minated for Congress, and in little
over a month the remnant of his forces was shipped back toward the
setting sun.

The same year, 1894, marked a far more widespread and formidable
disorder, the A. R. U. Railway Strike. The American Railway Union
claimed a membership of 100,000, and aspired to include all the 850,000
railroad workmen in North America. It had just emerged with prestige
from a successful grapple with the Great Northern Railway, settled by
arbitration.

The union's catholic ambitions led it to admit many employees of the
Pullman Palace Car Company, between whom and their employers acute
differences were arising. The company's landlordism of the town of
Pullman and petty shop abuses stirred up irritation, and when Pullman
workers were laid off or put upon short time and cut wages, the feeling
deepened. They pointed out that rents for the houses they lived in were
not reduced, that the company's dividends the preceding year had been
fat, and that the accumulation of its undivided surplus was enormous.
The company, on the other hand, was sensible of a slack demand for cars
after the brisk business done in connection with World's Fair travel.

[Illustration: Town in background, lake in foreground.]
The town of Pullman.

The Pullman management refused the men's demand for the restoration of
the wages schedule of June, 1893, but promised to investigate the abuses
complained of, and engaged that no one serving on the laborer's
committee of complaint should be prejudiced thereby. Immediately after
this, however, three of the committee were laid off, and five-sixths of
the other employees, apparently against the advice of A. R. U. leaders,
determined upon a strike.

[Illustration: Portrait.]
George M. Pullman.

Unmoved by solicitations from employees, from the Chicago Civic
Federation, from Mayor Pingree of Detroit, indorsed by the mayors of
over fifty other cities, the Pullman Company steadfastly refused to
arbitrate or to entertain any communication from the union. "We have
nothing to arbitrate" was the company's response to each appeal. A
national convention of the A. R. U. unanimously voted that unless the
Pullman Company sooner consented to arbitration the union should, on
June 26th, everywhere cease handling Pullman cars.

[Illustration: About one hundred tents in background, several hundred
people in the foreground.]
Camp of the U. S. troops on the lake front, Chicago.

[Illustration