The late Senator and Judge Lyman Trumbull, for many years United States
Senator, chairman of the Senate Committee on Judiciary, Supreme Judge of
Illinois, author of the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution of the
United States, personal friend of Abraham Lincoln, and, above all, an
honest man, wrote: “The doctrine announced by the Supreme Court in the
Debs case places every citizen at the mercy of any prejudiced or
malicious Federal judge who may think proper to imprison him.”
President Cleveland doubtless understands the import of these ominous
words. Let the people, the working people, whom the ex-President regards
merely as a mob to be suppressed when they peaceably protest against
injustice—let them contemplate these words at their leisure.
When the strike was at its height and the railroads were defeated at
every turn, the Federal Court hastily impaneled a special grand jury to
indict the strikers. The foreman of this jury was chosen specially
because he was a violent union hater, and he afterward betrayed his own
capitalist colleagues in a matter they had entrusted to his integrity.
The jury was impaneled, not to investigate, but to indict.
A _Tribune_ reporter, who refused to verify a false interview before the
jury, and thereby perjure himself to incriminate the writer, was
discharged. The Chicago _Times_ published the particulars.
An indictment was speedily returned. “To the penitentiary,” was the cry
of the railroads and their henchmen. A trial jury was impaneled. Not a
juror was accepted who was of the same political party as the
defendants. Every possible effort was made to rush the strike leaders to
the State prison.