cretary-treasurer of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, resigned
his office and set about organizing a new general union of railroad
employees in antagonism to the Brotherhoods, which were separate unions
of particular classes of workers. He formed the American Railway Union
and succeeded in instituting 465 local lodges which claimed a membership
of one hundred and fifty thousand. In March, 1894, Pullman Company
employees joined the new union. On the 11th of May, a class of workers
in this company's shops at Pullman, Illinois, struck for an increase
of wages, and on the 21st of June the officers of the American Railway
Union ordered its members to refuse to handle trains containing Pullman
cars unless the demands of the strikers were granted. Although neither
the American Federation of Labor nor the Brotherhoods endorsed this
sympathetic strike, it soon spread over a vast territory and was
accompanied by savage rioting and bloody conflicts. In the suburbs
of Chicago the mobs burned numerous cars and did much damage to other
property. The losses inflicted on property throughout the country by
this strike have been estimated at $80,000,000.

The strikers were undoubtedly encouraged in resorting to force by the
sympathetic attitude which Governor Altgeld of Illinois showed towards
the cause of labor. The Knights of Labor and other organizations of
workingmen had passed resolutions complimenting the Governor on his
pardon of the Chicago anarchists, and the American Railway Union counted
unduly upon his support in obtaining their ends. The situation was such
as to cause the greatest consternation throughout the country, as there
was a widespread though erroneous belief that there was no way in which
national Government could take action to suppress disorder unless it was
called upon by the Legislature, if it happened to be in session, or by
the Governor. But at this critical moment, the Illinois Legislature
was not in session, and Governor Altgeld refused to call for aid. For
a time, it therefore seemed that the strikers were masters of the
situation and that law and order were powerless before the mob.

There was an unusual feeling of relief throughout the country when word
came from Washington on the 1st of July that President Cleveland had
called out the regular troops. Governor Altgeld sent a long telegram
protesting against sending federal troops into Illinois without any
request from the authority of the State. But