Biography
Sylvester Keliher was an American Railway Union director and Eugene V. Debs co-defendant in the federal contempt prosecution following the 1894 Pullman Strike, when President Cleveland invoked the Insurrection Act and deployed federal troops to break the boycott of Pullman cars. All ARU directors were enjoined under Olney's sweeping federal injunction from any further communication that might continue the strike; when they continued to coordinate the union's defense, they were convicted of criminal contempt, sentenced to three months, and imprisoned at Woodstock (McHenry County) jail alongside Debs. Secretary-Treasurer of the ARU.
The September 2, 1895 Railway Times reports that the contempt sentences of Keliher, Rogers, Elliott, Goodwin, James Hogan and William E. Burns expired on August 22 and that the men had returned to union work. This directly supports an August 22 discharge rather than the previously stored November 22. The existing June 11 admission is preserved; June 11 to August 22 is 72 elapsed days, calculated from the two dates, not a duration separately stated in this newspaper. The three-month imposed term is distinguished from the actual custody intervals established by individual dates.
The Railway Times, September 2, 1895, PDF pages 2, 9 and 16.
