As already mentioned, at the settlement of the strike on the Gould system in March 1885, the employes were assured that the road would institute no discriminations against the Knights of Labor.  However, it is apparent that a series of petty discriminations was indulged in by minor officials, which kept the men in a state of unrest.  It culminated in the discharge of a foreman, a member of the Knights, from the car shop at Marshall, Texas, on the Texas & Pacific Road, which had shortly before passed into the hands of a receiver.  A strike broke out over the entire road on March 1, 1886.  It is necessary, however, to note that the Knights of Labor themselves were meditating aggressive action two months before the strike.  District Assembly 101, the organization embracing the employes on the Southwest system, held a convention on January 10, and authorized the officers to call a strike at any time they might find opportune to enforce the two following demands:  first, the formal “recognition” of the Order; and second, a daily wage of $1.50 for the unskilled.  The latter demand is peculiarly characteristic of the Knights of Labor and of the feeling of labor solidarity that prevailed in the movement.  But evidently the organization preferred to make the issue turn on discrimination against members.  Another peculiarity which marked off this strike as the beginning of a new era was the facility with which it led to a sympathetic strike on the Missouri Pacific and all leased and operated lines.  This strike broke out simultaneously over the entire system on March 6.  It affected more than 5000 miles of railway situated in Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Indian Territory, and Nebraska.  The strikers did not content themselves with mere picketing, but actually took possession of the railroad property and by a systematic “killing” of engines, that is removing some indispensable part, effectively stopped all the freight traffic.  The number of men actively on strike was in the neighborhood of 9000, including practically all of the shopmen, yardmen, and section gangs.  The engineers, firemen, brakemen, and conductors took no active part and had to be forced to leave their posts under threats from the strikers.

The leader, one Martin Irons, accurately represented the feelings of the strikers.  Personally honest and probably well-meaning, his attitude was overbearing and tyrannical.  With him as with those who followed him, a strike was not a more or less drastic means of forcing a better labor contract, but necessarily assumed the aspect of a crusade against capital.  Hence all compromise and any policy of give and take were excluded.

Negotiations were conducted by Jay Gould and Powderly to submit the dispute to arbitration, but they failed and, after two months of sporadic violence, the strike spent itself and came to an end.  It left, however, a profound impression upon the public mind, second only to the impression made by the great railway strike of 1877; and a Congressional committee was appointed to investigate the whole matter.