The effectiveness of Federal judicial intervention in labor troubles became apparent in the first great strikes of the seventies, when the state authorities proved unable to restrain rioting and disorder by the use of the local militia. During the railway war of 1877 a Federal judge in southern Illinois ordered the workingmen not to interfere with a railway for which he had appointed a receiver, and he then employed Federal troops under the United States marshal to execute his mandate. About the same time other Federal judges intervened effectively in industrial disputes by the liberal use of the injunction, and the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company pointed out in an article published in the _North American Review_ for September, 1877, how much more potent Federal authority was in such trying crises to give railway corporations efficient protection.
From that time forward the injunction was steadily employed by Federal and state courts, but it was not until the great railway strike of 1894 in Chicago that it was brought prominently before the country as a distinct political issue. In that strike, the Democratic governor, Mr. Altgeld, believing that the employers had fomented disorder for the purpose of invoking Federal intervention (as was afterward pretty conclusively shown), refused to employ the state militia speedily and effectively, contending that the presence of troops would only make matters worse. The postal authorities, influenced by a variety of motives, of which, it was alleged, a desire to break the strike was one, secured prompt Federal intervention on the part of President Cleveland and the use of Federal troops. Thus the labor unions were quickly checkmated.
This action on the part of President Cleveland was supplemented in July, 1894, by a general blanket injunction issued from the Federal district court in Chicago to all persons concerned, ordering them not to interfere with the transmission of the mails or with interstate commerce in any form. Mr. Debs, president of the American Railway Union, who was directing the strike which was tying up interstate commerce, was arrested, fined, and imprisoned for refusing to obey this injunction. Mr. Debs, thereupon, through his counsel, claimed the right to jury trial, asserting that the court could not impose a penalty which was not provided by statute, but which depended solely upon the will of the judge. On appeal, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the lower court and declared that imprisonment for contempt of court did not violate the principle of jury trial.