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During the ten years in which the act remained on the statute books, it was actually put to use only in 1894, when a commission was appointed to investigate the Pullman strike at Chicago, but this body took no action towards settling the dispute. Thus far, then, the efforts of the Government to deal with the labor problem had not been entirely successful.
The town of Pullman, near Chicago, was the home of the Pullman Palace Car Company, a prosperous corporation with a capital of $36,000,000. It provided houses for its employees, kept up open stretches of lawn, flower beds and lakes. In 1893 and 1894, when general business conditions were bad, the Company reduced the wages of its workmen about twenty-five per cent.
But Abner could not quite bring himself to print in a sheet that was the open and avowed champion of privilege and corruption. "You think you won't, then?" asked Whyland, at the door of the Pullman. "I don't believe I can," replied Abner mournfully. "Oh, yes, you can too," returned Whyland. "In a week or two more you'll be as strong as ever."
He counted three meals for every day, at an average of fifty cents for each meal. Well, even so, he could "ride the bumpers" to the school; take a side-door pullman; beat his way; hobo it or whatever the initiated wanted to call it. He could send his suitcase on by express, and just wear old clothes send his money on, too, for that matter. He could save quite a lot that way.
Before this, however, the porter had insisted upon making up the girls' berths and, like most of the other passengers in the Pullman, Nan and Bess were asleep. While the passengers slept the snow continued to sift down, building the drifts higher and higher, and causing the train-crew increasing worriment of mind. The locomotive could no longer pierce the drifts.
Colonel Harris kissed Gertrude, said good-bye to all, and taking a seat in a Pullman, continued alone on his journey to Harrisville. Returning home he hoped, if possible, to set matters right at the steel mills before Mr. Searles arrived. Left to himself, he now had opportunity for reflection.
The last picture of the Pullman strike which I distinctly recall was three years later when one of the strike leaders came to see me. Although out of work for most of the time since the strike, he had been undisturbed for six months in the repair shops of a street-car company, under an assumed name, but he had at that moment been discovered and dismissed.
A somewhat dishevelled bride and groom boarded the Pullman and breathlessly hid in a state room. The train started, and the crowd gave one last rousing cheer. Old Spears yelled from the back platform: "Fellers, an' fans, you needn't worry none about leavin' the Rube an' his bride to the tender mercies of the gang. A hundred years from now people will talk about this honeymoon baseball trip.
There was the same crowd of children, slatternly women and tobacco-spitting men in the dirty day-coaches, and Hale sat among them for a Pullman was no longer attached to the train that ran to the Gap. As he neared the bulk of Powell's mountain and ran along its mighty flank, he passed the ore-mines.
Anyway I'm going to stick with you till you've found her or lost her for good. You see?" Bill Gregg sighed. "You're pretty straight, Ronicky," he said, "but what good does it do for two gents to look for a needle in a haystack? How could we start to hit the trail?" "This way. We know the train that she took. Maybe we could find the Pullman conductor that was on it, and he might remember her.
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