The National Guard Mutiny at Sprague
Washington militiamen refuse to break the Pullman rail strike, leading to their arrest and transport under guard.
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.
Troop A, Second regiment, National Guard of Washington, except Captain A. W. Lindsey and Private Mount, refused today to ride on a Northern Pacific train manned by a non-union crew. The entire troop, consisting of sixty men, were placed under arrest, loaded into a box car, and taken east with the train carrying the rest of the state militia. When Troop A arrives at Sprague it will be court-martialed. They were motivated by messages from Sprague stating that the populace opposed non-union labor, and that some fathers of the troopers declared they would disown their sons if they rode with a scab crew. Sergt. Sully and Private Kennedy, the identified leaders of the mutiny, are both members of a railroad organization.
“Some of the fathers who had sons in the troop declared that they would disown their boys if they rode with non-union crews.”
The 1894 Pullman Strike remains one of the most intense labor conflicts in American history. This incident in Washington shows that even the state's military forces were deeply divided by class loyalty, mirroring modern ongoing debates about the role of police and civil servants in enforcing unpopular civic policies.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.