The 1894 Pullman Strike and boycott of Pullman railcars, led by the American Railway Union, involved 250,000 workers in 27 states, paralyzed much of the nation’s rail system, and directly led that year to the establishment of a national Labor Day. The strike brought civil charges against American Railway Union leaders for violating a court injunction against the strike, and their attorneys, including Clarence Darrow and Lyman Trumbull, defended them before the United States Supreme Court. On 27 May 1895, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld court injunctions against labor strikes in the decision In re Debs, sending American Railway Union leader Eugene V. Debs to a six-month stay in what was then McHenry County Jail. The Pullman case guided governmental response to strikes for nearly four decades, until the 1932 Norris-LaGuardia Act erased the power of courts to end strikes through injunctions. In Woodstock, Sheriff George Eckert protected Debs from threats, and the Eckert family began three decades of warm friendship with him. Eckert allowed Debs to use his jail time to study and ponder the plight of working-class Americans. Visitors included reporter Nellie Bly, Milwaukee socialist Victor Berger, and Keir Hardie, the first Labour Member of Parliament. Debs left Woodstock even more determined to fight for working people, and his time in McHenry County Jail transformed him from a labor leader into a national political activist, founder of the Socialist Party, and five-time presidential candidate.