This is a good point. Pretending like you're a safe haven for immigrants and the poor, all the while the people who are already living in your country are being mistreated just because they don't fit the "image" of what a hardworking American should look like is contradictory. And even within the realm of migrants there were inconsistencies. Migrants who were not from northern/western Europe were not valued as highly and often faced hatred from Americans who have been living in the country for much longer.

So President Cleveland sent in the military using tax dollars instead of just passing legislation to meet the union's request? It's clear to see that the government was in the hands of the business owners and not the people who elected them into power.

I think it's amazing how much coordination and trust union strikes must have taken. To be willing to risk your own job and welfare for something that benefits everyone (knowing that it could go terribly wrong) is really brave.

I thinks this part is super interesting. A question I ask myself and hear people asking a lot when learning about the labor abuse and horrible living conditions of this time is: Why didn't the government do anything about it? The answer is summarized here: Because they didn't want to. The contrast of the wealthy and the impoverished was culturally and legally normal at the time. The government wasn't pretending like they didn't benefit from the success of American industry built on the backs of the working class any less than the business owners themselves.