At the request of the American Railway Union, delegates from
twenty-five unions connected with the American Federation of
Labor met in Chicago on the 12th of July, and Debs made an ardent
appeal to them to call a general strike of all labor
organizations. But the conference decided that "it would be
unwise and disastrous to the interests of labor to extend the
strike any further than it had already gone" and advised the
strikers to return to work. Thereafter, the strike rapidly
collapsed, although martial law had to be proclaimed and, before
quiet was restored, some sharp conflicts still took place between
federal troops and mobs at Sacramento and other points in
California. On the 3rd of August, the American Railway Union
acknowledged its defeat and called off the strike. Meanwhile,
Debs and other leaders had been under arrest for disobedience to
injunctions issued by the federal courts. Eventually, Debs was
sentenced to jail for six months,* and the others for three
months. The cases were the occasion of much litigation in which
the authority of the courts to intervene in labor disputes by
issuing injunctions was on the whole sustained. The failure and
collapse of the American Railway Union appears to have ended the
career of Debs as a labor organizer, but he has since been active
and prominent as a Socialist party leader.
* Under Section IV of the Anti-Trust Law of 1890.
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