People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 September 1894 — The Story of Pullman. [ARTICLE]

The Story of Pullman.

“In brief, the Pullman enterprise is a vast object lesson. It has demonstrated man’s capacity to improve and appreciate improvements. It has shown that success may result from corporate action which is alike free from default, foreclosure or wreckage of any sort. It has illustrated the helpful combination of capital and labor, without strife or stultification, upon lines of mutual recognition.”— The story of Pullman, 1893. The story of Pullman, as told in 1894, is a far different one. There is strife and stultification, mutual suspicion and dislike; default, foreclosure and wreckage. There are strikes and lockouts, and the inevitable violence and riot, arson and murder, resulting therefrom. There is a screw loose somewhere in Pullman, and I made an effort to find it.

From the magnificent Pullman building on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, guarded by a dozen deputy marshals in the building; and looking out upon several companies of United States infantry, artillery and cavalry upon the Lake Front opposite, it is about three-quarters of an hour to the suburb of Pullman, by the Illinois Central railroad. At Pullman there was no evidence of the late unpleasantness, except the quietness of the place, the absence of smoke from the tall chimneys, and the numerous soldiers, which gave it quite a resemblance of a Federal arsenal or navy yard. The flower beds were trim and blooming, and a gardener was busy with the geraniums. There was nothing wrong there. Was it wages? I have been looking into statistics, census reports and the like, and I found nothing wrong there. Figures cannot lie. The rate of wages at Pullman, $573.50 per annum per individual, is, lam assured, the highest paid in any similar works in the United States, and consequently in the world; and the average daily wages, $1.85, at Pullman for the first four months of 1894 were higher than the average paid in either the railroad car shops dr the private contract shops in this country. Where, then, was the trouble? It must be with the men them, selves.

A recent table of the nativity of the wage-earners at Pullman showed the following: American 1,798 Scandinavian 1’422 German.. 824 British and Canadian 796 Dutch 753 Irish 482 Latin 170 All others 161 6,334 Mr. Pullman’s story has already been given. I determined to seek out the men and learn their story from their own lips. At first, this was not easy, for there were few men about. I found, however, an intelligent German, who became my guide and introduced me, like Asmodeus, into the private apartments of every class of tenement. And here, I must say frankly, I saw much to surprise me. We left the flower beds and the green lawns behind, and went into wide, sandy streets, bordered by rows of gray brick, two-story houses. I had read: •‘The rents of houses here range range from $5 to SSO per month, the average being sl4, but there are hundreds of tenements ranging from $6 to $9 per month. These rents are considered less than for similar tenements anywhere else in Chicago.’*

The above was written several years ago, when rents were higher than they are now. Briefly, this is what I found, as verified by the rent receipts, the odd cents standing for the water rate: Flat, seVen rooms and bath, $28.56; the same in other Chicago suburbs, $lB to S2O. | Flat, five rooms, $15.60; flat, four rooms, $14.71; apartments lin “block,” a three-story tene-

ment building in the middle of the square, containing from seventeen to fifty-four families—three rooms, $9.10; two rooms, $7.60. In these tenements, as everywhere, the utmost cleanliness was observed and there was the abundance of air and light often spoken of, but abundance of water there was not, there being but one faucet for each group of three families, and this in the apartment devoted to the closets of the said families. “Yards,” front or back, there were none, except a great barren space in common. The alleys were perfectly clean, which, I think, cannot be said of any other part of Chicago.

Another class of dwellings are the “single cottages” of the brick-yards. Except that they were not of logs, and that the boiling July sun poured down on the sandy street, they reminded me of the pictures of a Siberian town. Little huts with two small windows, but no front doors. They were 16x20 feet, ceiling 7 feet, with a sitting room and two bed rooms, and a kitchen in a lean-to. There were eleven of these houses on each side of the street, and three hydrants to the twenty-two houses. Small yards gave a place for chickens, and one Italian had a melancholy little cabbage patch. These cabins could have beeen built for SIOO each, and rented for $8 per month, or $96 per annum. A better class of cottage, built two together, with four rooms in a space of 18x20 feet, and with water in the yard, rented for 110 per month. Inquiry in the neighboring town of Kensington, half a mile distant, showed that better flats or cottages, with pretty gardens, could be hired at 20 per cent. less. The men, when asked why they did not move over to Kensington, replied invariably that if they would keep a job in Pullman they must live in Pullman. As to wages, pay checks showed laborers, rated at $1.35 per day, often getting but 91 bents for seven hours’ work, and finishers or trimmers making but $13.70, or even $6.57, for two weeks’ work, out of wiiich, by terms of the leases, the rent had to be deducted. In many cases there were amounts of less than $5, and in some instances but a few cents left after paying the rent. The people, although clean, had a wan and hungry look that was painful to witness. There was a screw loose here, surely.

The town of Pullman is estimated to be worth $10,000,000. Everything pays rent. Even the “Greenstone” church pays $1,200, andtheMethodistchurch, in the Casino building, pays nearly SSOO. The 1,800 dwellings pay $325,000 or more. The market, the arcade, and the stores bring in a good rental besides. And the Pullman Palace Car Co. pays taxes to the city of Chicago, $15,000; or less than unimproved acre property adjpining. “Why did the men strike?” I asked this question of a Methodist minister, the Rev. W. H. Carwardine, an evidently sincere and earnest man who has gained some notoriety from the sympathy that he has shown to the strikers. After thinking a moment he said: “The weak spot in the system is its lack of humanity. The town of Pullman, with its 30,000 or 40,000 people, is but a part of a great financial scheme. Mr. Pullman expressly disclaims the idea of philanthropy. He is so much opposed to the term charity that he discouraged the idea us a relief fund. But he should have charity for these, his fellow creatures. He is his brother’s keeper. There never would have been a strike if there had been a fair reduction of rents along with the cut in wages. There never would have been a

strike if there had been an equalization pf wages and a correction of the abuses of shop administration. These abuses, to my knowledge, were many and grevibus. It is said that the men precipitated the strike. Mistaken they were without doubt, but their provocation was great. Their request for the restoration of the wages of 1893 they were prepared to forego if they could get justice, simple justice, in other directions. Three of their committee on grievances had been ‘laid off,’ and while the officials promised an investigation, their bearing was such that it gave the men no hope. There were whispeis of a lock out, and the men who in that event would have received no help from the Railway Union, struck almost to a man. It was a rash move, I think, but workmen, like other people, are human. I counsel peace, bui what the end will be I know not.”

At the headquarters of the relief committee I leanx d that 2,500 men were on the rolls of the destitute, and that although the supplies are nearly exhausted, they are now flowing in quite generously. In money. t 12,000 has already been distributed, and a large amount of provis.ions.

What will be the end? Thesei men have been, perhaps, misguided, but they have committed no violence. They have never joined the ranks of the car burners or the train wreckers. Mr. Pullman is human, and he, too, may have made mistakes. There maybe nothing to arbitrate as between employer and employe, but yet can they not come together as Christians an 1 loyal citizens and agree to live to gether in harmony? Or is Pullman a failure?—John T. Bram'iall in Leslie’s Weekly.