The Pullman Strike hits Seattle
Striking railway workers and curious mobs gather at the Columbia Street depot, testing the city's resolve during the national railway paralysis.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The regularity with which all trains came in and went out of Seattle yesterday would hardly denote that a strike was in force among the trainmen of the Lake Shore system, were it not for the crowds of men that gathered along the depot and tracks at the foot of Columbia Street. Curiosity seekers watched to see what the strikers would do to the non-union crews found at work. All were agreeably disappointed, however, for nothing occurred to mar the peace of the day save one incident at 11:30 a.m. when an excursion train for the new university grounds was stalled. When a gang of roughs began jeering the non-union crew as 'scabs' and crowding the tracks, the engineer cleared the way by exhausting a stream of dirty, sooty steam through the smokestack. The crowd scattered instantly, and the train proceeded. Superintendent Kline, observing from the platform, had his clean suit ruined by the blast, but the track remained clear. Deputy Marshal Quilter maintained a quiet watch with thirteen special deputies, but no serious violence broke out. Local strikers held a meeting at the Western Central Labor Union hall to discuss financial support for those refusing to work, while Superintendent Kline claimed that they had sufficient non-union men to keep the lines moving, declaring the strike a 'dead failure' for the railroad's local operations.
“The engineer put his head out of the cab and cautioned the crowd to clear the track or look out. The next moment a stream of dirty, black, sooty steam exhausted through the smokestack, sending the crowd flying in every direction.”
The 1894 Pullman Strike was a massive, nationwide labor uprising that paralyzed rail travel. Today, the spot mentioned—the foot of Columbia Street—is the heart of downtown Seattle's waterfront, a space defined by the city's ongoing struggles over labor, commercial infrastructure, and transit.
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