort of two
deputy sheriffs, where he was being tried for conspiracy and other
crimes, but when the prosecution learned that Debs and his attorneys
were in possession of the secret proceedings of the Railroads’ General
Managers’ Association and that they had a number of witnesses to testify
as to who had committed the crimes charged to the strikers, the trial
was abruptly ended on the plea that a juror had suddenly been taken
sick. No effort has ever been made to impanel another jury and so far as
the records show, the juror is still sick, and the cases ended by
evasion and subterfuge on the part of the Railroad Corporations.
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