·
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.
The instructions encouraged you to make a handwritten chronology of who did what to whom in the Pullman Strike. If you had, some of you would have caught on more.
When people talk about fair, they tend to deal with who hit whom first and with how many weapons and how many fight how many. These links are to help you start to notice what the Gilded Age—shiny but fake gold—was like.
First, for self-test, look at this link and what you expect to see in the yellow area after Opposition: ___________
You need to look at the textbook at least for the Pullman Strike to notice the exact order of violence and by whom. Notice too that Debs was “urging the workers to obey the laws and avoid violence” (Essentials, p. 584). This is not a pretty world for people trying to keep their kids from being hungry, for people putting their young kids to work so they can eat, for renting1 room in a house for your family, for costs of living at $600 for a family of 4 and income at $400. See this Snapshot for a summary of this data in the Gilded Age. In subsequent Units, you see that data expanded with columns for the Progressive Era and the 1920s.
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 as though you were the person and
slowly enough to think about it. Label
in 1 to 3 reminder words those things that you want to find later.
·
Do not skip words and sentences—the truth is in the
sequence.
·
Watch your assumptions. For the 1st Primary
Writing, you used the primaries in Chapter 16 and your textbook (581, 584-585)
to answer 4 questions. Those 4 questions are listed below as well, but you can
use this method to make sure you understand these primaries for other
questions.
·
Use analogies to catch your assumptions about other
types of people. There is an analogy provided.
1) What is Governor Altgeld’s responsibility and his judgment
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 judgment
that what I wrote 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. |
|
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. |
|
Judgment 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 were still same, but wages paid to workers by Pullman were 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 25 to 40%; 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 example (and I can do math with a fake
$1.00 example): § 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 might buy ¼ (one-fourth) less food and do not spend that $.20 on necessities. § If your pay is $.60 and the rent is the same, you might buy ½ (one-half) 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 ·
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. Pullman’s 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 the investment”– 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 as well as the other colors uses for government levels. federal, state, police, private paid by business.
Analogy: Consider for a second that you and 6 friends work
for a fast-food place down the street.
|
Workers Side |
Pullman Side |
Textbook |
Business? |
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 |
X |
-- |
-- |
|
Debs – for negotiated settlement |
Pullman- refuses to negotiate |
p. 584 |
X |
-- |
-- |
|
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 federal injunction |
p. 584 |
-- |
-- |
X |
|
ARU calls off strike |
|
p. 584 |
-- |
-- |
-- |
|
|
Federal 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 an historian (or an inquirer to use the word history’s root word) looking for a reasonable truth, not a person writing fake stuff.
Many of you misread 585
·
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.