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During World War I, the American railroad system was the primary mode of freight and passenger transportation in the United States. The industry was nationalized by an executive order by President Woodrow Wilson after American entry into the war and the operation of the railways was turned over to an institution known as the United States Railroad Administration. A period of labor harmony followed, in part due to the establishment of the 8-hour work day in the railroad industry.
Control of the rail system to private hands was returned under the Transportation Act of 1920. That act created a nine member panel known as the Railroad Labor Board, which had power to regulate the wages and working conditions of more than 2 million American railway workers. With the demands of a wartime economy now over, railway companies obtained approval from the Railroad Labor Board in 1921 for deep reductions in wage rates for workers across the industry. Employers also began to cut costs by contracting out work to non-union subcontractors. This led to tension between employers and railway workers. Attempts by the National Civic Federation in December 1921 to arrive at an amicable remedy to the conflict were unsuccessful.
In 1922 the Railroad Labor Board approved yet another cut in wages of railway workers, a cut of 7 cents an hour targeted to railway repair and maintenance workers. This resulted in a loss of an average of 12% for these workers. The overall economy had subsequently improved from the previous year, however, and railway workers were angered by these wage reductions, especially since railroad owners did not appear to be suffering. This cut did not affect the members of the "Big Four" railway brotherhoods, namely the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen, the Order of Railway Conductors, and the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen. They were promised that no additional wage cuts would be forthcoming.
Strike ballots were sent out to the members of all railway unions over the 1922 wage cuts, but when the votes were counted the members of the "Big Four," brotherhoods did not support a work stoppage. Seven unions representing the railroad shopmen and maintenance of way worked voted to go on strike, and the date July 1, 1922, was set for the launch of a coordinated work stoppage. On that day some 400,000 railway workers walked off the job, of which nearly 100,000 worked in the Chicago metropolitan area.
Railroad companies began recruiting of strikebreakers, who were housed and fed on site to avoid having to cross picket lines. Conductors, engineers, firemen, and brakemen who actually operated the trains were all unaffected by the strike. The railroad companies immediately began to replace striking workers with strikebreakers and to establish living facilities for the strikebreakers inside their railway shops and in railroad cars. Railroad guards were hired to protect property and defend strikebreakers. Commissaries and kitchens were set up to feed these replacement workers and newspaper advertising was published by a number of railway companies in an attempt to win public support for their strikebreaking efforts.
Race was also a factor in strike as several of the railway brotherhoods would not allow African-American workers membership in their ranks on purely racist grounds. The excluded workers had no incentive to honor the work stoppage, so thousands of African-American railway workers crossed picket lines and helped to undermine strike efforts, although in places North Carolina, Louisiana, and Texas, African-American workers supported the work stoppage.
On July 3, head of the Railroad Labor Board Ben W. Hooper, a former Republican Governor of Tennessee and political appointee of President Warren G. Harding, announced that all strikers had forfeited their arbitration rights guaranteed under the Transportation Act of 1920. Railroads were encouraged by the Railway Labor Board to hire replacement workers. A number of railroads denied strikers their seniority rights. Seniority was important to railroad workers because during slack times, employees with the least seniority laid off first.
Violence erupted in several locations between strikers and the employers. In some towns, local merchants supported the strikers, by refusing to sell groceries to strikebreakers. Picnics were held in support of strikers and in some places, railway guards were disarmed by local sheriffs. Women provided food to those who walked picket lines and some walked the lines themselves. In Easton, Pennsylvania, a crowd of 50 women and children pelted strikebreakers with sour milk, rotten eggs, and spoiled produce. Efforts by state and federal authorities to impose order actually made things worse. Strikers attempted to set up pickets to close down railroad roundhouses and repair shops and private guards removed the strikers from private property. This led to more violent tactics, including vandalism of strikebreakers' homes, the destruction of railroad property, and physical violence against strikebreakers. Company guards fired upon striking workers with deaths resulting, in incidents in Cleveland, Ohio (July 8 and July 16), Buffalo, New York (July 8), Clinton, Illinois, (July 8), Port Morris, New Jersey (July 12), and in Needles, California (July 12). In Wilmington, North Carolina, a company guard shot and killed a railroad engineer after being called a "scab". In Buffalo, a woman and two boys were shot by railroad detectives. At least one company guard was shot and killed following the stopping of a train at Superior, Wisconsin, on August 12.
Some strikers sabotaged trains and tracks and in one incident, a train was switched onto side tracks and the cars set upon by a mob, with rocks and metal parts thrown through glass windows. Sections of track were sometimes dislodged with explosives. Vigilante violence was particularly bad in the South and Southwest, with kidnappings and beatings of strikebreakers.
In August of 1922, President Warren Harding instructed Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty to bring about an end to the 1922 Railroad Strike by obtaining injunctions and having US Marshals enforce these court orders. Harding had attempted mediation when, on July 11, 1922, President Harding issued a proclamation that attempted to split the difference between the two sides in the conflict. He said that he recognized that there was merit to the workers' grievances and he promised to allow organized labor to continue to represent the workers. But he said that the decision of the Railroad Labor Board had to be respected. The Railroad Labor Board attempted to mediate an end to the dispute, bringing together union and railroad representatives on July 14 in a joint conference. The railroad officials pledged to end the subcontracting of work to non-union shops, but would not give on the issue of restoring seniority to striking workers, so the impasse remained.
Following the failure of this conference, the Railroad Labor Board declared that its efforts to resolve the stoppage had reached an end. The US National Guard was called out, on a state-by-state basis, by various state governors. These troops tended to support the armed company guards in their goal of protecting railroad property and aiding in the defense and transportation of strikebreakers.
Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty had been an outspoken opponent of the organized labor movement. He charged strikers with conducting what he called "a conspiracy worthy of Lenin and Zinoviev". He ordered US Marshals into the field to aid the railroads in their efforts to defend their property and defeat the strike. Deputy US Marshals were appointed, often being men selected by the railway companies.
Not all of Harding's cabinet supported Daugherty's actions. Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover and Secretary of Labor James John Davis called for a negotiated end to the strike. They convinced Harding that the role of the federal government in the dispute should be one of an "honest broker" rather than an authority figure. Harding proposed a settlement on July 28 that would have granted little to the labor unions. The railroad companies rejected the compromise, even though the workers were open to the idea. Daugherty pushed for national action against the strike.
On September 1, Judge James H. Wilkerson granted Daugherty's department a sweeping injunction against the strikers. It became known as the "Daugherty Injunction." It ended the strike. There were a number of sympathy strikes which shut down some railroads completely, but the striking workers soon returned to work.