On September 4, 1886, Geronimo surrendered for the final time to government troops, ending three decades of war between the Chiricahua Apache leader and the United States cavalry. Between 1874 and 1886, Geronimo had been captured and/or surrendered several times, and each time, he escaped and continued to fight for ownership of his native land. His surrender in 1886 was to General Nelson A. Miles, who had recently replaced General Crook in the quest to bring in the Apache chief. General Miles pursued Geronimo over three thousand miles of scorching desert terrain and deep into the treacherous Sierra Madre Mountains before negotiating a surrender that exiled Geronimo and his followers to the state of Florida.
Tomorrow, September 5th, is Labor Day, a holiday first celebrated in 1883 in New York City. In 1885, the Central Labor Union designated the first Monday in September as Labor Day and the observance spread from city to city and from state to state. In 1894, with the approval of Congress, it became a legal holiday honoring American workers for their contributions to the economic prosperity of our developing nation. The holiday was first proposed by the labor movement, but disagreement persists to this day as to which union leader can take the credit—Peter McGuire, Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, or Matthew Maguire, International Association of Machinists. McGuire, also the co-founder of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), gave a moving speech proposing a federal holiday to credit those “who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.”
The epitome of grandeur at this time was the Pullman Sleeping Car, a luxury rail car designed and manufactured by entrepreneur George Pullman. The sleeping cars were a lavish display of rich décor - patterned carpets, tasseled draperies, gold-gilded accessories, and velvet upholstered furniture. Some cars came with separate libraries and sleeping quarters and offered the services of a porter, known as the Pullman Porter, which led to the creation of yet another union; the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, comprised of African-American males.
Congress passed the Labor Day Federal Holiday act after the workers at the Pullman Company, along with the American Railway Union (ARU), staged a strike against the Pullman Company for cutting factory worker’s wages while continuing to charge high rents to the workers. Pullman had created a city outside his factory and all his workers were required to live there and rent from him, even purchasing their food and gas from his profitable stores. The embittered workers and the ARU began a boycott of all Pullman sleeper cars. In four days, 125,000 workers on twenty-nine railroads across the country refused to handle Pullman cars, the factory workers walked out, and the first nationwide labor strike in the history of the United States was underway.
Edwin Walker, Counsel for the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway, obtained a court injunction that prohibited the union leaders from supporting the boycott. The ARU ignored the injunction and continued with the strike. President Grover Cleveland then sent in federal troops to force a shutdown of the strike. Thousands of U.S. Army soldiers descended upon the strikers; killing thirteen and wounding fifty-seven others. The Pullman Strike came to a bloody end.
Who was the U.S. Army Commander who led the U.S. soldiers in their attack against the Pullman strikers? General Nelson A. Miles.
