Defendable or Not: Gompers and Hampton on the Pullman Strike

Tom Student

Hist 2002: America from 1877

Dr. L. Hegarty

October 22, 2015

Defendable or Not: Gompers and Hampton on the Pullman Strike

While Samuel Gompers and Wade Hampton agreed that the immediate cause of the famous Pullman strike was Pullman's dramatic cutting of wages, only Gompers presented the actions of the workers as legitimate and justifiable.  The opinions expressed by these two men about the strike provide a glimpse into the debate that raged in the late nineteenth century over what the proper relationship between labor and management should be.

Samuel Gompers defended the workers as reasonable men who had been forced to strike by severe wage cuts and corporate dismissal of their resulting legitimate complaints.  He showed that the wages offered the workers in 1894 were universally lower than those offered in 1893.  For one job, truck setting, the wages were cut by almost two-thirds; of the others, none lost less than one-third of their pay and most lost about half.^[1]  In response, Gompers explained, the workers formed

... a committee to wait upon Mr. Pullman or a representative of the company, to show that it was impossible to live on the wages offered; that a middle ground should be sought....  Instead of the request being of the men being considered by Mr. Pullman, the committee was dismissed and discharged almost immediately.^[2]

Gompers presented the workers as reasonable men faced with being driven to financial ruin whether they worked or not.  They had been forced to strike because their employer would not listen to a proposed compromise.

Wade Hampton's take on the cause of the dispute, even though he agreed that the cut in wages was a crucial part, painted a very different picture than Gompers'.  Even his language showed his dismissive attitude towards the workers:

I have said the strike was inexcusable.  The ostensible reason given for it by the workers is that Pullman did not pay sufficient wages.  In answer to this charge Mr. Pullman says that he cannot pay more for the manufacture of the car than the price he can obtain for it from the railroads.^[3]