February 14, 1882 – At least 1,000 employees of the
Pullman Company go on strike after timekeepers notify them that they will be
required immediately to pay their own fare to the company’s works on Illinois
Central trains. Passes had been issued
on the trains free-of-charge, but the company says that the passes have cost about
$8,000 a month since the company moved its manufacturing to a planned community
named after its founder. To say the
least, the whole matter could have been handled more judiciously. According to the Chicago Daily Tribune, “When the man to whom the distribution of
the tickets was intrusted went around among the men he demanded not only that
they should buy then and there, but also that each man should lay in a supply
for six days in advance, paying cash for the same.” [Chicago
Daily Tribune, February 15, 1882] Since the company had also recently
changed the paydays from semi-monthly to monthly, a great number of workers
were unprepared for the new expense. The
painters and carpenters struck immediately.
700 workers congregated as Mr. D. A. Grey climbed up on a bench and
began to speak . . . “It was the old story,” he said, “of the conflict between
capital and labor, and it resulted from the attempt of capital to ignore the
value of labor. The official who drew
his princely salary of thousands did not appear to understand the situation of
the man who was compelled to get up at 4 o’clock in the morning, snatch a hasty
breakfast by candle-light, walk, it may be, a couple of miles to catch the
train, ride fourteen miles in a dirty smoking-car, often standing all the way,
work steadily and hard for nine hours—for which he received 27½ cents an
hour—then ride fourteen miles back; in the dirty car, paying his own fare, and
be obliged to wait a month for the wages due him.” After an appointed committee met with company
managers, its members returned to the waiting throng and reported the company
was steadfast in its determination to charge the men for their railroad
fare. A worker jumped from the crowd and proclaimed,
“The whole thing is just this, boys: All
we want is fair play. I don’t think it
is fair play to charge us for our fare out here, and I put it to a vote. Shall we stand it?” Greeted with a loud chorus of dissent, he
continued, “Then I’ll tell you what to do.
Let every man pack up his kit, and if when the manager comes he isn’t
willing to change the order, why we will all go home and find work somewhere
else. I think this country is big enough
and fertile enough to give every man a living who is willing to work.” Less than two years after Pullman began its
bold experimental planned community for workers, a decade of give-and-take
between management of the company and its employees begins, ten years of
tension that would ultimately lead to the great show-down of 1892. The Pullman Market Building, shown above, is the site at which the angry workers gathered.
Also on this date from an earlier blog entry . . .
February 14, 1903 -- Architect Daniel Burnham describes his vision of a Chicago that includes parks and lagoons, gardens, forests, and broad carriage ways to the Merchants' Club. Burnham urged those present to ensure that the lake be made a beauty spot that would, according to The Chicago Daily Tribune, "keep at home the millions that are spent by Chicagoans at Venice, Paris, and other beauty spots of the old world." The president of the Merchants' Club, Alexander Agnew McCormick, added, "The Merchants' club is not committed and will not be committed to any fixed plan for converting the lake front into a park, but it does insist that the submerged lands along the lake shore shall be dedicated for a public park, to be used exclusively for a park. No buildings are contemplated in the general plan."
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment