or scabs was easy. The Association wanted to get federal troops involved making the problem was a labor-government problem instead of a labor-management problem. For help they turned to Attorney General Richard Olney, who was a former railroad lawyer and a member of the board of several lines. In order to use federal troops, President Cleveland needed to be enforcing a federal court order. To help him to get the court order, Richard Olney called on Edwin Walker. Walker claimed that the strike was in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. He said the union was meddling with the mail, interstate commerce, or the operation of twenty-three railroads now involved in the strike. When the injunction was read by the court marshal in front of a crowd of unionists, they went wild. They started hooting and rough-housing his deputies. Walker immediately wired Washington for troops. Federal troops were dispatched immediately by President Cleveland’s order on July 4th. The wild gang crowded into open streets and railway yards and fighting broke out. There were 14,000 armed men, and the militia was shooting into crowds killing about 20 people trying to keep them from moving the trains. By that night the city was fiery with burning freight cars lighting up the night sky.The union claimed that the riot was not cause by strikers, but with the presence of so many soldiers, the strikers soon became discouraged. Their boycott was near defeat. Knowing that by obeying the injunction would mean losing the strike, Debs wouldn’t and was indicted by a grand jury for conspiracy. The workers felt they couldn’t give up the strike. Striking was the only way for them to defend their interests as long as Pullman wouldn’t settle. The press blew the situation out of proportion getting 700 union leaders arrested. And Debs himself was thrown in jail for six months for violating the injunction. The strike was now broken, and the A...
