BLOCKADE OF THE GREAT BRIDGE.
Excitement in East St. Louis—Scenes on “Bloody Island”—Council of the
Trainmen—A Night at Heim’s Hall—Hite’s Thrilling Oratorical
Flight—“Oppressed Labor”—“The Executive Committee”—Bold Jack
Benson—Organized for Business—Across the Great Bridge—Trains
Stopped—Slight Dissension Among the Strikers—Blue Coats in the Early
Morning—General Jeff. C. Davis Moves Over—Resigning
Potentates—Governor Cullom—General Bates—Exemplary Conduct of the
Strikers—The Last Scene.
At East St. Louis the situation on the morning of the 22d of July, bid
fair to be one of great moment to East St. Louis; while those who knew
the situation across the river were already beginning to appreciate what
an awful calamity might befall St. Louis if the railroad strikers should
take it into their heads to play as desperate a game as was played at
Pittsburgh. East St. Louis is situated on the Illinois bank, and as its
name implies is East of St. Louis, being directly opposite. It was once
an island, a wild tract of land, and is famous in history as “Bloody
Island,” on account of the many duels fought on its shores, in the early
history of St. Louis, when the code was recognized among “gentlemen of
honor” as the only way to settle disputes of a serious character, and
the only proper way of avenging wounded honor. Since the reign of
railroads it has been the converging point of a network of all the
railways approaching from the East, and has naturally become a populous
and important point. It will therefore at once be seen that as the
railroads which fed St. Louis with freight and passengers converged
here, and thence across the great bridge and through the tunnel to the
Union Depot, the strikers would be almost invincible if they could but
once gain a firm foothold at East St. Louis. They were not slow in
finding out, nor were the railway companies long in ascertaining that
the enemy had met them, and that they were in the hands of the foe.
[Illustration: ATTEMPT TO ARREST A RIOTER.]
At twelve o’clock, on the night of July 21st, the brakemen, firemen, and
some switchmen, employed on the numerous lines of railroads centering at
East St. Louis, had struck for the same pay as had been received before
the January reduction. Reports had come in over the Ohio and Mississippi
road, that “the boys at Seymour, Indiana, had set the ball to rolling
the night previous.” The news spread from mouth to mouth. The Toledo,
Wabash and Western employes were receiving the same pay as had been
previously given before the general reduction on the other roads, but
the employes on this line, ceased work in order to assist their fellow
workers, on the other roads.
Meetings had been appointed for Saturday night, at eight o’clock, P. M.,
and by that hour East St. Louis presented a livelier scene than it had
ever presented before. At the time appointed every one, from humble
section hands to the skilled engineers, were alive to the importance of
the event. The meeting was appointed for Heim’s Hall, a spacious place,
but its dimensions were not sufficient to contain the crowd, and other
meetings were held in the open air, addressed by speakers who were fired
with enthusiasm in behalf of the laboring men.
There was nothing to do on the tracks, because the General Freight
Agents had telegraphed from St. Louis to Sub-agents at East St. Louis
not to let any freight go until further orders. Thus, for the first
time, people began to see that the pulsation in the great rail artery,
which crossed the bridge, had stopped, and for the first time they
realized the condition this predicament had placed on the commerce of
the largest city west of the Mississippi, and hundreds flocked over from
St. Louis to the Eastern suburb, to read the men who had dared to place
the embargo upon traffic, and to listen to the stories of their wrongs
as portrayed by their leaders.
The meeting at Heim’s Hall was presided over by a man by the name of
George Kessenger, brakeman on the Wabash Line. A damper was cast over
the meeting by a call from a few lookers-on present, for a speech from
Hon. Luke H. Hite, ex-member of the Illinois Legislature, a lawyer, and
of some prominence in the city, but hardly to be called a workingman in
the sense the strikers viewed the matter. Mr. Hite is a leading
politician of St. Clair County, in which East St. Louis is located, and
did not wait for a second asking to mount the platform, where he dwelt
upon the relation of capital to labor. He said that the war just
inaugurated was a war of the laboring men to gain what was their own. He
severely denounced the system of paying high salaries to railroad
officers, and “sapping,” as he said, “the very vitals of the laboring
men to support the luxuries of the officers.” Mr. Hite’s speech was of
such tone and character as caused it to be received with great applause,
and in some instances, violent vociferation. After portraying the wrongs
of the strikers in their most exaggerated colorings, he told them that
they held the key, and they could lock or unlock the commerce of a great
city, even shut it out from the world. Great excitement here prevailed.
Voices of “we will hold it!” “All h—l can’t stop us!” were heard from
various parts of the crowd. Perhaps no speech could have added more fuel
to the flame than Mr. Hite’s. A thrilling orator; possessed of no mean
intellectual capacity; he fired minds that might have otherwise thought
differently of the movement with the morrow’s dawn. Other speeches
followed until midnight found the strikers at fever heat, inspired by
the spirit of leaders, some of whom were demagogues, but others, as
thoroughly in earnest as Patrick Henry or Oliver Cromwell in their
respective revolutionary times. Cheer after cheer was given by the rank
and file for the men who had espoused their cause, and the few merchants
and citizens who had come across the river from St. Louis, to see what
they supposed were a handful of ragged men, went back to the city
shaking their heads ominously. To add to the fears of the law-abiding,
all sorts of rumors flew through the air. It was whispered that there
was a car-load of gunpowder on the track, and that it was to be used in
blowing down the sides of the tunnel. Another was that there were
several car loads of coal oil at the freight depots, which the strikers
could at once run on to the bridge, and in a few moments destroy the
Eastern approach, which is composed of wood-work. Other wild flights of
imagination were indulged in, and there was no wonder that the visitors
from the Western end of the bridge were frightened at its prospect, or
that the humble burghers of East St. Louis, passed a restless night.
Before the close of the Saturday night meetings, a fair organization was
furnished for carrying out a programme of operations. Committees were
appointed, as general conference bodies, to act together in electing an
Executive Committee, which was to be considered the head of authority by
all the strikers, and their orders were to be obeyed strictly. The
following were the committee appointed.
Ohio and Mississippi—P. Rodgers, J. Lynch and Dan Burke.
Vandalia—J. McCarthy, Chas. Hunt and Wm. Walpole.
Indianapolis and St. Louis—Wm. Blanchard, Con. Connors and John Rouch.
Union Railway and Transit Company—Jack McCabe, Joe James and Wm. Shea.
Foreman Switchmen—Jas. Lynch, Tim Sullivan and Dennis Rush.
These Committees, met in secret session the next day and elected an
Executive Committee, but the names of the members, were not publicly
announced.
Monday, the 23rd, opened on a strange scene at East St. Louis. The
Executive Committee at once determined not to stop passenger trains, but
to stop all freight trains. There were at least five hundred strikers at
East St. Louis. They took possession of the Relay Depot, where all
passenger trains meet, captured the telegraph wires leading to the Union
Depot, and in the early part of the morning kept up a constant clicking
with their co-workers at the Union Depot, each party keeping the other
posted in relation to the operations in progress. The Executive
Committee in East St. Louis kept constantly closeted in a small shed, in
which the East St. Louis end of the telegraph terminated, and from a
small window issued their orders, which were carried out by subalterns.
One of the first orders issued that showed a spirit of determination was
to order the cattle yards, large enclosures, about two miles east of the
bridge, to close, and allow no stock to leave the yards or to enter
them. Feed, however, was allowed to be transferred to the stock, and the
strikers at East St. Louis avowed their intention of carrying on the war
on humanitarian principles. Mayor Bowman, who was powerless in the hands
of so large a force as was marshalled at the Relay Depot, could do
nothing with his dozen policemen, and the Sheriff of the county, after
having viewed the crowd, concluded they were too many for him, and
returned to Belleville, the county-seat of St. Clair county, some
fourteen miles distant, where a company of militia, under Captain Andel,
had been duly sworn into service on the 4th day of July. The militia
were not ordered out at that time by Governor Cullom, of Illinois, as he
did not wish to precipitate a repetition of the Pittsburgh troubles. No
sooner had the strikers found out their strength in East St. Louis than
various orders were given by the committee to request laborers at the
different car shops to desist from work. In every case the laborers
threw aside their aprons and their tools, and swelled the number of
strikers who stood around the Relay Depot, but were not put on duty as
railroad guards. The first day closed in East St. Louis with the
strikers triumphant and greatly encouraged. The campaign had been
carefully and coolly conducted.
Mayor Bowman had been requested by the East St. Louis Executive
Committee, to go across to St. Louis and ascertain what the railroad
companies would agree to do. That evening, Monday the 23rd, he made a
speech to the strikers, giving the result of his trip across the river.
Mr. Bowman’s speech met with applause in spots where the companies were
favorable to a compromise, and at the conclusion, the crowd dispersed,
somewhat conciliated, and more than ever determined to win in the
strike.
Thus far no passenger trains had been stopped. One freight train had
attempted to go out on the Chicago and Alton road, but it was quickly
mounted, the engineer pulled from his place, and the fire in the engine
furnace, extinguished.
Tuesday morning “opened dark o’er head,” but the ardor of the strikers
had not cooled, but on the contrary increased in intensity. Strikers in
large numbers had passed the night as they did every night while they
held the situation, in guarding railroad property, twenty million
dollars worth of property was thus placed in the hands of these men to
guard against tramps, and the ever present mob which associate
themselves with a movement of this kind, for the purpose of plunder. To
the honor of the strikers, be it said, that though the strike lasted ten
days, not a pound of freight was stolen, nor a dollar’s worth of
property destroyed.
Early on Tuesday, the 25th, two of the members of the Executive
Committee committed the first blunder, the occasion of a small
dissension in their ranks. Without having a conference with the other
members of the committee, they decided to stop passenger trains. The
other three members of the committee were in St. Louis, and had been
there all night for the purpose of further planning the campaign. The
first train stopped was the Vandalia mail and express. As all trains
have to stop at the Relay Depot in East St. Louis before switching on to
their respective roads, there was no chance for trains to run the
blockade, even though no obstructions had been placed on the tracks. No
sooner had the Vandalia train, arrived at the Relay Depot, at 9:30 in
the morning, than Jack Benson, the boldest of all the strikers, stepped
between the mail coach and the next passenger coach and told the
conductor to go on as they did not wish to obstruct the mails.
Immediately at least five hundred strikers, together with two or three
hundred miners who had joined in the movement, surrounded the train, and
with their whooping and cheering succeeded in frightening the conductor,
as well as a number of ladies on the train, whose minds were fresh from
reading the terrible record of the Pittsburgh riots, and who feared a
mob would ensue. Benson was backed by another member of the committee,
and conductor Mac Mahon surrendered the situation. At this time, another
member of the committee arrived on the spot, and denounced the movement
as premature, and that the two strikers had acted without authority. He
said that if trains were to be stopped, they should be stopped at the
Union Depot, and not subject the passengers to be dumped out that far
away from home. After a half hour’s delay, the whole train was allowed
to proceed.
This little break was the first made in the strike, and resulted in a
telegram from the East St. Louis Executive Committee, asking the latter
to stop all passenger trains from going out at Union Depot. But the St.
Louis committee were not to be governed by this order, and were discreet
enough to pay no attention to it, and all trains desiring to depart were
allowed to do so. The managers of the Ohio and Mississippi, and the St.
Louis and Southeastern—both being in the hands of receivers by the
decree of the United States Court, determined only to send mail cars,
without passenger coaches.
In the afternoon of Tuesday, a large delegation seized three coal flats
and an engine, and in command of the Executive Committee, went across
the bridge and forming in line at the Union Depot, marched to the
Missouri Pacific Car Works, and stopped the men at that establishment.
That night the East Louis strikers seized several coal flats and went
across to St. Louis, where they joined in the procession which marched
through that city.
During these two eventful days, the miners of St. Clair county had been
holding meetings at Belleville, at which some loud talk and braggadocio
had been indulged in by fiery leaders. Resolutions were adopted, by the
miners, setting forth their sympathies in the work the railroad employes
were engaged in, and assuring them that one thousand men were at their
command at any time, should they be needed. As before stated, a large
number of miners from the coal regions in the vicinity of Belleville
repaired to East St. Louis as spectators, but subsequently, as will be
seen, left the field as soon as danger approached.
Wednesday and Thursday were uneventful days in that week of the strike
at East St. Louis, with the exception of the total stoppage of all
trains on Thursday, by the railway companies themselves. At the meeting
of the East St. Louis Strikers Executive Committee on Friday morning,
four of the five resigned, and their places were filled. Jack Benson
alone remained firm. The cause of the resignation was probably the fear
of Governor Cullom’s appearance on the field, and the results which
might follow his order for all the militia of Central and Southern
Illinois to repair at once to East St. Louis. Four other bold strikers
were at once put in the place of men who resigned, and the new committee
at once resolved that, as one of them expressed it, they would “hold the
strike, even against the legions of hell.”
Saturday morning opened bright and lovely, and while the rays of the sun
as it rose, reddened the windows of the tall houses, lining the levee in
St. Louis, General Jefferson C. Davis, with four hundred and some odd
men of the United States army, eight companies in all, were taken on
board the St. Louis Harbor Boat (Elon G. Smith) about 3:30 A. M., at the
arsenal, whence they proceeded to the bridge, landing about a quarter of
a mile south of the structure. They passed up to the roundhouse, but
found no one there; they went to the Relay Depot where was found a large
body of “strikers.” They were ordered to disperse, which request they
complied with.
Company E made three arrests; no one hurt; not a single shot was fired.
One of the members of Company D captured a musket. Three freight trains
have had their engines fired, and were sent over. The members of the
crew of the Elon G. Smith congratulated Captain J. F. Morehead for the
manner in which the short campaign was conducted.
The eight companies of General Davis’ regulars were stationed all along
the lines of the different railroads, with the exception of one company,
to guard the Relay Depot. All the passenger trains leaving the Union
Depot were allowed to proceed on their way without obstruction from the
strikers.
By Sunday morning, ten companies of militia from the interior of the
State had arrived in East St. Louis. Over these General Bates was
placed, as commanding officer. The militia were distributed at different
points, and had little to do except to guard railroad property. The
Sabbath passed off quietly, and the back-bone of the strike at that
point was broken. There was a quieter appearance on Monday morning, July
30th, than at any time during the strike. What had become of the
strikers? was a conundrum not easy to be answered. Where, for a week,
the strikers had held high carnival, soldiers of the United States and
militia-men were seen in military squads, some in guard of the Relay
Depot, some guarding property, and others camped about in the vicinity
with their stacked arms close at hand. There was a military aspect in
the view which carried the spectator back to the days of the Confederate
war. Colonel James Roe, United States Marshal for the Southern District
of Illinois, had quietly arrived on Saturday night, and was left in
_charge_ by Governor Cullom, of all the militia, and requested by the
Governor to decide all matters of dispute, and, in fact, direct the
campaign. Colonel Roe, while an aged man in appearance, was young in
intellect, and to him much of the credit of an early termination of the
strike in East St. Louis is due. He had hardly arrived on the ground
when he put detectives, which he had brought with him from Springfield
and Chicago, on the track of the leaders conducting the strikes. The
detectives were not long in ascertaining the prime movers, and as fast
as they were discovered, warrants were sworn out against them. These
warrants embraced in their comprehensiveness all the members of the
original Executive Committee, together with the added members of the
new, nine in all. These warrants were not served immediately after being
sworn out except in two cases. These two were served on two of the
existing committee, Benson and Gainey, who were immediately arrested by
the militia, and placed in the guard-house, which consisted of an empty
freight car, and were taken that night to Springfield, where they were
subsequently tried, found guilty of contempt of court in disobeying the
decree of the court in interfering with trains on the Ohio and
Mississippi, and St. Louis and Southeastern Railroads.
By Tuesday, the historic “Bloody Island” of East St. Louis, presented
pretty much the same appearance as it did before the strike, the
cheerful whistle of the engine was heard on all the tracks, and the busy
bustle in making up freight trains, was noticed on every hand. Passenger
trains were leaving on time, without the least molestation, either at
East St. Louis or any other points on the different roads. Occasionally
a lone striker could be seen pensively contemplating the scenes of which
he and his companions were but yesterday masters, but most of the
strikers were scattered to the winds. Their leaders had been captured or
had deserted, there was nothing to keep the organization together, and
it disbanded. The number of arrests made in East St. Louis during the
strike, were but twenty-seven, most of whom were “taken in” as
suspicious characters. All but the two taken to Springfield, were
released on Tuesday. By Thursday of the second week of the strike, the
militia-men had left for their homes, and the United States troops alone
remained, under charge of Colonel Smith, to guard Government property.
These troops remained at East St. Louis for two weeks, when, it having
been ascertained that the strikers had all gone to work, and were
showing no hostilities, the troops were ordered to the arsenal, in St.
Louis. In the conclusion of this chapter, it must be admitted, and
cheerfully acknowledged, that the conduct of the strikers was most
exemplary. Led on by hot-headed politicians, in the out-start, their
leaders as well as the rank and file remained cool and determined till
overpowered by the soldiery, and throughout the strike, not only did no
destruction to life or property, but even took upon themselves the duty
of conserving the peace, and guarding the property which they had
assumed temporary charge of. One touch of the fire brand in certain
localities, where miles and miles of cars stood, piled as it were
together, and there would have been a conflagration, such as would have
made the horrors of Pittsburgh pale into insignificance. As it was,
there was not a drop of blood shed, nor a particle of property injured,
and when they saw that capital as it always has, had crushed them, and
scattered their hosts, they went back to their labors, determined to
accept the situation.