was the facility with
which it led to a sympathetic strike on the Missouri Pacific and all
leased and operated lines. This strike broke out simultaneously over the
entire system on March 6. It affected more than 5000 miles of railway
situated in Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Indian Territory, and Nebraska.
The strikers did not content themselves with mere picketing, but
actually took possession of the railroad property and by a systematic
"killing" of engines, that is removing some indispensable part,
effectively stopped all the freight traffic. The number of men actively
on strike was in the neighborhood of 9000, including practically all of
the shopmen, yardmen, and section gangs. The engineers, firemen,
brakemen, and conductors took no active part and had to be forced to
leave their posts under threats from the strikers.

The leader, one Martin Irons, accurately represented the feelings of the
strikers. Personally honest and probably well-meaning, his attitude was
overbearing and tyrannical. With him as with those who followed him, a
strike was not a more or less drastic means of forcing a better labor
contract, but necessarily assumed the aspect of a crusade against
capital. Hence all compromise and any policy of give and take were
excluded.

Negotiations were conducted by Jay Gould and Powderly to submit the
dispute to arbitration, but they failed and, after two months of
sporadic violence, the strike spent itself and came to an end. It left,
however, a profound impression upon the public mind, second only to the
impression made by the great railway strike of 1877; and a
Congressional committee was appointed to investigate the whole matter.

The disputes during the second half of 1886 ended, for the most part,
disastrously to labor. The number of men involved in six months, was
estimated at 97,300. Of these, about 75,300 were in nine great lockouts,
of whom 54,000 suffered defeat at the hands of associated employers. The
most important lockouts were against 15,000 laundry workers at Troy, New
York, in June; against 20,000 Chicago packing house workers; and against
20,000 knitters at Cohoes, New York, both in October.

The lockout of the Chicago butcher workmen attracted the most attention.
These men had obtained the eight-hour day without a strike during May. A
short time thereafter, upon the initiative of Armour & Company, the
employers formed a packers' association and, in the beginning of
October, notified the