In the A. R. U. there were originally sixty-nine persons named in the
omnibus indictments for conspiracy to obstruct the United States mail.
Before the trial the government counsel entered a nolle pros. as to a
number of the persons indicted, leaving the number January 8, 1895,
forty-five. There were seven indictments against Debs, Howard and
Rogers, and three each against the full Board of Directors of the A. R.
U. Debs, Howard, Kelliher and Rogers were first indicted with James
Mervin for conspiring to obstruct a mail train on the Rock Island
Railroad, and were arrested by the Marshall and placed in the County
Jail until the court admitted them to bail. The four leaders were under
$25,000 bonds in all of the conspiracy indictments except the omnibus
indictment. The defendant directors were represented by S. S. Gregory
and C. S. Darrow, and Jno. J. Hannahan was represented by Thos. W.
Harper, of Terre Haute. Edwin Walker, District Attorney General J. C.
Black and his predecessor, T. E. Milchrist, represented the government.
Mr. Gregory, addressing the court, said:
“I stand ready to prove that one of the attorneys, who is here to
represent the United States, has been retained as counsel for one of the
railroads interested in this case,—the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul. We
object to his sitting in this case.”
Mr. Walker said: “Part of this statement is true and part is not true.”
Mr. Gregory asked that Mr. Walker be interrogated, but the court
declined to interfere.
Of the twelve jurors chosen, eight were farmers, one an insurance agent,
one a real estate dealer, one a dealer in agricultural implements, and
one a painting and decorating contractor. The government was very
careful to exclude workingmen from the jury.
Mr. Milchrist, in his opening speech for the government, said:
“Men have a right to strike.”
Mr. Darrow replied in his opening address:
“If this is so, it ends this case, for no one but the evil genius that
directs this prosecution believes these men did anything else. There is
a statute which makes the obstruction of a mail car punishable by a fine
of $100, yet no one had heard of the men who actually obstructed the
mails during the strike being indicted under that statute. In order to
make felons of honest men, who never had a criminal thought, they passed
by that state to seize on one that makes conspiracy to obstruct the
mails a crime punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary. To hound
these men into the penitentiary is their purpose, yet they call this
respect for law. Conspiracy from the days of tyranny in England down to
the day the General Managers’ Association used it as a club has been the
favorite weapon of every tyrant. It is an effort to punish the crime of
thought. If the government does not, we shall try to get the General
Managers here to tell what they know about it. The evidence will show
that all these defendants did was in behalf of the employes of that man
whose name is odious wherever men have a drop of human blood—Mr.
Pullman. No man or set of men or newspaper ever undertook to defend Mr.
Pullman except the General Managers’ Association, and their defense
gives added proof of his infamy. These defendants published to all the
world what they were doing, and in the midst of a wide-spread strike
they were never so busy but that they found time to counsel against
violence. For this they are brought into a court by an organization
which uses the government as a cloak to conceal its infamous purposes.”
It was shown in the evidence from hundreds of telegrams read to the
jury, all signed by Eugene V. Debs, that he counseled abstaining from
all forms of violence and keeping within their rights as workingmen.
There were more than 9,000 telegrams sent out during the strike and all
telegrams that were considered of any value to the prosecution were
produced by Edward M. Mulford, manager of the Western Union Company. It
was shown by the defense that Mr. Wicks, vice-president of the Pullman
Company, attended the emergency meetings of the General Managers’
Association in June. Why he was permitted to be present was not
explained by the prosecution.
Mr. B. Thomas, president of the Chicago & Western Indiana Railway
Company, was put upon the stand and testified in regard to the General
Managers’ Association,—that it was organized April 20, 1886; that the
purposes were to consider matters relating to railway management and
wages, and that the Association had acted as a unit in resisting
petitions for the increase of wages. The witness further testified that
agencies had been established by the Association for the purpose of
hiring new men to take the places of strikers, and that the expenses of
the Association were apportioned among the several roads composing it.
Mr. Darrow read from the minutes of a meeting of the General Managers’
Association August 31, 1893, that a general combination of the railroad
managers throughout the United States was desirable and a committee of
five men was appointed to take steps to carry out this idea. It was also
developed that the object of this combination was to regulate wages and
make them uniform throughout the country.
From the minutes of the meeting of September 21, 1893, Mr. Darrow read a
resolution to the effect that however much it was to be regretted, a
reduction in the wages of railway employes generally had become
absolutely necessary.
After the examination of the General Managers, Mr. Debs, president of
the A. R. U., was called to the stand, February 6, 1895.
In this evidence Mr. Debs, in reply to questions, gave a brief history
of his life from November 3, 1855. He testified that more than
$4,000,000 passed through his hands during his term of office as
secretary and treasurer of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen. He
gave a history of the labor development among railway employes up to the
time of his resignation from the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, and
his uniting with the American Railway Union in 1892. He stated the
object of the American Railway Union to be “A unification of _ALL_
railroad employes for their mutual benefit and protection.” Being asked
what led to the formation of the Union and to his conviction that it was
necessary to form such an organization, Mr. Debs replied, that the
concentration of the smaller railroads into the larger in this country
had been going on for the last 20 years, the smaller roads being
gradually reduced into the larger; that the wages had been gradually
reduced, and in substance stated that the concentration of the railroads
logically compelled a closer union among railway workers, as they could
not accomplish anything by striking along craft lines.
He further testified that at the time of the strike on the Great
Northern Road there were about 150,000 members of the A. R. U.; that the
strike commenced April 13, 1894, and lasted eighteen days, culminating
in complete victory, peaceful and orderly, and the strike was called
off.
He testified that he first learned of the Pullman trouble when he
returned from St. Paul, May 5, 1894, and first learned of the strike at
Pullman on May 11. He was asked if the strike was brought on in any way
by his advice, and Mr. Debs replied: “No, it was done contrary to my
advice. I first went to Pullman,” said Mr. Debs in his evidence, “on the
14th of May after the strike occurred, and stayed there part of the day
and an evening. I went again on May 18.” Mr. Debs stated he investigated
conditions at Pullman by inquiry among the employes and their families
and also from other independent sources, including the Rev. Carwardine,
who had been preaching in Pullman for three years. “The result of the
investigation,” said Mr. Debs, “was that I came to the conclusion that
the Pullman Company was in the wrong; that wages had been unjustifiably
reduced below the living point and that rents were much too high in
comparison with what was charged for the same class of dwellings
elsewhere.” He was not permitted by the court to testify as to the
conditions existing among the people at Pullman. Being asked as to the
convention of the A. R. U. held in Chicago, he stated that it was held
June 12, 1894, and that 425 delegates were present from nearly all the
states in the Union, and that newspaper reporters were present at all
meetings of the convention except one executive session, which was
called to consider the financial affairs of the Order and nothing else;
that telegrams sent and received by the A. R. U. were subjected to the
examination of members of the press; that nothing was concealed. He said
the convention voted $2,000 of the funds for the Relief Committee at
Pullman and the money was paid over to them; that the convention voted a
levy of 10 cents a day per capita; that that was not collected because
of the strike that followed.
Mr. Debs stated that there were speeches made at the convention by
several on the situation at Pullman and that subsequently a motion was
made to declare a boycott against the Pullman cars at once and that
railway men should not haul them. Mr. Debs said that as chairman of the
convention he declined to entertain this motion, on the ground that it
was a very important matter which should not be acted upon hastily or
until every means of effecting an amicable settlement had been
exhausted; that he suggested that a committee be appointed to try to
settle the matter by arbitration and avert a strike and that such
committee was appointed; that the committee reported Saturday, June 16;
that the Pullman Company positively declined to confer with any
representatives of the American Railway Union and would confer only with
their own employes as individuals. Another committee, composed entirely
of Pullman employes, visited Mr. Wicks, vice-president of the Pullman
Company, and reported that he said the company had nothing to arbitrate,
and that he regarded the strikers in the position of “men on the
sidewalk, so far as their relations with the company were concerned.”
The Rev. Mr. Carwardine, on the following Wednesday, addressed the
convention, told of his experience during his stay of three years in
Pullman, and particularly of his knowledge of the condition and
surroundings of the people there. He said they were on the point of
starvation and appealed to the convention in the name of God and
humanity to act. He closed by saying that whatever was done must be done
quickly.
Mr. Debs then told of a resolution to declare a boycott on the Pullman
cars and the appointment of a committee to notify Mr. Wicks that unless
he agreed to arbitrate the matter, the boycott would go into effect at
noon June 26. This committee reported that Mr. Wicks still refused and
preparations were then made to put the resolution into effect. He was
asked if he or anyone else counseled violence or violation of law; he
answered that nothing of the sort was advised by himself or any of the
other speakers. He said, “Never in all my life have I broken the law or
advised others to do so.” His testimony was listened to with marked
interest by the jury. After Mr. Debs’ testimony had been completed
Deputy Marshal Jones reported to the court that he had made diligent
search for Mr. Pullman at his office and couldn’t find him. He said that
“nobody appears to know the exact whereabouts of that gentleman.”
Johnson, who occupies the honorable office of preventing distasteful
callers from having access to his chief by demanding that they shall
first be properly accredited to him by a piece of pasteboard, was
brought to court and testified that he took Mr. Jones’ card in as usual
and that Mr. Sweet, Pullman’s private secretary, carried it to the
magnate’s room and returned, saying his employer was not in. He
testified in a straightforward manner that Mr. Pullman walked into his
office in the usual manner at 10:30 in the morning and on his way passed
through the reception room. After that, the factotum declares he never
saw the head of the Palace Car Company.