Cool USA Facts!

In 1894, the Pullman Strike was one of the bloodiest battles between police and workers in US history. The conflict began in Pullman, Chicago, when nearly 4,000 factory employees of the Pullman Company began a wildcat strike in response to recent reductions in wages, despite not reducing the rents or cost of goods in the company town. Debs and the ARU called a massive boycott against all trains that carried a Pullman car. It affected most rail lines west of Detroit and at its peak involved some 250,000 workers in 27 states. Thirty people were killed by the police. The federal government obtained an injunction against the union, Debs, and other boycott leaders, ordering them to stop interfering with trains that carried mail cars. After the strikers refused, President Grover Cleveland ordered in the Army to stop the strikers from obstructing the trains. Violence broke out in many cities, and the strike collapsed. Defended by a team including Clarence Darrow, Debs was convicted of violating a court order and sentenced to prison; the ARU then dissolved.1