Olney << OL nih >>, Richard (1835-1917), held two Cabinet posts under President Grover Cleveland. Olney served as attorney general from 1893 to 1895 and as secretary of state from 1895 to 1897. As attorney general, Olney became noted for breaking the Pullman Strike of 1894. After the strike had tied up railroads running out of Chicago, Olney obtained an injunction (court order) against the strikers by claiming that they were interrupting the mails. Federal troops were sent in, the strike leaders were imprisoned, and the strike was broken.
In 1895, as secretary of state, Olney vigorously upheld the Monroe Doctrine, which he believed was threatened by a boundary dispute between British Guiana (now Guyana) and Venezuela. The Monroe Doctrine was a policy that warned European countries not to interfere with the independent nations of the Western Hemisphere. Olney persuaded England to agree to arbitration (the settlement of a dispute by an impartial judge). Olney was born in Oxford, Massachusetts, on Sept. 15, 1835. He died on April 8, 1917.
