Capital Versus Labor: The Pullman Strike Showdown

[IndianaGreen]

Many of the benefits we take for granted today were paid in blood shed on our own soil by working men and women that fought for a life of economic justice and dignity.

One such event was the Pullman strike.

Capital Versus Labor: The Pullman Strike Showdown

By Jon Allen

On July 6th, 1894, federal troops marched into the Panhandle railroad yards in Chicago. The soldiers had been ordered to the yards by President Grover Cleveland with orders to evict the hundreds of striking railroad workers interfering with the yard. The ragged strikers, into their second week off the job, didn’t take kindly to the presence of hostile federal troops. With a grim determination they fought attempts to move them and this peaceful strike quickly turned into a brawl. By the time the clashes with federal troops had ceased, damage to the yard and nearly 700 railcars was estimated to be $340,000 (nearly $8 million today). So ended one of the most violent days in one of the defining labor struggles of the late 19th century, the Pullman strike.

For all of the 19th century, living conditions for most working-class families were absolutely deplorable. Most lived in crumbling tenement buildings grouped together in large urban ghettos. These neighborhoods had poor sanitation, few social services and high crime rates making the quality of life for their working class residents very poor. Workers labored 10 or 12-hour days just to support their families and, unable to afford anything else, were forced to live in these tenement slums.

Living conditions in working-class Pullman, Illinois, were a far cry from conditions found in the tenement ghettos. The 12,000 Pullman residents lived in clean town homes with indoor plumbing, gas and sewer systems. The children went to school free of charge, and the town had its own library. Pullman was attractive with modern architecture, multiple parks and extensive landscaping. Besides a library, the town had a church, shops and various entertainment options. To outside observers the town was a model community vastly better than the dense tenement slums.

The town was the brainchild of welfare capitalist George Pullman, owner of the Pullman Palace Car Company, a railcar manufacturer. Pullman had designs drawn up and had the town built in the 1880’s. He intended to provide housing for the entire workforce of his nearby Pullman factory. The town was seen as highly progressive and was widely admired.

The situation in Pullman differed radically from this perception. The whole town, including housing, stores and even the church was company owned. Alcohol was banned, and despite cheaper rents nearby, Pullman workers were required to live in town. A portion of employees paychecks were in vouchers only redeemable at overpriced company stores. Pullman had a similar monopoly on utilities. A message from the Pullman residents complained that, “Water which Pullman buys from the city (Chicago) at eight cents a thousand gallons he retails to us at 500 percent advance…. Gas which sells at seventy five cents per thousand feet in Hyde Park, just north of us, he sells for $2.25. When we went to tell him our grievances he said we were all his children.” One worker described the situation in Pullman; “We are born in a Pullman house, fed from the Pullman shop, taught in the Pullman school, catechized in the Pullman church, and when we die we shall be buried in the Pullman cemetery and go to the Pullman Hell.”

http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/5905/1/285/

[AdHocSolver]

1. Our corporate executives want to take us back to the good old days. n/t

[TomClash]

2. Great stuff nt

[papau]

3. President Grover Cleveland's killing of between 4 and 30 union folks because the rich were not

making enough money and were annoyed when workers objected to cuts in wages and benefits sound like the Bush family to me.

[noel711]

4. A vivid story most have forgotten....

Sadly we look back at this event through the eyes of our generation, and make judgements based on our experience. Although this article is excellent, I can't help but put a different spin on this.

I lived in a 'regentrified' Pullman in the '70s, and learned much about the history of this area. George M. Pullman was a man of his time,one example of the great Barons of capitalism. Of course his rules as to the workers were despicable, but indeed, he knew no better. There were no examples of compassionate community before Hull House came into being; and the workers? They had little choice.

Many of the workers were immigrants who fled Scandinavia (which was having a famine and social crisis of its own). Pullman offered these people homes, work and dignity. They readily sold themselves into what we see as a bondage; but to them it was the possibility of a free life. Many of the immigrants were peasants, who, in Europe, lived a kind of feudal bondage to the landowner. To come to the USA, to have their own home, to be able to get an education for their children... it was a dream.

The living conditions in the town of Pullman were far above the living conditions in most of Chicago at that time: workers in Chicago lived in incredible poverty. Pullman town had paved streets, with streetlights, indoor toilets, and even a library. This was heaven to rural peasants.

The quote from the Pullman worker is a bit of exaggeration: first, there is no cemetery in Pullman; there is one church, but no one was coerced in belonging. The Swedes were given land in Palmer Park to build their own place of worship, gratis from Pullman himself. (I grew up in that church).

In the center of the small town is a Market Circle... a circular building where people would shop for their needs. It was this place where Debs eletrified the workers.

Sadly, the town fell into disrepair during the depression. Pullman himself died a broken man, like many of the industrialists at the rise of the labor unions. Abraham Lincoln's son became the president of the PUllman company at one time. But history tends to take on a life of its own. We see these things through our own perspective, and not thru the eyes of the people who lived it.