The Pullman Strike Collapses — and Seattle Quietly Comes Out Clean
As the great railroad strike of 1894 sputters to defeat nationwide, the Post-Intelligencer pauses to credit Seattle's police and strike leaders for keeping the city free of the violence that scarred the rest of the country.
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.
It may now be stated with certainty that the great Pullman strike is a thing of the past. The men who went out on the strike are returning to their old positions wherever it is possible for them to do so, and the refusal of the American Federation of Labor to take part in the struggle makes it certain that the American Railway Union cannot expect help from any quarter. Trains are running almost everywhere on regular time, and business throughout the country is rapidly returning to its normal condition. The strike, therefore, is over, and the strikers have lost.
Debs and Sovereign and their lieutenants are about the only people who do not acknowledge this to be true. They still talk of tying up roads and calling out men, but even they have altogether lost sight of the original cause of the strike and are now avowedly holding out for no other purpose than to make terms by which the strikers will be restored to their old positions.
The strike was ill-advised, uncalled for and unjust. It never had the support of the American people and it was doomed to failure from the day that it began. While it should not be expected that the railway companies will discharge the men who proved faithful to them, or who came to their assistance in the hour of trial, it is to be hoped that they will act with wise moderation and will, so far as possible, take back into their employ those of the strikers who have not been guilty of violent or criminal acts.
Throughout the recent labor troubles Seattle has been free from acts of violence or lawlessness and has thus presented a favorable contrast to other cities affected by the strike. This was due in part to the capable manner in which the police force of the city discharged its duties, and no less to the insistent efforts of the strike leaders to restrain the hotheads among their followers and to discourage lawless acts. If the strike had been conducted everywhere as it has been in Seattle there would have been less to regret in connection with it. It would have failed just the same, for it was wrong in principle, but the failure would have been less disastrous to the American Railway Union.
“Throughout the recent labor troubles Seattle has been free from acts of violence or lawlessness and has thus presented a favorable contrast to other cities affected by the strike.”
The Pullman strike was a turning point in American labor history — the first national railroad shutdown, broken by federal troops and court injunctions. Seattle's self-congratulatory 'we kept the peace' framing echoes how cities still narrate labor unrest today: praising order while the underlying fight over wages and recognition goes unresolved.
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