On Tuesday, July 10, 1894, a special grand jury was impaneled in the
United States District Court of Northern Illinois. Judge Grosscup
charged the jury as to what is insurrection, conspiracy, etc., and the
jury retired to consider such evidence as might be brought before it
concerning the conduct of the American Railway Union strike. Edwin
Walker, counsel for the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad, had been
appointed by Olney, Attorney-General under Grover Cleveland, special
counsel to assist in this prosecution, and he and Attorney Wright, of
the Rock Island Railroad, were in attendance. One witness was
examined—E. M. Mulford, of the Western Union Telegraph Company—and
contrary to all precedent, produced for the jurors copies of the
telegrams which had been sent out from and received at the American
Railway Union headquarters since the strike had begun. With no further
preliminaries, the jury promptly indicted four American Railway Union
officials, and within ten minutes after Judge Grosscup received the
indictments four warrants were issued, and within an hour Eugene V.
Debs, President; George W. Howard, Vice-President; Sylvester Kelliher,
Secretary, and L. W. Rogers, Director and Editor of the “Railway Times,”
were under arrest. The official headquarters were raided. All books,
blanks, papers and correspondence of the Union were seized, as well as
all President Debs’ private mail. The officers returned Mr. Debs’
private mail the next morning by order of the court.
On July 17 the four were again arrested for contempt of court on
petition of Special Counsel Walker, alleging violating of the
restraining injunction which had been issued by Judges Grosscup and
Woods. In this restraining order persuasion was charged as a crime and
union labor was given notice that it could not use persuasion in order
to better their conditions. The defendants refused to give bail and the
four slept in Cook County jail, where they remained until Wednesday,
July 23, when their attorneys moved to dismiss the contempt proceedings,
as they were virtually for the same offense charged in the indictments
and that no man could be tried twice for the same offense. Their motion
was denied. The defendants pleaded for trial by jury and this was
refused. Further hearing of the case was then postponed to accommodate
Judge Woods until September 5. Later a supplemental information was
filed in the contempt case to include the directors of the American
Railway Union.