Homestead

Meanwhile the surprised citizens of Homestead perceived another force of soldiers marching and counter-marching on the hill tops on the other side of the river, their bayonets and field pieces glittering in the morning sunlight.

Homestead was beleaguered at all points. Without the firing of a shot or the semblance of a parley, the town, which a week before had been the scene of carnage, was captured, and its guardians were taken so completely by surprise that they scarcely realized what was occurring until the troops were in possession.

General Snowden had proved himself an admirable tactician, and the swiftness and unerring precision with which he handled the large body of men under his control were universally applauded.

The unexpected fashion in which the soldiers entered broke up all the plans that had been arranged for their reception. The Homestead bands remained mute; Burgess McLuckie's speech was relegated to oblivion, and the reception committee was nonplussed by the circumstance that the guests had made themselves at home without waiting for a formal reception. It appeared, in short, that the soldiers were so intent upon business that they had no time for sentiment and that the process of fraternizing was not to be so easy as the people had expected.

If there was any doubt on this head it vanished when some of the workmen endeavored to make their way up Shanty Hill in order to mingle with the "boys in blue." Sentinels barred the way and informed those who sought to pass, that until further orders, no civilian would be allowed to go through the lines. So the townsfolk, including the committeemen of the Amalgamated lodges, had to content themselves with clustering at the foot of the hill and watching the manœuvres of the troops from a distance.

Shortly before noon a number of prominent citizens and leaders of the Amalgamated Association held a conference and appointed a committee to wait upon General Wiley (General Snowden's presence on the ground was not yet known), to tender the good wishes and co-operation of the Amalgamated Association and the people of Homestead, and to request that the military receive the workingmen in a body, accompanied by brass bands.

The committeemen obtained access to the headquarters of the Third Brigade, but, on stating the nature of their mission to General Wiley, were referred by him to General Snowden, who had established his division headquarters at the Carnegie school house on Shanty Hill.

Sheriff McCleary was found in conference with General Snowden.

Captain Coon, an ex-militia officer and a representative citizen, spoke for the committee, informing the General of the desire of the Amalgamated Association and of the citizens generally to co-operate with the state authority in maintaining order. General Snowden checked the speaker with the statement that he did not recognize the Amalgamated Association or any authority other than that of the Governor of Pennsylvania and the Sheriff of Allegheny County. The best way in which the people of Homestead could co-operate with the state troops was, he said, by behaving themselves. Captain Coon undertook to renew the offer of assistance, but was cut short with the assurance that such offers could not be accepted.

At this point, Hugh O'Donnell stepped forward and explained that what the people desired was to attest their cheerful submission to legal authority in contrast to their refusal to submit to illegal authority as represented by Mr. Frick's troop of Pinkertons.

"The gentleman behind you is the one to whom you should submit," said General Snowden, with a wave of the hand towards Sheriff McCleary.

"We have always submitted to his authority," said O'Donnell.

"I beg your pardon," rejoined the General, "but you did not do so at the mill."

O'Donnell made a gesture of dissent. "I leave it to the Sheriff if we have not submitted," he retorted.

"No; you did not," replied the Sheriff. "You didn't allow my deputies to take charge of the works."

Some further parley ensued, O'Donnell asserting that the committee represented, not the Amalgamated Association, but a citizens' mass meeting and General Snowden responding that he recognized no citizens but those of Allegheny County.

"Then," said the former, "as citizens of Allegheny County we come to see you."

"Then I'm glad to see you, gentlemen," was the General's rejoinder, "I am glad that our position here is welcomed by the citizens of Allegheny County."

O'Donnell now proposed that the men of Homestead, with four brass bands, be permitted to pass in review before the troops, but met with a flat refusal, General Snowden stating that he was there on the business of the state and not to indulge in formalities.

This concluded the interview and the committee withdrew in anything but a comfortable frame of mind.

It was useless to talk now of welcoming the soldiers as friends any more than of resisting them as foes. They had come to do the duty imposed on them by the state with mechanical precision and indifference to the human conditions around them. As well think of fraternizing with the pieces of ordnance that glistened ominously on the hill top as with the icy Snowden and Snowden's 4,000 subordinates. This tall, courtly gentleman with the huge moustache and gold-rimmed glasses perched upon his classic nose, seemed to have not a grain of sentiment in his composition. He was the visible incarnation of the state's police powers, stern and inflexible, and it is not overstating the case to say that, before night, all Homestead secretly detested him.

Sheriff McCleary, after quaking in his shoes for a week, fairly reveled in the sunshine of General Snowden's presence. With cannon to right of him, cannon to left of him, cannon in front of him and soldiers on all sides, the Sheriff became a new man and began to talk in a tone of authority which he had not previously ventured to assume. One remark attributed to him was that the men who took part in the fight with the Pinkertons would be prosecuted for riot and murder. When this ominous threat was bruited abroad, it created a sensation among the workmen. Most of the men, however, affected to regard it as mere buncombe. The participants in the affray were pledged to secresy, and, it was contended, if suits were to be entered at all, the whole population of Homestead would have to be made defendants. Still there was a growing feeling of uneasiness, especially since it was suspected, with good reason, as it proved afterward, that there were Pinkerton spies in town for the purpose of collecting evidence to be used in criminal prosecutions.

The immediate result of the disquietude thus developed was to put a keener edge on the discontent inspired by the uncongenial behavior of the military. Men gathered in groups on the streets and indulged in bitter murmurings. "We have been deceived," they said, "deceived by the Governor; deceived unwittingly, but none the less effectually, by our own advisers. We have stood idly by and let the town be occupied by soldiers who come here, not as our protectors, but as the protectors of non-union men, for whom Frick is now scouring the country and who will be brought into the mill and installed in our places with the aid of the commonwealth. Then, if we undertake to resist the seizure of our jobs, we will be shot down like dogs. It is the story of the coke regions over again."

As if to add fuel to the fire, the "Little Bill," the very name of which could not be mentioned by a Homesteader without a profane accompaniment, steamed up to the landing place adjoining the mill yard in all the glory of an official dispatch boat. One of General Snowden's first acts had been to charter the detested little tug for the use of the state, and Captain Rodgers, still smarting from the effects of his experience on July 6, was only too glad to obtain the chance of confronting his old enemies under circumstances which insured his safety. The return of the Little Bill had upon the locked-out men the effect that a red rag has upon a bull.

Whatever hopes were based by the men of Homestead on the presence of sympathizers, workmen like themselves, in the ranks of the militia were quickly counteracted. It having come to the ears of Colonel Kreps, of the Fifteenth regiment, that some of his men had promised to hand over their guns to the steelworkers in the event of trouble caused by an attempt of the Carnegie Company to operate the mill, the Colonel caused the regiment to be drawn up in line, mentioned the report which he had heard and closed with the words—"Let any man be foolish enough to attempt anything of the kind and I will shoot him down in his tracks." After this, the militiamen put a bridle on their tongues and disaffection was not hinted at.

Although martial law, in the strict sense of the term, was not declared at Homestead, General Snowden took the precaution of establishing a provost guard which made the rounds of the town and fulfilled the dual function of bringing disorderly stragglers into camp and repressing dangerous demonstrations among the townspeople. Burgess McLuckie's police were of little use and the saloonkeepers had disregarded the order to close their establishments, so that a close watch had to be kept to prevent drunkenness and disorder, particularly among the soldiery.

Nothing was left undone to make Camp McClellan, as it was called, a model of disciplinary perfection.

Just about the time when the National Guard was taking possession of Homestead, a special committee detailed by the National House of Representatives to investigate the trouble between the Carnegie Company and its employees, arrived in Pittsburgh. The committee consisted of W. C. Oates, of Alabama, chairman; W. H. Bynum, of Indiana; C. J. Boatner, of Louisiana; E. B. Taylor, of Ohio, and Case Broderick, of Kansas. Messrs. Taylor and Broderick were the only Republican members.

The committee visited Homestead in the afternoon, and at 7.30 P. M. began the hearing of testimony.

H. C. Frick was the first witness. In answer to leading questions he detailed the membership, resources and operations of the Carnegie Company, the wages paid at Homestead, the nature of the sliding scale and the events leading up to the lock-out.

Judge Oates asked: "Not counting anything by way of interest on investment, what is the cost per ton of billets?"

Mr. Frick.—I hardly think that is a fair question. I do not think you ought to ask me to go into that.

Col. Taylor.—Would you object to informing us of the cost per ton of steel?

Mr. Frick answered that he would.

Mr. Boatner.—Don't feel disposed to give away the secrets of the trade, eh?

To this the witness responded that the matter in question was a trade secret and must be respected as such.

Mr. Frick was then questioned concerning his enlistment of Pinkerton guards. He had acted, he said, on the conviction, gathered from prior experience, that the sheriff was powerless. After June 24, the firm had decided to hire the guards at $5 a day per man, and to put new workmen into the mill. The witness read a copy of a letter which he had sent to Robert A. Pinkerton under date of June 25. The communication called for 300 guards to be used in enabling the starting of the Homestead mill on July 6, directed the massing of the force at Ashtabula, O. and advised "absolute secresy in the movement of these men, so that no demonstration can be made while they are in route." It concluded as follows: "As soon as your men are upon the premises, we will notify the sheriff and ask that they be deputized either at once or immediately upon an outbreak of such a character as to render such a step desirable."

Mr. Frick was plied with interrogations concerning the Little Bill, the barges and the famous fence topped with barbed-wire, and Mr. Boatner asked particularly as to the "port-holes" in the latter. "They were made," the witness replied gravely, "for the purpose of looking out to see who might be on the outside."

The examination of the Carnegie chairman was not completed when the committee adjourned, after a two hours' session, and on the resumption of the hearing next morning, he was again placed on the stand. Congressman Boatner opened the ball by endeavoring to ascertain whether or not there had been an agreement between Mr. Frick and the Pinkerton agency prior to June 25, a point on which it appeared, Mr. Frick's memory was defective. Neither could a direct answer be obtained as to the time when it was deemed advisable to arm the guards. The question of wages was taken up again, Mr. Frick stating that the rates at Homestead were higher than at any other mills, that the proposed reduction averaged 15 per cent. and yet the men would make still more money from month to month under the new terms than they made under the old. The examination of the Carnegie Chairman ended with the reading of a schedule of wages paid to tonnage men under the old scale.

Captain Rodgers, of the Little Bill, was the next witness. He told the story of the arrival of the Pinkertons, the trip of the barges up the river and the fight at the mill landing substantially as it has been related in the preceding pages of this volume.

Sheriff McCleary followed and was closely catechized as to his supposed official sponsorship for the Pinkertons. The Sheriff denied that he had promised to deputize the Pinkertons. Having been informed by Messrs. Knox & Reed, the Carnegie Company's attorneys, that the Pinkertons would be sent up and that a deputy would be needed to aid in preserving the peace, he had, he said, ordered Colonel Gray to go and that "if there was much opposition to their landing he should order the captain and the Pinkertons to come away." No amount of cross-examining could shake Mr. McCleary's assertion that the Pinkertons were not deputized and that Colonel Grey was not authorised to deputize them.

President Weihe, of the Amalgamated Association, explained the sliding scale system, the propositions submitted by the Carnegie Company, and the workmen's reasons for rejecting those propositions. The reductions in wages resulting from the acceptance of the firm's terms would range, he said, from 10 to 30 per cent. As to improvements, the Association always made allowances for these, and no objection was offered if jobs were done away with. The change proposed in the scale-signing date would have set an example which other mills throughout the country would have been sure to follow.

Mr. Weihe was asked to state his views on arbitration. He declined to speak for the Association, but gave it as his individual opinion that arbitration, whether compulsory or by voluntary tribunals was an unsatisfactory resort, the issue being almost invariably against the workingman. The trouble in estimating wages resided in the fact that the firms could not be persuaded to tell the exact cost of production.

Hugh O'Donnell succeeded Mr. Weihe on the witness stand. He told of the organization of the advisory committee with himself as chairman and of the posting of guards outside the mill fence, who "were told not to use force."

"Were they ordered to use violence to keep men out?" the witness was asked.

"No sir, they were not. Their purpose was to keep all out by peaceable methods."

O'Donnell described the attempt of the Pinkertons to land and his own efforts to check the bloodshed which followed. "I am sure," he said "the crowd near the water had no guns."

"Who fired the first shot?" asked a committeeman.

"I cannot say."

"Do you know anything of the attempt to fire the barges with oil?"

"I decline to answer."

Resuming his story, O'Donnell recounted the incidents of the surrender and the terrible march to the rink. "The detectives," he said, "received most inhuman treatment, but our men did everything to protect them, as I can prove, and many received wounds on the trip to the town rink." Asked as to his wages, he replied that he earned $144 a month. His explanation of the antipathy of the laboring class to Pinkerton detectives was that, in the special case under consideration, the workmen looked upon the Pinkertons as "armed invaders and allies of capital," and also because "if the Pinkertons got possession they would aid the firm in bringing in non-union men."

Burgess McLuckie testified to being an employe of the Carnegie firm, earning from $60 to $65 a month. He volunteered the statement that "there is a gigantic conspiracy somewhere, aided and abetted by legislation, to deprive the workingmen of their rights under the constitution of this government—those of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," and illustrated this assertion by referring to the reduction of the tariff on billets, the identical article on which the compensation of the Homestead men was based. Carnegie and McKinley, in his opinion, were fellow conspirators in this case. He characterized the Pinkertons as "lazy thugs employed by unscrupulous capitalists."

Congressman Taylor interjected a remark as to the signs of prosperity in Homestead, and especially, the comfortable looking houses there. "Well," rejoined McLuckie, "let me ask you a question. Are those homes too good for workingmen to live in?" "Not half good enough," answered Mr. Taylor. "Thank you," said McLuckie. Everybody smiled at this little exchange of compliments.

William Roberts, a member of the advisory committee, gave a very clear statement of the causes of dissension at Homestead. The wage reductions, he held, affected not the men who were making exceptionally high wages but many who for eight weeks had not averaged $1 a day. For instance, one man who, under the old scale made $2.23 a day would make under the new one offered by the firm only $1.32, while the heater who made $4.31 suffered no reduction. Mr. Roberts advocated compulsory arbitration. In answer to a question regarding the comparative rates of wages in the Homestead and other mills, he said: "In the American iron works, Carnegie's principal competitor, a roller is paid 70 cents per ton while at Homestead he is paid only 22 or 23 cents. A plate-mill roller at Homestead is paid 14 cents per ton, while at Jones & Loughlin's he is paid 72 cents. The product is similar, it goes into the same market and is used for the same purpose."

Colonel James H. Gray, Sheriff McCleary's chief deputy, described the trip of the barges to Homestead, and corroborated the Sheriff's claims that the Pinkertons were not deputized and that orders had not been given to deputize them. He said positively that the Pinkertons did not fire a shot until they had to do so in self-defense. This concluded the second day's session of the committee.

When the committee re-convened on the morning of July 14, John A. Potter, general superintendent of the Homestead mills, was the first witness summoned. Mr. Potter furnished data as to the equipment and capacity of the mills, but expressed ignorance as to the cost of producing a ton of steel. He assigned as the reason for reducing wages that the Carnegie firm was "ahead of competitors" and paying more than the owners of similar mills, and therefore thought it should have "some of the advantages." Mr. Potter had been on the Little Bill when the Pinkertons tried to land at Homestead, but had declined to take the responsibility of entering the mill yard by force.

The remainder of the morning was occupied principally with the hearing of Homestead workmen who testified as to the effect of Mr. Frick's propositions upon their respective earnings, and of watchmen and others who had been connected with the Pinkerton's expedition and who described their various experiences.

Mr. Frick was recalled and permitted to rebut some of the assertions made by the workingmen. To prove that his firm did not control the billet market he cited the fact that Jones & Laughlin's mill has a capacity of 1000 tons daily, while the output at Homestead is 800 tons daily. He again refused to give the labor cost of producing a ton of steel although Congressman Boatner twitted him with refusing to give the information "on which protective legislation is asked for."

"I do not think we asked for the legislation," observed Mr. Frick.

"You have been greatly misrepresented then," said Mr. Boatner grimly.

Mr. Frick estimated the value of the Homestead plant at from $5,000,000 to $6,000,000, and stated that the capitalization of the Carnegie Company was considerably in excess of $25,000,000.

Having heard all sides of the case, the committee closed its labors early in the afternoon and returned to Washington where congress awaited its report.

CHAPTER XI.

THE locked-out men were not mistaken in their belief that the Carnegie Company would take advantage of the presence of the military to bring non-union men into the mill. Troops were early detailed to garrison the mill yard, and a line of sentries was posted outside the fence, so that there could be no interference by the workmen either from the railroad or the river. The steamboat Tide was used as a special transport for non-unionists, the first squads of whom came over from Swissvale, on the Pennsylvania railroad, and were taken across the river under cover of Colonel Hawkins' guns. Agents of the firm were set to work in every large city procuring recruits, and while it was found rather difficult to tempt men to risk the desperate chances of a trip to Homestead to take the places of the conquerors of the Pinkertons, a small number were secured each day until, within a week after the first squad was brought in, nearly one hundred men were quartered within the mill enclosure. Hundreds of cots were provided for the accommodation of the new hands, and large quantities of food and other supplies were laid in. At the same time, the firm advertised for proposals to build 100 houses on the City Farm plan of lots at Munhall station, thus signifying its intention of establishing permanent quarters for those who were to take the places of the old employees.

On Friday, July 15, for the first time since the lock-out began, smoke issued from the cupolas of the great steel plant. The furnaces were lit at last, and the news circulated rapidly throughout the town that the company was suspected of having smuggled in enough non-unionists to renew operations. An excited mob rushed pell-mell towards the mill yard, but was stopped short at the picket lines, where the guards, with levelled bayonets, barred progress.

As a matter of fact there were but few steelworkers among the first hundred men brought in by the Tide. Fifteen of them were carpenters, who were engaged on a temporary lodging house between the machine pressing mill and the river, and a majority of the others were waiters, cooks, clerks and bosses.

A final notice to the old employees was posted in Homestead on July 16. It set forth that "individual" applications for employment would be received by the general superintendent until 6 P. M., Thursday, July 21; that it was the company's desire to retain those of its former workmen who had not taken part in the disturbances, and that the positions of those who failed to comply with this notice would be given to non-union men.

The locked-out men treated this manifesto with indifference, letting the prescribed period pass by without any sign of a desire to return to work on Mr. Frick's terms. Their sole reply was embodied in a circular issued July 22, wherein it was set forth that the workingmen of Homestead and the general public had a vested interest in the great industrial establishment built up by the labor of the one and indirectly sustained by tariff taxes paid by the other; that those interests would be asserted and defended in the courts and the halls of legislation and that the men rested their cause—"the cause of American liberty against anarchy on the one hand and despotism on the other, with the courts, the legislatures and the public conscience."

On this same day a large force of non-union men reported at the Carnegie offices in Pittsburgh and were shipped to Homestead on the Tide, starting from the Monongahela wharf amid the jeers of a crowd of on-lookers. Similar trips were made every day thereafter, the safe arrival of the first batches of recruits having emboldened others. Once the ball was set rolling, the firm experienced little trouble in securing men. There is always an army of unemployed in the United States, and upon these as well as underpaid workers in various lines—clerks, struggling young professional men and others—who were tempted by the high wages said to be paid at Homestead the firm could and did draw freely. The Homestead leaders contended that it would be impossible to operate the mills without a force of expert steel workers, but Mr. Frick seemed to care little about skill as long as he could secure men able and willing to learn the work entrusted to them. The mills, it appeared, were to be a school in which an entirely new set of artisans were to be instructed, regardless of the losses that must be sustained in the process.

In the meantime trouble was brewing in other concerns operated by the Carnegie Company. Mr. Frick had already signed the scale at the Pittsburgh and Beaver Falls mills, and expected to accomplish at these plants much of the work which was suspended at Homestead. The workmen at both places, however, sympathized with their brethren at Homestead and decided accordingly to break their contract with the firm and go out on strike until the trouble at Homestead should be fairly adjusted. The Pittsburgh men, employed at the Upper and Lower Union Mills in Lawrenceville, went out on July 15 and the Beaver Falls men on the following day. The mill at Duquesne was non-union, but there, too, the spirit of resistance manifested itself and on July 19, the men took preliminary steps toward entering the Amalgamated Association so as to be in proper shape to strike. On July 20 the Duquesne lodges were permanently organized and on the 23d a strike was declared.

Homestead was now, in a degree, under martial law, the power of the borough authorities being limited to the arrest of drunken and disorderly persons. Two companies of soldiers did guard duty on the streets and had orders to arrest any of Burgess McLuckie's special policemen found exceeding their duty.

Life in Camp Black was anything but a bed of roses. Colonel Hawkins' command spent two days and nights on the hills above Port Perry without tents and suffered much from the inclemency of the weather, broiling heat alternating with rain that drenched the men to the skin. A storm blew down most of the tents on the second day of the encampment.

The first alarm that brought the soldiers out occurred after midnight on July 15. Someone brought in word that the camp was to be attacked from the rear. Bugles were sounded, the drums beat to arms, and in a few minutes the Second and Third brigades were ready for action and threw out their skirmish lines, while the force of pickets was doubled. The alarm proved to be a false one; nevertheless the Sixteenth regiment was kept under arms until daybreak.

It had been decided that the period of service at Homestead should take the place of the regular annual encampment of the National Guard, and Governor Pattison and his staff arrived accordingly on the 19th to conduct the annual inspection, to which a week's time was devoted. Some of the workmen supposed that the Governor might entertain the idea of mediating between the conflicting parties, but it was soon found that he harbored no such design. He visited the mills, inspected the scene of the battle with the Pinkertons and conversed informally with citizens of the town concerning the history of the trouble, but declined to interfere further, confining himself mainly to his official functions as Commander of the National Guard. Quarters were assigned to the Governor and his staff in three comfortable cottages belonging to the Carnegie Company, adjoining the Carnegie hotel on Eighth avenue, and opposite the main entrance to the steel works. General Snowden and his staff had been patronizing the hotel cuisine, previously sacred to the discriminating palates of the Carnegie officials. An odd incident temporarily deprived the General of this accommodation. One morning the head waiter, having formed the opinion that the troops were helping to take the bread out of the mouths of the workingmen, informed the proprietor that he could not be instrumental in conveying the staff of life to the mouths of "the enemy" and resigned on the spot. The head cook followed, and the under-waiters and cooks went out with their leaders. When the officers arrived for breakfast and found that there was nothing to eat, the air was made blue with profanity. The boycott was one which all the military force of the commonwealth was powerless to lift. After this, General Snowden had his meals prepared and served at headquarters by a colored cook drafted from one of the regiments. Young women who could be relied on not to indulge in a sympathetic strike were installed in the places of the cooks and waiters who had deserted from the hotel.

While the workmen were somewhat dismayed by the signs of activity within the mill enclosure, feeling, as they did, that the thin end of the non-union wedge had already been inserted, they stoutly refused to admit that the firm could find enough skilled steelworkers in the country to operate the mill or could successfully utilize green hands in the intricate work which it had taken old employees, in many cases, years to learn. This argument seemed invincible and was used on every hand as confirming the supposition that the firm was merely making a pretense of manning and operating the mill, so as to discourage the old hands and provoke a stampede back to work. Such devices as this, the men said, would be futile. The Homestead workers were firmly bound together and there would be no deserters from their ranks. Mr. Frick might be able to get non-union laborers, helpers, blacksmiths, mechanics, carpenters and painters, but all these had to depend on the skilled labor of the men who made the steel. Without rollers, heaters, shearers, cutters and other trained workers, the mills could not start, and on these the Amalgamated Association had a solid hold and would maintain it.

"Our weapon," said Hugh O'Donnell, "will be the boycott—the workingman's only effective weapon. While Carnegie is seeking to starve us into submission, we will endeavor to strike a blow at his every industry. The strikes at Lawrenceville and Beaver Falls, and the action of some of the carpenters' unions in refusing to work in buildings where Carnegie's structural material is used constitute the kind of assistance that we want."

There was certainly abundant reason for anticipating a general boycott of the Carnegie Company's product. Labor unions in Pittsburgh, Chicago, Philadelphia and elsewhere were holding meetings and pledging themselves to carry out the program outlined by O'Donnell and it was even reported that the railroad brotherhoods would interpose to prevent the transportation of freight to and from the various Carnegie plants.

In any case there was no fear of actual suffering among the locked-out men for a long time to come. Under the rules of the Amalgamated Association, strike benefits would be paid out of the treasury of the order and an additional and comfortably large fund was created by the contributions which flowed into Homestead daily from every section of the country.

There was also a strong conviction among the men that the Republican party leaders would come to the rescue. The political aspect of the wage dispute was explained in a previous chapter. This phase of the matter was taken up with fierce avidity by the Democratic press after the conflict of July 6, and the country rang with denunciations of a protective policy which protected the manufacturer only and left reduced wages and Pinkerton lead to the workingman as his share of tariff benefits. Genuine apprehension was felt among the Republican politicians, and Republican newspaper organs, seeing and dreading the disturbed condition of the labor world, hardly dared respond to the sneers of the opposition. The high tariff party had so long catered to the labor vote that the problem of meeting labor's demands with regard to Homestead was full of embarrassment, and it was evident that President Harrison's prospects of re-election were seriously threatened.

The leaders at Homestead, knowing the dependence of the Carnegie Company on tariff legislation and believing that the fealty of Messrs. Carnegie and Frick to the Republican party would be an all-powerful consideration in a crisis wherein the presidency itself was at stake, sent Hugh O'Donnell to New York to confer secretly with General Clarkson and other ruling spirits in the Republican national committee. O'Donnell left on this mission on July 17. On the following day Mr. Frick played another trump card, the forcing out of the military having been the first of a hand which the implacable little chairman confidently asserted would turn out to be all trumps.

Burgess John McLuckie was arrested on the charge of murder.

And this was not all. The information, lodged before Alderman McMasters, of Pittsburgh, in pursuance of which the warrant for McLuckie's arrest was issued, included also the names of Hugh O'Donnell, Sylvester Critchlow, Anthony Flaherty, Samuel Burkett, James Flannigan and Hugh Ross. F. T. F. Lovejoy, secretary of the Carnegie Company, was the prosecutor and he affirmed that the men named "did of their malice aforethought feloniously and riotously with force and arms and deadly weapons kill and murder one T. J. Connors then and there being in the peace of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania." A second information charged the same persons with the murder of Silas Wain.

Three constables were sent to Homestead to make the arrests. They applied to General Snowden for assistance, which was promptly furnished, two companies of infantry being detailed to their support. At the same time the patrols were increased and two regiments were kept under arms so as to be ready for any contingency. No trouble was experienced, however. The accused had been forewarned and all, with the exception of O'Donnell and McLuckie, had locked up their houses and gone into hiding. The doughty burgess, strong in the consciousness of his innocence, went to Pittsburgh at an early hour, surrendered himself at the alderman's office and was committed to jail. Before the prison gates closed upon him, he informed the newspaper representatives that the Amalgamated men, in turn, would make informations against Carnegie, Frick and Potter. "We will make this man Frick come down on his knees so hard that the sound will be heard in the farthest corner of civilization" was honest John's last observation as he was led into durance.

Secretary Lovejoy also had something to say for the enlightenment of the public. "We have good cases against 1000 of these men," he said "and from now on from twelve to fifteen informations will be made every day. The laws of Pennsylvania are very broad on this subject. Persons who were on the premises at the time of the shooting are liable not only as accessories, but as principals."

McLuckie spent only one night in jail, being released next morning on $10,000 bail after a brief hearing before Judge Magee in the county criminal court. He took the first train for Homestead and was received there with acclamations, the townspeople turning out en masse to receive him. A procession was formed in his honor, and to the strains of "Home, Sweet Home," performed with unusual energy by the crack brass band of the town, the hero of the hour was escorted to the rink, where he made a speech of thanks to the people.

Hugh O'Donnell no sooner heard that a warrant was out for his arrest than he suspended his operations in New York and returned to Homestead. Like McLuckie, he spared the constables the trouble of arresting him and, in company with Hugh Ross, proceeded to Pittsburgh with the intention of surrendering. The two men went directly into the criminal court and, without the aid of an attorney, presented themselves to Judge Magee. O'Donnell addressed the judge, explaining that he had not sought to evade the arrest and asking that the law take its course. The judge was non-plussed by the unprecedented behavior of the two workmen in thus walking calmly into what was, from their point of view, the "lion's den," but, after some questioning, advised them to surrender themselves at the office of Alderman McMasters. This they did, and within an hour, they were behind prison bars. Two days later Peter Allen and Nathan Foy were arrested at their homes and lodged in jail.

An application for the admission of O'Donnell and his companions to bail was heard by Judge Magee on Saturday, July 23. Attorneys William J. Brennen and John F. Cox appeared for the defendants on behalf of the Amalgamated Association, and District Attorney Clarence Burleigh and D. F. Patterson, Esq. represented the prosecution. The testimony of a number of Pinkerton detectives, newspaper reporters, deputy sheriffs and others was taken, showing conclusively O'Donnell's leadership and his presence at the battle in the mill yard. The defence argued that O'Donnell's part in the "riot" was that of a peacemaker. Judge Magee reserved his decision until Monday, when he finally admitted the four prisoners to bail in the sum of $10,000 each, the case having "within its possibility a conviction of murder in the second degree."

The succession of arrests had, of course, a depressing effect on the people of Homestead. A still more discouraging circumstance was General Snowden's announcement that the troops would be kept in Homestead until one side or the other should give in. As long as the troops remained the mill was so securely guarded that the question was not merely of providing against violence but of preventing the Amalgamated men from obtaining access to the non-unionists and bringing persuasion to bear upon them after the manner customary with labor organizations. General Snowden was denounced without stint for what the men construed as a desire on his part to play into the hands of the Carnegie Company. But the General did not seem to mind denunciations. The last attempt to subjugate him was made by the high constable of the borough on an occasion when a stray cow had paid the debt of nature within the lines of the encampment. The constable undertook to storm the enemy's works with a view to compelling the interment of the cow with the honors of war, but was seized and incarcerated over night in the guard house. With the fall of this functionary came the collapse of all that remained of civil authority in Homestead, and thereafter General Snowden's word was law.

The advisory committee was sorely perplexed over the disposition to be made of the guns taken from the Pinkertons. The Attorney General of the state was addressed on the subject but declined to give advice, and it was doubtful that the guns could lawfully be retained as the "spoils of war." Ultimately the individual holders of the weapons settled the matter in their own way by hiding the trophies where prying detectives would be unable to find them.

The death of George W. Rutter, at the Homeopathic hospital, Pittsburgh, on July 18 closed the list of fatalities on the side of the workingmen. Rutter remained in a delirium until the last, always imagining in his ravings that he was back on the bank of the Monongahela, fighting against the Pinkertons. He was buried at Verona, Pa., where his widow and children resided.

CHAPTER XII.

"FRICK is shot!"

Such was the appalling announcement blazoned on bulletin boards, passed from mouth to mouth and hurried over the telegraph wires on the afternoon of Saturday, July 23, while O'Donnell and Ross were undergoing their preliminary hearing in the county court. The first question on every lip was, "Did a Homestead man do the shooting?" and great was the feeling of relief among the sympathizers of organized labor when it was learned that the would-be assassin, Alexander Berkman, was a Russian anarchist, and that his crime was prompted solely by the teachings of the infamous class of outlaws to which he belonged.

Berkman came to the United States in 1886, fresh from the University of Odessa, where he had inbibed the principals of the Autonomists—extreme Anarchists who believe in redressing social wrongs by individual action. He became a compositor in the office of Johann Most's paper, Die Freiheit, wrote freely for Anarchistic publications and allied himself with the worst class of revolutionary plotters in the metropolis. The beginning of 1893 found him living with Emma Goldman, a Russian woman of some note as a speech maker among the Anarchists, and spending much of his time in the beer halls frequented by Anarchists and Nihilists. Berkman seemed to be consumed with a desire to shine in the eyes of his mistress and of the blatant, beer-sodden circle of which she was the star, by giving a practical exemplification of his fidelity to Autonomist doctrine.

"Who is the worst enemy of society in America?" he asked himself, and when the Homestead trouble broke out, he imagined that his question was answered.

Frick was the man—Frick, the oppressor of workmen, the representative of the power of wealth and of might antagonizing right. "Undoubtedly," thought Berkman, "this man is society's arch-enemy and a fit mark for the weapon of an Autonomist."

So the misguided wretch made up his mind to murder the Carnegie chairman, and proceeded accordingly to Pittsburgh, armed for assassination. In company with Henry Bauer and Carl Knold, active anarchists of Allegheny City, Berkman inspected the Chronicle-Telegraph building on Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, in which Mr. Frick's office is located, and mapped out a program of attack. Representing himself as an employment agent, who desired to confer with the Carnegie chairman regarding the furnishing of non-union labor, he experienced little trouble in obtaining access to Mr. Frick's private room. He made several visits before the day of the shooting, and was suspected by no one. The neatly-attired, slight, young man who appeared so anxious to help the firm in its endeavors to procure workmen was one of the last men who would be supposed to harbor murderous designs.

At noon on the day set for the consummation of his plan, Berkman sent in his card to Mr. Frick, requesting an interview, but was referred to the clerk whose business it was to supervise the transportation of non-union men to Homestead. The clerk was out and Berkman was told to call again later. Shortly before two o'clock, Berkman returned and again asked to see Mr. Frick. He was informed that the Chairman was engaged. After waiting a few minutes in the hall outside the anteroom adjoining Mr. Frick's office, he came back once more, and finding nobody present but the office-boy, handed the lad his card and told him to take it in to the Chairman. The boy had hardly opened the door of Mr. Frick's office when Berkman rushed in, drew a revolver and opened fire. Mr. Frick, who was seated at his desk in conversation with Mr. Leishman, one of his partners, had his back turned to the intruder and offered an easy mark.

Berkman fired three shots in quick succession, the first two lodging in Mr. Frick's neck, while the third struck the ceiling. The assassin attempted to fire a fourth time, but the cartridge failed to explode. He snapped the trigger several times and finding that the revolver would not work, threw it on the ground, and, pulling out a stiletto, advanced upon Mr. Frick, who, wounded as he was, had risen to his feet to defend himself. Twice Berkman plunged the stiletto into Mr. Frick's side and he was about to strike a third time when the wounded man, summoning up all the strength left to him, seized his assailant's arm and grappled with him in a fierce struggle for life.

All this passed so rapidly that the clerks in the adjoining offices were unable to reach the scene of the encounter until the moment when Mr. Frick and Berkman clinched. When they entered, Berkman had the Chairman pressed against the large window looking out on Fifth avenue and was trying to release the hand that held the stiletto. Both men were covered with blood and a pool of blood was on the floor. On the street without, then thronged with Saturday afternoon promenaders, people stood transfixed with horror. Some shrieked helplessly. Some, with more presence of mind, ran to summon the police.

The clerks quickly released Mr. Frick from the grasp of his assailant and placed him on a lounge. Berkman dashed out of the office, with several clerks in pursuit, and was caught in the elevator, given in charge of the police and removed to the Central Station in a patrol wagon.

Dr. Litchfield, Mr. Frick's family physician, and a number of other medical men arrived promptly and took charge of the wounded man. Mr. Frick had not lost consciousness and was able to recognize and speak to the physicians. They wished to place him under the influence of chloroform while probing for the bullets, but he forbade this and submitted stoically to the operation, which lasted two hours. The extraordinary nerve of the man never left him. After the bullets had been extracted and his wounds bandaged, he conversed collectedly with visitors, signed several letters which had been written before the shooting and talked of being in condition to return to his office on Monday.

Meanwhile an excited multitude thronged the street outside the Carnegie offices and defied the efforts of the police to disperse it. At 6 o'clock an ambulance drove up, but it was not used. The news that Mr. Frick was to be removed to his private residence at Homewood, in the East End, had spread among the people and the desire to catch a glimpse of him made the mob unmanageable. Not until 7.45 o'clock was the removal accomplished. At that hour the crowd was drawn away by driving an ambulance to the rear of the Carnegie offices. The vehicle was driven quickly back again, and Mr. Frick was placed in it and carried off while the coast was clear.

Before being removed to his home, Mr. Frick sent this message to the reporters: "The shooting will in no way effect the Homestead strike."

Dangerous as the Carnegie Chairman's injuries were, his recovery was rapid, and two weeks after his encounter with Berkman he was able to return to his office and resume full charge of the firm's affairs to which, while on his sick bed, he had still continued to give a considerable measure of attention.

Berkman was taken to the county jail on Sunday night, there to await trial. He seemed indifferent to his fate and expressed regret that he had not succeeded in killing Frick. Bauer and Knold, his supposed accomplices, were locked up on the following day. A wagon load of Anarchist literature was seized at the house of Bauer, who acted as an agent for publications of this character.

The effect of the shooting on public opinion was strongly marked. The press of Pittsburgh was unanimous in expressing sympathy for Mr. Frick, and in so doing, voiced the general sentiment of the people. At Homestead much regret was expressed, and the workmen seemed to feel that, although Berkman did not represent them or their cause, directly or indirectly, his cowardly act was certain to prejudice their interests.

Undoubtedly the attempt to murder Mr. Frick served to hasten the defeat of the workingmen. The courage displayed by the Carnegie Chairman won him admiration in quarters where he had previously been condemned, and there were other circumstances which took the edge off the animosity generated by his harshness towards organized labor. During the crisis at Homestead, his young wife became a mother and, so powerfully did the events in which her husband was the central figure effect her that, for a time, she lay at the point of death. The child lived only a few days. Mr. Frick, it was said, in recognition of the fact that the New York Sun was the only newspaper in the country which took up the cudgels in his behalf, intended to name the little one Charles A. Dana Frick, after the editor of that journal. These incidents conspired to soften the popular heart somewhat, although Mr. Frick did not abate in the least his hostility towards the Amalgamated men and his determination to break the back of unionism in the Carnegie mills at any cost.

There was, however, one man in Allegheny county who neither sympathized with Frick nor scrupled to express his regret that Berkman's weapons failed to do their work.

This man was W. L. Iams, a youth belonging to one of the best families in Greene County, who was serving in Company K, Tenth Regiment, under Colonel Hawkins.

Iams was stretched on the grass outside Lieutenant Colonel J. B. Streator's tent, chatting with a group of comrades, when the news of the attempt on Frick's life was brought in. Acting on the impulse of the moment, and doubtless without measuring the significance of his words, the young man jumped to his feet and shouted "Three cheers for the man who shot Frick." Colonel Streator heard the remark and, stepping out of his tent, asked who had uttered it. Receiving no response, he ordered the regiment drawn up in line in the company streets, and, after condemning the language used by Iams as treasonable, demanded from one company after another the name of the offender. When he came to Company K, Iams stepped forward from the ranks and said "I did it." The Colonel asked him why. "Because I do not like Frick" was the answer. Iams was ordered to apologize before the regiment but refused, and was thereupon sent to the guard-house and subjected, without the benefit of a trial by court-martial, to the most degrading punishment known under military law. He was first strung up by the thumbs with notice that he would be cut down as soon as he apologized. Although suffering exquisite torture, the young man remained firm and declined to retract his words. After hanging for a quarter of an hour, he lost consciousness and the regimental surgeon, Dr. Neff, ordered him to be cut down. Iams was then placed in the guard-house until his case was reported to Colonel Hawkins, at the headquarters of the provisional brigade. The report was returned with the approval of Colonel Hawkins and General Snowden and an order from the latter that the man be disgraced and drummed out of camp. Colonel Streator executed these directions to the letter. Iams' head and face were half shaved; his uniform was exchanged for an old pair of overalls and a shirt and dilapidated hat to match, and in this wretched condition he was led out of camp to the tune of the "Rogues' March." His sentence carried with it permanent exclusion from the National Guard and disenfranchisement.

Iams proceeded to Pittsburgh and, strange to say, became the lion of the hour. He announced his intention of prosecuting the officers concerned in his punishment and a score of attorneys volunteered their services as his counsel. Among these was Frank P. Iams, Esq., a cousin of the young man, who was engaged in practice at the Pittsburgh bar.

Within twenty-four hours the Iams case became a National cause celebre. It was discussed everywhere from Maine to California. Military authorities waxed warm over it. Legal authorities squabbled over it. Professional publicists were interviewed concerning it.

Editors made it the subject of tremendous publications. Pictures of Iams, hairless, mustacheless and defiant appeared in the illustrated weeklies. The Allegheny County Democrats, happening to have another convention on hand at this time, took the matter up in a political way, and as it happened that Colonel Streator was a well-known and popular Democratic club man, "confusion worse confounded" followed the endeavors of the workingmen in the convention to secure the passage of resolutions excoriating the "brutal and inhuman" conduct of Iams' superior officers.

The preponderance of sentiment was everywhere against the officers. In inflicting a punishment so severe and unusual on a thoughtless youth, whose insubordinate conduct might have been otherwise chastised with equally good effect, and especially in denying him even a drumhead court-martial, they were held guilty of tyrannically exceeding their authority.

Iams carried out his threat of prosecuting the officers and indictments were subsequently found against General Snowden, Colonel Hawkins, Colonel Streator and Surgeon Neff. The trial, however, resulted in the acquittal of the defendants, the judge and jury being satisfied that whether the punishment inflicted on Iams fitted the crime or not, military law permitted its infliction.

After two weeks' service, the military force at Homestead was reduced to three regiments of infantry, a troop of cavalry and a battery, the retiring regiments breaking camp on July 27 and 28. Those that remained were booked for a term of service which was to end only when the Carnegie mills were in undisturbed operation, an order of things which was not to be finally established until more than two months later.

Mr. Frick's illness did not stay the hand of Secretary Lovejoy, who continued to lodge informations against the participants in the affair of July 6. Pinkerton detectives and a few newspaper reporters who had been placed on the Carnegie Company's pay-roll furnished the secretary with the necessary testimony. The first of the workmen to be held without bail was Sylvester Critchlow, a daring fellow who had done active duty as a sharpshooter in the mill-yard. Samuel Stewart, a clerk in the mill, swore that he had seen Critchlow fire at the men in the barges, and on this evidence the defendant was held liable for first degree murder and committed to jail pending his trial.

The workmen, for their part, proceeded to carry out their threat of prosecuting the Carnegie officials. Hugh Ross, himself under bail on the charge of murder, made information before Alderman King, of the South Side, Pittsburgh, charging that H. C. Frick, F. T. F. Lovejoy, Robert Pinkerton, William Pinkerton, J. A. Potter, G. A. Corey, J. G. A. Leishman, H. M. Curry, C. W. Bedell, Fred. Primer, W. H. Burt, Nevin McConnell, James Dovey, John Cooper and Fred. W. Hinde "did kill and murder John E. Morris, George W. Rutter, Silas Wain and Joseph Sotak." The arrest of Chairman Frick was to be deferred until he should recover from his wounds. As the Homestead men, for the most part, had been arrested at such times and under such circumstances as compelled them to spend a night in jail, before securing a hearing in court on their application for admission to bail, Ross made special efforts to have the Carnegie officials subjected to the same experience. This manœuvre, however, was defeated. Messrs. Leishman, Lovejoy and Curry, hearing that warrants were out for their arrest, went at once, in company with a formidable array of counsel, to the criminal court where Judge Ewing was sitting, and asked for admission to bail. Judge Ewing said he could not hear the applications until the defendants had appeared before an alderman and either waived examination or been held for court; but with a degree of courtesy probably never before exhibited in a criminal court he dispatched a messenger for Alderman King, permitted the defendants to waive a hearing and then went on to consider the question of bail. This was speedily disposed of. The Judge declined to consider the representations made by the attorneys of the Amalgamated Association as to the entrance into the case of the elements of first degree murder. There was no equality, he held, between the Carnegie officials and the men in the conflict of July 6. The former were exercising their rights; the latter were rioters and trespassers, whom it was proper to oppose with arms. He, therefore, would admit the defendants to bail in the sum of $10,000.

Messrs. Dovey and McConnell, superintendents of departments in the Homestead mill, were arrested later and passed the night in jail. Superintendent Potter and G. A. Corey evaded the constables and presented themselves before Judge Ewing next morning. Alderman King was again brought into court and the four men were released on bail in the same manner as Messrs. Leishman, Lovejoy and Curry. The court ordered also that Mr. Frick give $10,000 bail and that it be taken at his home.

Judge Ewing was roundly denounced by the workingmen for the lengths to which he had gone to spare the Carnegie officials the humiliation which O'Donnell and his companions had been forced to endure. "Evidently," they said, "the judges are prejudiced against us and are bent upon discriminating in favor of our rich and influential antagonists."

Another disquieting circumstance was the verdict arrived at by the coroner's jury in pursuance of the inquest held on the men who were killed in the Homestead conflict. In each instance the killing was charged to an "unlawful assembly," and the jury recommended that "said unlawful assembly be certified to the September sessions of the grand jury."

On August 2, Attorney Brennen presented to court a petition signed by sixty-seven steelworkers of Pittsburgh and Homestead, praying that a license be issued for the establishment of a voluntary trade tribunal, in conformity with an act passed in 1883, to arbitrate differences in the steel trade. The acceptance of the terms of the act must be mutual between employers and employed. Mr. Brennen entertained hopes that the Carnegie firm, seeing the willingness of the men to submit to arbitration, might yet consent to this mode of adjustment. Secretary Lovejoy settled the matter definitely in the negative by the brief statement that "The question of recognizing the Amalgamated Association cannot be arbitrated."

This was the last overture made to the firm on behalf of the workmen. The latter, however, continued to keep up their courage and maintained an almost unbroken front, desertions being few and far between. Mass meetings were held frequently and at these it was invariably agreed that the mill could not be operated with non-union men, that sooner or later the firm must yield to the pressure of circumstances and that, with the help received from the treasury of the Amalgamated Association and from other sources, the locked-out men could hold out, if necessary, for a year or more.

There were some who foresaw the collapse of these castles in the air, but, rather than place themselves under the suspicion of lukewarmness, they held their peace.

CHAPTER XIII.