Kansas, in common with the Nation, resounded with industrial warfare throughout 1886. Strikes occurred among the coal miners, the railroad men, and the smelting and refinery workers. Most serious of these was the railroad strike, which began on March i in Marshal, Texas, upon the discharge of a foreman of the woodworkers in the Texas and Pacific car shops. It affected Parsons on March 6, Kansas City on March 8, and Atchison on March 10. All traffic on the Missouri Pacific Railway came to a dead halt. Shop machinery was destroyed, several trains were damaged, and one was derailed, resulting in the death of the fireman and a brakeman.
Attempts to have the strike settled in Governor Martin's court of voluntary arbitration failed. The situation took an ugly turn at Parsons, following the issuance of an injunction which enjoined the strikers from interfering with the traffic of the Missouri Pacific Railway. The injunction was generally ignored and Governor Martin was besieged with requests for the militia. Reluctantly, and only after all hope of arbitration had been abandoned, the Governor detailed the First Regiment to Parsons on April i. A "Law and Order League" was also organized in the city. No further efforts to stop railroad traffic were made, and the strike was lost. In his campaign for reelection in 1887, Governor Martin was censured by industry for his delay in sending the militia, and by industrial workers for having sent the militia. The court of voluntary arbitration, basically a just and democratic principle, was discredited because of its failure to solve the strikes of 1886. The Governor, nevertheless, was reelected by a considerable majority. At the legislative session of 1887 laws were passed to further the organization of cooperatives, and to insure the wage-payment of miners in "lawful money."
In 1893 the extensive industrial depression throughout the Nation also affected Kansas labor. As in the past, the employers began a general offensive against wages, and the workers fought back with strikes.
The mining area in southeastern Kansas, known as the "little Balkans," was the source of prolonged labor unrest throughout the period. The miners had very real cause for complaint. They mined the so-called "long ton" for a bare subsistence wage that was, until the enforcement of the legislative act of 1887, often paid in company scrip. On July 21, 1893, following the rejection of their demands by the mine operators, the recently formed unit of the United Mine Workers called a strike. The sheriff of Cherokee County telegraphed for the militia. Governor Lewelling, first of Kansas' two Populist governors, assembled ten militia companies on the advice of the attorney general, and held them ready to patrol the strike area. The miners and operators, however, adjusted their difficulties by July 25, and the troops were disbanded.
The larger railroad companies stubbornly resisted the unionization of Kansas railroad men during the 1890*5. Since the open shop preference of the railroad officials was supported by public opinion and the general press, the railroad companies were the more powerful in their disputes with employees. After the 1894 Pullman strike, led by the American Railway Union, one railroad company announced that jobs would not be restored to those who had struck. A number of men thus blacklisted appealed to the United States District Court, the judge of which appointed an investigating committee. The committee subsequently reported that "it is difficult to understand what greater offence an employee could commit than to refuse to work and still insist that no one could take his place." The court thereupon ruled against the blacklisted men, but the effect of the decision was nullified in 1897 when the Populist-Democratic legislature passed a law prohibiting discrimination and the publication of black-lists.