Which U.S. president ordered federal troops to intervene during the 1894 Pullman Strike?

President Grover Cleveland ordered federal troops to intervene during the 1894 Pullman Strike.

The strike began after the Pullman Palace Car Company cut wages while maintaining rents and other charges in the company town near Chicago. The American Railway Union, led by Eugene V. Debs, supported a nationwide boycott of trains carrying Pullman cars.

Cleveland’s administration obtained a federal injunction against the boycott and sent troops to enforce it, officially citing interference with the delivery of U.S. mail. The intervention led to violence in Chicago and other locations, and the strike collapsed in July 1894.

The episode damaged Cleveland’s relationship with organized labor and helped create the political setting in which Congress enacted federal Labor Day legislation later that year. It also strengthened Debs’s national prominence.