Part 89
A. I know that, but I would rather not answer the question.
By Senator Reyburn:
Q. When were those arms offered?
A. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
Q. But they were offered for the purpose of keeping the peace, were they not? You had promised to keep order?
A. I did, undoubtedly, promise that to Mayor Phillips, and my action shows that I was a quiet and peaceable citizen.
Q. But were not those arms offered for the purpose of keeping the peace?
A. Nothing was said about that at all, sir. Nothing was said about it at all.
Q. But those arms were not given you to resist the troops?
A. Yes, they were; some of them.
Q. You say that the citizens gave you those arms to resist the troops?
A. Yes.
By Senator Yutzy:
Q. Did those two prominent citizens?
A. No, sir; they did not.
By Mr. Lindsey:
Q. What did they give you the arms for?
A. Nothing was said.
Q. What did these two prominent citizens offer you the arms for?
A. One of them spoke for himself, and mentioned another prominent citizen who would also furnish arms.
Q. What day was that?
A. I won't be positive--it was either Saturday evening or Sunday evening--no, I am sure it was Sunday evening.
Q. What was the conversation about--in what connection did he offer you those arms?
A. The way it came about was this. He came over to Allegheny to the telegraph office, and asked some man outside where Mr. Ammon was, and he said inside the office. He asked if I would see him. I knew him by reputation, and I met him in the private telegraph office--he came in there. He told me he would like to have ten minutes of my time. He then sat down, and then asked me to give him the wages that each man was paid on the road--brakemen, firemen, engineers, and conductors. I sat down and talked with him awhile, and gave him those figures. Then he asked me whether the majority of the railroad men were single men or married men, and I told him they were married men. And he said he could not blame the men for striking, and that he hoped and prayed they would stand out like men, but not be guilty of any violence, and that as long as we did that we would have the support of every citizen of Allegheny county. And he said that if we wanted any assistance or any help, that he would give both money and arms--he said I will furnish a hundred stand of arms, and I know another prominent citizen who told me that he would also furnish arms. I thanked him, and my attention was called in another direction.
Q. Did he mention the name of the other citizen?
A. He did.
Q. Now we would like to have the names of those individuals?
A. I have no objection to giving them to the committee privately, but I don't want them to be known.
By Mr. Means:
Q. You said if the soldiers fiddled, you proposed to dance?
A. Yes.
Q. Then you intended, if the soldiers pretended to sustain good order, to resist them?
A. In the first place, our object----
Q. The question is a straight one?
A. I will give it to you straight. We proposed to treat the commanding officer with all the respect in the world due to his position. We were perfectly well aware that the chief executive of the State was out of the State, and we did not think that he could depute his powers to any one in the State. So we would want to know where he got his orders from, and if he got them from a railroad magnate, we did not propose to pay any attention to him.
Q. But you said if the soldiers fiddled, you proposed to dance?
A. Yes.
Q. Then if they proposed to maintain order, you proposed to resist them--answer yes or no?
A. I refuse to answer the question in that way.
By Mr. Lindsey:
Q. If the soldiers undertook to disperse the crowd assembled there, did the strikers intend to resist?
A. I did for one, undoubtedly. I would rather have died right there, before I would have budged an inch.
Q. Was it talked of--was it understood that you, as a body, would resist?
A. I don't think there was a man there but what would have gone to just what I led him to.
By Senator Reyburn:
Q. What do you mean by saying if the commanding officer had his orders from a railroad magnate, you intended to do thus and so?
A. What do you mean?
Q. To resist, I understood you to say?
A. No; we proposed if General Huidekoper came to Allegheny, to go and interview him and explain the situation. We were going to ask him the question as citizens of the Commonwealth, for we looked upon it we had that right; if he had his orders from the chief executive or from Governor Hartranft; if he had, we would recognize him, if he had not, we did not propose to recognize him any more than anybody else. We proposed to treat him as a rioter, for we did not count ourselves as rioters, for if the mob had come we would have given the mob the best we had.
Q. Then you would have resisted in that case?
A. If he did not have authority, undoubtedly.
Q. But suppose he had authority?
A. Then we would have recognized it.
By Mr. Lindsey:
Q. Do I understand you to say that you would have resisted if the soldiers had undertaken to disperse you?
A. We looked at it this way: the Governor was out of the State, and we had our reasons for thinking he had not got his orders from the Governor, so we proposed to see who he got his orders from.
Q. If he had his orders from the Governor or the commander-in-chief, then you would have obeyed his orders and dispersed?
A. Yes, if he had his orders from the Governor. That was the only authority we recognized, and we knew he was out of the State.
By Mr. Means:
Q. Did you take advantage of his absence in this strike?
A. No, we did not.
Q. But you were well aware he was out of the State?
A. Yes.
Q. Was it your impression that no other man in the State of Pennsylvania could order out the military?
A. That was our impression of it, yes.
Q. It certainly would be a bad fix if there was nobody else that could order out the military?
A. All right; we knew the Lieutenant Governor was here.
Q. You did not take advantage of the Governor's absence, then?
A. No; we thought we had some rights that the railroad men were bound to respect, but they did not seem to respect them. They treated us like mad dogs.
By Mr. Lindsey:
Q. When was the Trainmen's Union organized?
A. On Saturday evening, June 2, 1877.
Q. Were you a member of the body?
A. I was the first man that ever took an oath in it.
Q. What was the purpose--what were the objects of that Union?
A. The purpose and object of the Trainmen's Union was to get the trainmen--composing engineers, conductors, brakemen, and firemen, on the three grand trunk lines of the country--into one solid body. We knew that a reduction over the three grand trunk lines was going to take place, and we thought if we could combine into one body all the men, at a certain hour on a certain day, if the railroad magnates did not accede to our demands we would strike, and leave the trains standing just where they were, and go home. That was the object of the Trainmen's Union.
Q. Do you know how far and wide it extended?
A. Yes.
Q. Please state?
A. It extended over the Baltimore and Ohio, the road from Pittsburg to Baltimore, the Fort Wayne road from Pittsburg to Chicago, and I think the last division was organized at Valparaiso, or Fort Wayne. It was on the Northern Central and its leased lines, and all the leased lines of the Pennsylvania company were in it.
Q. Did it extend on the Erie road, and to the Atlantic and Great Western?
A. Yes.
Q. Over the whole length of the road?
A. I do not know.
Q. Where did it originate?
A. In Allegheny City.
Q. What arrangements, if any, were made by your organization for a strike?
A. When we thought we were strong enough so we could control at least three-fourths of the men of those roads, then we thought we could bring matters to a point--we could all quit. We knew they could not find enough green men to run the roads, and we thought that the citizens would look at it in the same light as we did--that the citizens would not care to trust their lives to green men--that the people traveling on the roads would not trust their lives to green men; and we thought by all going off and stopping the traffic on the roads that they would give us back our ten per cent.
Q. It was not organized until after the ten per cent. reduction was made on the 1st of June?
A. No; but it was talked about before that.
Q. How long before that was it talked about?
A. I believe the notice was stuck up by the Pennsylvania Company about the 26th or 27th day of May--somewhere in that neighborhood--and from that time on it was talked about.
Q. What led the men to talk about it at that time?
A. The notice was stuck up, that there would be a reduction.
Q. That was the first that called the attention of the men to it?
A. Yes.
Q. Was there any day set for the strike by the Trainmen's Union?
A. The 27th day of June, at twelve o'clock.
Q. State the extent of this strike as it was expected to take place on the 27th of June? How many men had you, who had agreed to strike? How wide was it to extend over the country?
A. I have just mentioned over the different lines.
Q. Had they all agreed to strike on that day?
A. Yes. Three or four days before the 27th of June--the 27th day of June was a Wednesday--the Sunday night before, that is, the 24th, forty men were sent out from Pittsburgh, so if they shut off the wires from us, we could notify the different divisions if we could not get telegrams to them in time, that if anything turned up, that it was ordered, and that that was the day set.
Q. At what hour?
A. At twelve o'clock, noon, June the 27th.
Q. To what points were those men sent?
A. All over the different trunk lines.
Q. To notify all the different lodges or divisions?
A. Yes.
Q. Did they so notify them?
A. They did, I believe, so far as they could get. But a hitch occurred before the 27th.
Q. What was it?
A. That was a Sunday night. On Monday night, the Pan-Handle division had a meeting, and most of the members from the other divisions were there, and it was decided on Monday night, when delegates from all the divisions around were there, that the strike should take place on the 27th, and on Tuesday night, all the members of the divisions around there were to come to Allegheny, to the usual place of meeting, and have another talk with the boys there. They met there, when three or four of them kicked up a rumpus, and it came near ending in a row. Some of the men who were the first to go into the thing--who were the first to propose doing anything, were the very men to kick, and two of them that night, went out on No. 11, west, and took the news out west, that there would be no strike the next day. We were all ready on the 27th, at twelve o'clock, noon, to go out on a strike, but we got telegrams from everywhere, asking if we were going on a strike, or whether we were not going on a strike. So the thing got mixed up, and they stopped the telegraph wires, and we couldn't get a word over. We had some trains stopped at Pittsburgh, but I had them all moved out on the track again, as I thought we had better let the thing go, than make a failure of it, and wait for some better time--a better organization, or some time when we could get things into better shape.
Q. What became of those men, sent out to notify the various divisions?
A. They beat their way back again, I guess, from all over the country to Pittsburgh.
Q. Did the Trainmen's Union break up at that time, or did they continue their organization?
A. They never had a meeting after the 27th, that I know of, in Pittsburgh.
Q. Did they at any other point?
A. Yes; the Trainmen's Union is still in existence.
Q. Was there any time arranged afterwards for a strike?
A. No; no time was agreed upon, but all labored under the impression that the bubble had grown so large, that it would have to burst sooner or later.
Q. Was there any pre-arranged plan, by which any strike was to take place on the 19th of July?
A. No, there was not. There was some little talk about it, if the railroad company would do so and so, that they would kick.
Q. Do what?
A. Put on double-headers.
By Senator Yutzy:
Q. What do you mean by kick?
A. Not stand it.
By Mr. Lindsey:
Q. Strike, do you mean?
A. Yes.
Q. Then there was no pre-arranged plan for that strike on the 19th?
A. There was no pre-arranged plan.
Q. Was it talked over?
A. Not on that day; but just as soon as they put on double-headers they didn't propose to submit to it, as they thought seventeen cars were enough for the men to take care of.
Q. These double-headers were only confined to the Pennsylvania Central?
A. Yes.
Q. They didn't extend over any other roads leading into Pittsburgh?
A. No.
Q. Was it known to the men on any other roads that the men on the Pennsylvania Central were going to strike?
A. I suppose they knew that they had their sympathy.
Q. I understood you to say that you left Pittsburgh the day before the strike?
A. No; I left it about the 16th.
Q. Did you know any thing about it then, or understand that there would be a strike then?
A. Yes; I remarked after the 27th day of June that I was positive there would be a strike, sooner or later--that the thing would have to come to a head itself.
Q. Did they say to you, or did you understand from any employés on the Pennsylvania Central road, that there would be a strike on the 19th?
A. No one knew that they were going to strike on that day.
By Senator Reyburn:
Q. Then no time was set?
A. No.
By Mr. Lindsey:
Q. Was it understood that when the order was given to run the double-headers that they would strike?
A. It was understood that just as soon as they put on double-headers they wouldn't run them. The men couldn't stand it.
Q. Did you know any thing about the strike at Martinsburg?
A. Yes; I heard of it.
Q. Before it took place?
A. No; not before it took place. I knew of it as soon as it did take place.
Q. Was there any general understanding that a strike would take place at the time the strike broke out at Martinsburg?
A. No; the understanding we had of this thing--our object in organizing the Trainmen's Union was, that the Pennsylvania Company would make a reduction on the first of June of ten per cent., and that, if their employés submitted to it, that the New York Central would follow about the 1st of July, and if their employés submitted to it--they had two roads, and had pooled their earnings--they would make a reduction on the 15th of July on the Baltimore and Ohio. They thought if they didn't get a strike before the 15th day of July, then the Pennsylvania road and these other roads would get so used to it, or that they would get us so frightened that we would have the idea knocked out of us, if they could run their traffic over those roads. They were not going to make a reduction over two trunk lines at one time.
Q. Did all that happen?
A. No; there was a reduction on the Pennsylvania on the 1st of June, and on Vanderbilt's road on the 1st of July, and on the Baltimore and Ohio on the 15th or 16th, and on the 15th was the strike.
Q. Did you have any communication with the men at Martinsburg before they struck?
A. I had some friends down there, and I used to hear from them once in a while.
Q. About the strike--this particular strike that took place at Martinsburg--did your union communicate with them? Was it understood or arranged between you for that strike on the 16th?
A. No; although they said that just as soon as they got the reduction they were going to strike.
Q. I understand you to say it was the double-headers, or the order to run them, that caused the strike on the 16th, at Pittsburgh?
A. Yes; because it was the wrong time to put on the double-headers, just following the strike at Martinsburg. That just started the whole thing.
Q. This Trainmen's Union was organized, you say, for the purpose of protecting yourself?
A. For protecting our own interests.
Q. What had you to complain of at the time of organizing the union?
A. The ten per cent. reduction. We thought we were getting little enough money.
Q. Had you anything else to complain of?
A. Yes; we had something a little worse than the reduction. That was all right. If they saw fit to reduce, and could get men to work at their rate, all right. The officials of the road, and Mr. Scott, all treated us all right. It was only the little under-officials who treated us like dogs. I was told that if I voted for a certain man I would get discharged off the road. I wanted to vote for a neighbor of mine.
Q. By whom were you told that?
A. By a petty under-official, the assistant day dispatcher.
Q. Had you anything to complain of, except this ten per cent. reduction?
A. Not on our road--not on the Fort Wayne road.
Q. Had they on the Pennsylvania Central, before the order was issued to run the double-headers?
A. No; I don't believe they had.
Q. That was the only thing you had to complain of?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you have any negotiations with the magnates of the road in regard to that?
A. Yes; we appointed a committee to wait on them, and talk with them, and try to get the thing settled up; but we couldn't reach them with a forty-foot pole. We tried everything with reference to avoiding a strike.
By Senator Reyburn:
Q. How long were you on the road?
A. About eleven months, I guess.
Q. Had there been any talk of striking before--during those eleven months?
A. No.
Q. Were any committees appointed to wait on the officials?
A. That was when we heard of the ten per cent. reduction.
Q. Had you any grievances before?
A. No.
By Mr. Lindsey:
Q. It was arranged then by your union that you would strike in case of a reduction?
A. That was what we organized for.
Q. Do you claim the right at all times to strike as a body? Do you claim that it is one of the rights that you have?
A. I claim that every free born American citizen, if necessary, has the right to quit work if he wants to. That is what I call striking--quitting work.
Q. Doing anything more?
A. We have no right to destroy property.
Q. Do you claim it as a right to interfere with those who want to work?
A. It is a right to use mere suasion. If I were to see you rushing on headlong on the breakers, and I can stop you, I would do so.
Q. Do you claim that you have a right to assemble in crowds or groups upon the property of the railroad company?
A. If that is where we are employed; yes.
Q. But when you strike, you are no longer in the employ of the railroad company?
A. No; not when we have once struck.
Q. Then after you have struck you don't claim that you have the right to assemble there?
A. Until we are ordered off?
Q. But when ordered off, have you the right to refuse to go?
A. It depends greatly upon who orders you off.
Q. When ordered off by an official of the railroad company?
A. If I am there for any unlawful purpose, I ought to go, but if I am not there for any unlawful purpose, and if I run against a man who wants to show fight or ride a big horse, I don't think I have any business to go, if I want to stay.
By Senator Reyburn:
Q. But do you say that you have the right to go on another man's property and stay there if he wants you to go away?
A. I don't recognize any one like a day dispatcher. It is not his business.
Q. But it is his business to keep the track clear?
A. No; it is not.
By Mr. Lindsey:
Q. You did assemble at yard of the Fort Wayne and Chicago road, one hundred and fifty or two hundred of you?
A. Yes.
Q. Were you ordered off--ordered to leave or disperse?
A. No; directly we were not.
Q. By any one belonging to the road?
A. The dispatcher told the chief of police to disperse this mob, that they were not employés of the Fort Wayne road, but rioters and loafers from Pittsburgh, and wouldn't allow their men to work.
Q. You resisted this? You refused to go?
A. I don't like a man to call me a liar.
Q. Did you refuse to go?
A. No one told me to go off the property.
Q. Didn't the policemen tell you to go?
A. No.
Q. Didn't they undertake to disperse you?
A. They got in amongst us, but they didn't push or tell us to go off.
Q. But you refused to go?
A. We didn't understand it that way.
Q. Was it not your duty to disperse when the policemen requested you, having been instructed so to do by the officials of the railroad company?
A. The police didn't tell us to disperse.
Q. You knew what they came among you for, and what commands had been given to them by the officers of the railroad company?
A. I heard the dispatcher say, disperse this lot of loafers and rioters from Pittsburgh. I don't know that he spoke to me.
Q. Did he refer to the crowd?
A. I don't know of any loafers or bummers in that crowd.
By Senator Yutzy:
Q. Were you ordered to disperse by anybody?
A. No; the dispatcher didn't speak to us, but to the chief of police, that these men are a lot of rioters from Pittsburgh, and he wanted them off the property.
By Mr. Lindsey:
Q. Did you consider you had the right to take that property and pack it away on the side tracks?
A. I thought I did perfectly right.
Q. If it was in danger of being destroyed?
A. Everybody appeared to be excited, and they had lost their heads, so that you couldn't get them to do anything. There were some passenger and freight cars, and a lot of cars loaded with live stock standing on one track, and nobody appeared to know what to do with them. People came to me and asked what to do, from even the dispatcher himself--he looked to me.
Q. But after you had refused to work, had you any right to interfere with that property?
A. We didn't interfere with the property.
Q. Had you any right to do anything with it?
A. If we were asked to do it we had.
Q. Had you any right to interfere with that property in any way?
A. Yes.
Q. You understand what I mean by my question? Do you not think it was your duty, after having refused to work, to leave the premises entirely and go away?
A. That depends on circumstances.
Q. But if you were working for a man and stopped work, or he turned you off, have you any right to remain around?
A. That depends a great deal on whether he wants me around or not.
Q. But have you any right to interfere with his property in any way, under any circumstances?
A. I would think I was a very foolish man. If my property was in danger I would like him to come and lend a hand.
Q. I didn't ask any question about the property being in danger?
A. We didn't interfere with the property in any way or manner.
By Mr. Means:
Q. Had the commander of the military refused an interview with you, or the party you represent, what would have been the consequences--what was your determination?
A. I don't know as we figured that far ahead.
Q. But you must have had some plan, sir?
A. I didn't happen to meet him, therefore, I cannot tell you.
Q. I want to know what was your determination?
A. That is something nobody knows.
Q. I insist upon an answer?
A. It is a question I cannot answer.
Q. This is the question. Had the commander of the military refused to have an interview with you or the party you represent, what was your determination--what did you intend to do?
A. That would have depended greatly on circumstances. I don't know what we would have done.
By Mr. Lindsey:
Q. Did you intend to resist the militia?
A. If you or any other man or the militia had raised a gun to shoot me, I undoubtedly would have resisted.
Q. But answer yes or no, then explain after answering the question?
A. What is the question?
Q. Did you intend to resist the militia had they attempted to disperse the crowd?
A. I will have to answer the question yes and no. If they had come with the requisite authority from the Governor of the State and ordered us to disperse, undoubtedly we would have obeyed them. If they had authority from the Governor of the State, I, for one, would have walked away.