r greed leads them into
all known ways and byways of fraud, scheming, and speculating, to
accomplish the amassing of princely fortunes." These intemperate
utterances were the first seeds of popular sedition.

It was not until 8.30 o'clock on the morning of the 19th that the real
trouble began. Two freight-trains were to start at 8.40, but ten minutes
before that the crews sent word that they would not take the trains out.
Two yard crews were then asked to take their places, but they refused to
do so. The trains were not taken out, and the crews of all the trains
that came in, as they arrived, joined the strikers. As the day wore on
the men gradually congregated at the roundhouse of the road at
Twenty-eighth Street, but did not attempt or threaten any violence. The
news of the strike had spread through the two cities, and large numbers
of the more turbulent class of the population, together with many
workmen from the factories who sympathized with the strikers, hastened
to Twenty-eighth Street, and there was soon gathered a formidable mob in
which the few striking railroad employees were an insignificant
quantity.

When the railroad officials found their tracks and roundhouse in the
possession of a mob which defied them, they called upon the mayor of the
city for protection, to which Mayor McCarthy promptly responded, going
in person with a detail of officers to the scene of the trouble. When
the police arrived on the ground they found an excited assemblage of
people who refused to listen to their orders to disperse, and the mayor
made no serious effort to enforce his authority effectually. There was
no collision, however, until a man who had refused to join the strikers
attempted to couple some cars, when he was assaulted. An officer of the
road who undertook to turn a switch, was also assaulted by one of the
mob, who was arrested by the police. His comrades began throwing stones,
but the police maintained their hold of their prisoner, and conveyed
him to the jail. A crowd then gathered in front of the police station
and made threats of rescuing their comrade, but no overt act was
committed. The mob, which had by this time become greatly enraged, was
really not composed of railroad employees, who had contemplated no such
result of their strike, and now generally deplored the unfortunate turn
which the affair had taken. It was for the most part composed of the
worst element of the population, who, without any grievance