When I returned to Chicago from the quiet country I saw the
Federal troops encamped about the post office; almost everyone on
Halsted Street wearing a white ribbon, the emblem of the
strikers' side; the residents at Hull-House divided in opinion as
to the righteousness of this or that measure; and no one able to
secure any real information as to which side was burning the
cars. After the Pullman strike I made an attempt to analyze in a
paper which I called The Modern King Lear the inevitable revolt
of human nature against the plans Mr. Pullman had made for his
employees, the miscarriage of which appeared to him such black
ingratitude. It seemed to me unendurable not to make some effort
to gather together the social implications of the failure of this
benevolent employer and its relation to the demand for a more
democratic administration of industry. Doubtless the paper
represented a certain "excess of participation," to use a gentle
phrase of Charles Lamb's in preference to a more emphatic one
used by Mr. Pullman himself. 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.
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