Michael Brennan, superintendent of the Chicago police, knew it and
denounced the deputy marshals Edwin Arnold’s hirelings, the General
Managers’ Association’s incendiaries and sluggers, as “thugs, thieves
and ex-convicts.”
These were the “gentlemen” President Cleveland’s government pressed into
service upon requisition of the railroads to preserve order and protect
life and property, and this is what the ex-President calls “the power of
the National government to protect itself in the exercise of its
functions.”
As to just what these “functions” are when Grover Cleveland is
President, the railroad corporations understand to a nicety and agree to
by acclamation.