General issues:

·         You have to cite facts in your own words, not just quotations. You cannot just claim something is true without providing evidence (a specific page number from a required source).
Personal tip: Yes, it is true that some heads of corporations (CEOs) and some small owners of companies think shouting their myth makes a reality. Based on my 20 years in varied industries where I worked with learning, you will have to do what they say and not argue with their myth. If they keep up that, start looking for another job. Reality rules the world. Yes, there are illusions (like the lead up to a stock market crash and law changes—that the CEOs paid for—that can hide the impending crash for a while), but reality rules.  

·         If your last sentence of a paragraph is a quick summary of what you proved in that paragraph, you do not have to cite—and you also probably did not need even to write the sentence in this paper since you are answering a question. If however you introduce a new issue in that last sentence, you must prove it with proper citation.

·         You can use (and cite) evidence of what people said/wrote or what they did. That’s it. You cannot tell what a person felt. Think how corrupt it would be if you were on a jury in a murder trial and if another person on the jury claimed that the defendant hated the dead man but there were no words heard/written or no actions as evidence.

·         To answer question that require an impartial witness, do not use those in the primaries who are in dispute. The closest thing to an impartial witness in the primaries is Altgeld.

Helping you Teach Yourself What the Pullman Strike Shows You about America and Government Power in 1894 By Using Search Words in the Primaries

Many of you did not catch on. You are lovely people, but you did realize this was not only history that the department expects you to learn, but also practice in how to figure out things in life. This gives you search words from the primaries so you can find some key things.

Tips for Search Words

·         I have placed this resource as a link next to those Primaries.

·         To use the search word, click Ctrl-F in the file that contains the primary, copy the yellow words below into the field, and then click Next (or you may see a Next arrow).

General Tips

·         Read each primary aloud and slowly enough to think about it. Label in 1 to 3 reminder words those things that you want to find I can.

·         Do not skip words and sentences—the truth is in the sequence.

·         Watch your assumptions. Use the primaries in Chapter 16 and your textbook (581, 584-585) to answer 4 questions:

Here Are the 4 Questions with Tables with Search Words to Take You Directly to the Information to Help You

1) What is Governor Altgeld’s responsibility and his judgement on the situation?

Caution:  A governor in 1894 is not like a governor in 2017—and some of you assumed a governor in 1894 had more power than a governor in 2017.

FYI: You could have done different things for judgement and you could still make points, but the ones about judgment are worth noticing when you listen to people.

Issue

Primary

Search Words in Yellow to Locate the Information in the Primary

A governor’s responsibility

Altgeld, p.1

perish of hunger  – Note: perish means die. What the State of Illinois cannot let happen makes it what the governor cannot let happen.  The governor doesn’t have a lot of power, OK? He knows it: I cannot help them very much at the present.

In 1894, he has no authority on their being hungry but not near death, on unhappiness of workers, on frustrations, on actual oppression, on safety, on wages, on how housing is done, and the list can go on with a lot more. Stop assuming!

Caution: A governor’s power

Altgeld, p.1

cannot help them much. – It’s no threat to tell Pullman you will beg decent Illinois people to contribute to feeding the starving in Pullman. (Notice in Altgeld, p. 3, Altgeld is no longer talking about that special session—a hard thing to make happen.)

meddle – The State of Illinois does not give the governor power to meddle in a business.

Guys, Altgeld is not a fool. He knows he has little that he can do.

Judgment on workers

Altgeld, p.1

foolish or wrong – He says it a bit differently in Altgeld, p. 3, but it the same meaning and the same keywords.  Personal Comment: their initial strike was not a good chess move so I can see why he’d say those words.

Caution:  Neither Altgeld nor Pullman ever call these people citizens of Pullman. Think what that means.

Judgment on Pullman

Altgeld, p.1

property – The State of Illinois had spent a lot already to protect Pullman’s property. He repeats this in Altgeld, p. 3.

years –Altgeld raises the issue that these workers had been with Pullman for years in each letter.

Judgement on how to act

Altgeld, p. 1

investigation – Altgeld does not assume the workers or Pullman are accurate in their view—not should he.

 

2) What is the situation of the workers and people in Pullman, Illinois? – The most impartial witness is Altgeld who goes to investigate

Reminders:

·         Rent/food prices paid by workers to Pullman still same, but wages paid to works by Pullman down 25-40%.

·         Workers were required to live in Pullman. (Essentials, p. 581)

·         Altgeld’s letter, p. 2 is after his going to Pullman.

 

Issue

Primary

Search Words in Yellow to Locate the Information in the Primary

Starving

Altgeld, all 3

hung and star- using those short forms will give different versions of the same words (such as hunger and hungry).

Pullman knows (or at least his managers know)

Altgeld, p. 2

Two representatives of your company were with me and we found the distress as great as it was represented. Read that section.

The people were hungry before the strike

Altgeld, p. 1

It is claimed they struck because after years of toil their loaves were so reduced that their children went hungry. – Notice that he says claimed because he had not investigated yet.

Pay reduced;

Rent/food kept same

Altgeld, p. 2

a) If you will allow me and b) dollar is a large sum - Altgeld knows a) his position with Pullman and b) the workers’ issue on the rent (covered in the textbook) and how these workers are experiencing this issue

A very simple (I can do math with a $1.00):

§  Your boss pays you a $1 for your work.

§  You pay your boss $.40 for food and $.40 for shelter and you have $.20 for other necessities.

Your boss lowers your pay and some of you get $.75 and others get $.60. You still pay your boss $.40 for shelter

§  If your pay is $.75 and the rent is the same, you buy ¼ less food and do not spend that $.20 on necessities.

§  If your pay is $.60 and the rent is the same, you buy ½ less food and do not spend that $.20 on necessities.

Relief supplies gone

Altgeld, p. 2

relief – Note at this time: relief is stuff (food, shelter in winter) that keeps humans from dying.

 

3) What does Pullman argue?

Issue

Primary

Search Words in Yellow to Locate the Information in the Primary

Panic of 1893

Pullman, p. 1

 obliged to lay off

Lowering of workers’ pay

Pullman, p. 1

revision of piecework prices  - Piecework: You are not paid by the hour or the day or the week, but by the pieces you finished.

Read with care the rest of that line about what he supposed.

Methods to have work for Pullman workers and income for his company

Pullman, p. 2

·         lower bids + the concept of contract work
Notice: 3/4s of workers are not hired but contractors. Contractors.  have work only as long as that ¼ that is hired has more work than they can do. The contractor’s life is risky.

·         closing our Detroit shops – shift of work to Pullman’s town

·         internal improvements – a 19th century term about infrastructure, but in context it is doing improvement to the shop that Pullman would have normally done later – Notice the condition of Pullmen helping them with this extra work again: Pullmen men show a proper appreciation

Rent and Altgeld’s suggestion

Altgeld, p. 2

Pullman does not deal with Altgeld’s issue on the suggestion to not charge rent so the workers can cease being near starvation. Altgeld’s point if he’d shut the plant for that time period, he would not have gotten rents.

Rent – not lowering the rent. Reason: no sound business practice since 3.82 % was (to him) not a good return on investment

Pullman, p. 2 and continues to p. 3

His 1st argument the rents make a manifestly inadequate return upon investments– Today we call this ROI.

Alternative ways to see this:

·         3.82% would be a great return today for many people (Compare it to interest on a CD now at 0.15 %.)

·         If the workers were laid off and therefore were not in Pullman’s town, they would not be paying him.

·         In some ways the payments for the tenements (not the houses that are being sold) are subsidizing his being able to build them so he can rent them out to the next folks who work for him.

Rent – like local rates

Pullman, p. 3

Kensington

Rent -sublet

Pullman, p. 3

subrents paid by single men as lodgers

Alternative ways to see this: a family can only afford the rent if they let strangers live with them.

Panic of 1893

Pullman, p. 1

 obliged to lay off

 

4) How does it all turn out? (Not covered in the letters but in the textbook.)

Notice the difference in the two sides and notice the Federal intervention to stop this strike.

Workers Side

Pullman Side

Textbook

Big Biz?

State?

Federal?

Workers in Pullman strike over insufficient income to eat

Pullman – wages down 25-40%; rent, food, unchanged

Reminder: His workers are required to live in his town.

p. 581

--

--

--

Re both, Governor listens/looks

Re both, Governor listens/looks

--

--

X

--

American Railway Union (ARU)—supports them

Pullman—fires workers on grievance committee

p. 584

--

--

--

Debs – for negotiated settlement

Pullman- refuses

p. 584

--

--

--

ARU—not handle Pullman cars

Railroad executives – hired strikebreakers

p. 584

X

--

--

 

U.S. Attorney general (worked for railroads)– “swore in 3400 special deputies”

U.S. Attorney general is the head of the Justice Department!

p. 584

--

--

X + federal force

Workers –assaulted strikebreakers and destroyed property

President Cleveland, 2,000 federal troops [the nation’s army] over the mail  Notice the word claiming—Historians use that when they cannot prove that this accurate.

p. 584

--

--

X + federal force

 

U.S. Attorney general – convinced a federal judge

p. 584

--

--

X

 

Federal judge – issues injunction

p. 584

--

--

X

ARU calls off strike

 

p. 584

--

--

--

 

Judge –Debs charged on that injunction – 6 months jail and becomes socialist

p. 584

--

--

X

 

Supreme Court – confirms In re Debs

p. 584

--

--

X

The primaries pick up with the strike over and when some Pullman workers tried to come back to work and they are “starving”

 

The dates in the textbook and on the primaries show this.

--

--

--

Pullman’s company town no longer existed.

 

--

--

--

--

 

The Federal government and big business come down on the workers, with the law and these quantities of muscle: the strikebreakers, the 3400 sworn special deputies, and the 2,000 federal troops. Click here for the Patterns of Treatment of Labor in the Gilded Age (also provided on the Concepts for Unit 1). Pullman is the last row of this chart.

Tip: If you are remembering your Constitution and you know that for the federal government to send federal troops, state officials must ask. Not covered in this textbook, but Altgeld did not ask. If you want to see the part of the Constitution that covers this, click on my searchable Constitution in Required Concepts and search on the letters repub. If you need to read more about the legal issues to understand, here is an honorable resource from the Federal Judicial Center: The Debs Case: Labor, Capital, and the Federal Courts of the 1890s. (Do not get caught up in it since it is not essential to this work.)

Great Caution: Read the whole and hear its meaning. If you have to read everything aloud, do it. You are to be a detective or a historian (or an inquirer to use its root word) looking for a reasonable truth, not a person writing fake stuff.

·         The section above the heading on page 585 is not just that side information from Nation magazine about homeownership.

·         The section under the heading “Economic Success and Excess” on page 585 is not a positive statement about workers. Read with care.