Labor DBQ Documents

Document A

"(this strike is)...a war against the government and against society...
iniquitously directed by leaders more largely concerned to exploit
themselves than to do justice or to enforce the right."

The New York World,1894

Document C

The Chicago Inter Ocean headlines, 1894

Document D

"The situation tonight is more alarming than at any time since the trouble began. War of the bloodiest kind in Chicago is imminent, and before tomorrow goes by the railroad lines and yards may be turned into battlefields strewed with hundreds of dead and wounded. Lawlessness of the most violent kind was the order of things today... Chicago was never before the scene of such wild and desperate acts as were witnessed today and tonight... tonight it came to the knowledge of the Federal authorities here at the anarchists and socialist element made up largely of the unemployed, were preparing to blow up the south end of the Federal building and take possession of the millions in money now stored in the treasury vaults."

The Washington Post editorial, 1894

Document E

(Debs is)... a lawbreaker at large, and enemy of the human race... Debs should be jailed, if there are jails in his nieghborhood, and the disorder his bad teaching has endangered must be squelched."

The New York Times editorial, 1894

Document F

"... the nation is fighting for its own existence just as truly as in suppressing the great rebellion (Civil War) ... Until the rebellion is suppressed, all differences of opinion concerning its origin, or the merits of the parties to the dispute out of which it grew, are irrelevant to the issue of the hour and must wait the future."

Harper's Weekly editorial, 1894

Document G

" The time has come when forbearence has ceased to be virtue. There must be some shooting, men must be killed, and then there will be an end to this defiance to law and destruction of property. Violence must be met with violence. The soldiers must use their guns. They must shoot to kill."

Rev. Herrick Johnson
Presbyterian Theological Seminary
Chicago, 1894

Document H

Jane Addams, founder of Hull House, was a close friend of George Pullman, said concerning the strike and her friend:

"Pullman's great failing was that he had imposed his own benefactionson his workers. He had failed to involve them directly, to call upon them for self-expresion; he assumed that he knew their needs better than they did. Like Lear, thinking of himself as a noble and indulgent father... he has lost the faculty by which he might perceive himself in the wrong."

Jane Addams, Chicago, 1894.

Document I

"If it takes the entire army and navy of the United States to deliver a postal card in Chicago, that card will be delivered.

President Grover Cleveland, 1894

Document F

"... the nation is fighting for its own existence just as truly as in suppressing the great rebellion (Civil War) ... Until the rebellion is suppressed, all differences of opinion concerning its origin, or the merits of the parties to the dispute out of which it grew, are irrelevant to the issue of the hour and must wait the future."

Harper's Weekly editorial, 1894

Document J

Entitled "King Debs," this cartoon by W.A. Rogers was printed in Harper's Weekly in 1894 during the Pullman strile. The bridge is labeled "Highway of Trade" while Debs' crown caries the legend "American Railway Union."

Document K

Appearing in Puck Magazine in 1886, this cartoon is a sarcastic reference to a statement by Terence Powderly that "we (the Knights of Labor) work not selfishly for ourselves alone, but extend the hand of fellowship to all mankind." Powderly is in the center, a scab stands to his right and an employer stands to his left.

Document l

The 'typical" anarchist -- hairy, disheveled, and perched above the deadly tools of his "trade," -- stares out from the cover of an 1886 edition of the New York Detective Library, one of the many weekly "dime novels" eagerly read by the working people in the late nineteenth century.

Document M

"The I.W.W. and the Other Features That go With It." The Kaiser's features portray the Wobblies' traitorous intent, according to the New York Globe