President Cleveland and the Pullman Strike
Shortly after dawn on July 3, 1894, General Miles, commanding general
of the Military Department of the United States, walked past the White
House and across Lafayette Park to the home of Secretary of War David
S. Lamont. Lamont ordered Miles to board the next train for Chicago
and, acting on instructions from President Grover Cleveland, to prepare
the US army at Fort Sheridan, Illinois, for immediate deployment.
Lamont told Miles the troops would march on Chicago, where 150,000
striking railroad workers threatened to paralyze the nation's railway
system. After his early meeting with General Miles, Lamont went to the
White House, where President Cleveland, Attorney General Olney and
several other cabinet members were conferring on the strike situation.
That afternoon, at Olney's urging and in response to requests for aid
from federal officials in Illinois, the president ordered the Fort
Sheridan forces to Chicago. By week's end, Cleveland had sent over
2,000 federal troops from five garrisons to the city. The nationwide
strike was soon broken and its union leaders were arrested and jailed
on charges of conspiracy to obstruct interstate commerce, violation of
the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890, and obstruction of the US mails.
Though Cleveland's use of military force met with strong protest from
Illinois officials and from organized labor, the president's actions
were hailed in Congress and by the press. In the eyes of many,
Cleveland had saved the nation from the forces of socialism and
anarchy. The case describes the origins of the labor unrest, various
efforts to handle it, culminating in the use of federal troops, and the
aftermath of the strike. It serves as a vehicle for comparing White
House decisionmaking a century ago with that of relatively recent times
(e.g., Harry Truman's seizure of the steel industry in 1952, LBJ's
response to the events in Selma, Alabama, in 1965, or a variety of
other instances more nearly contemporary). Not untypically, in 1894
the president was wholly dependent on cabinet members for staff work
and a single member, Olney, set the face of the issue for Cleveland and
dominated his consideration of the matter.
President Cleveland and the Pullman Strike, 19pp+, (C14-86-715.0)
