Pullman Company, the manufacturer of railcars, cut wages and removed union leaders who wanted to negotiate. Pullman Workers sought help from the American Railroad Union, who asked Pullman cars not to be serviced by engineers. The owners of the Pullman Co. ran a number of mail cars, and requested President Grover Cleveland to use military forces to keep mail trains running. The request caused a court injunction forbidding interference with the mail system. Some union leaders were jailed when they wouldn’t comply. This created a notion that employers can abuse court injunctions to prevent strikes, decreasing the number of union workers to around only 3% by the early 1900s. Debs, the leader of the strike, created the American Socialist Party as a result.
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