Arthur Gordon Burgoyne

“ A whirlwind of excitement was roused when a speaker told of a report that 200 non-union workmen were coming to Homestead disguised in the blue uniform of Pinkerton detectives. "Watch the depots," was the unanimous cry that followed this alarmist statement.
When, after a session of two hours, the meeting adjourned, there remained not the least doubt as to the unity of feeling among all classes of workers in the town. Every man was ready to enter upon relentless strife, and if there was a coward or malingerer in any quarter, he wisely held his peace. ”

“ Proceeding to the law in the case, the Chief Justice held that when the Carnegie Company employed watchmen to guard its works, "it mattered not to the rioters, nor to the public, who they were, nor whence they came. It was an act of unlawful violence to prevent their landing on the property of the company. That unlawful violence amounted at least to a riot upon the part of all concerned in it. If life was taken in pursuance of a purpose to resist the landing of the men by violence, the offense was murder, and perhaps treason." ”

“ Was this man placed in power by Andrew Carnegie in order to carry out at Homestead what he had carried out in the coke regions; to challenge organized labor by the submission of conditions which it could not accept and, on its refusal, try the old game of crushing the unions under foot? Did Carnegie shrink from the task himself and pick out Frick as a willing and capable instrument? ”

“ It is a tenet of the law that it is better that ninety-nine guilty persons should escape than that one innocent man should suffer. Will you believe the sheriff who would try to pull the wool over your eyes and endeavor to launch this defendant into eternity? Will you believe the testimony of the defendant or this red-handed Pinkerton? No, this is not a question between labor and capital, and it amused me to have the learned counsel on the other side assert it. It is claimed by the prosecution that Clifford was at the landing firing at these men when they landed ”

“ No matter whether they may appear the enemies of our constitution or our country's institutions, it matters little. We propose to defend our country, its flag with its stars and stripes, in the face of those who would tear it down, for it represents our sovereign rights. ”

“ The world has never witnessed before so much suffering and sacrifice for a cause. The action of the three thousand laborers and mechanics who came out with our men on pure principle alone is unexampled in the history of labor struggles.
"But to the men in the Lawrenceville and Beaver Falls mills too much praise cannot be given. Their loyalty and steadfastness to the principles for which they were contending should never be forgotten. Out of consideration for them I regret that the Homestead struggle should have terminated in the manner in which it did. ”

“ A mere mob, collected upon the impulse of the moment, without any definite object beyond the gratification of its sudden passions does not commit treason, although it destroys property and attacks human life.206 But when a large number of men arm and organize themselves by divisions and companies, appoint officers and engage in a common purpose to defy the law, to resist its officers, and to deprive any portion of their fellow citizens of the rights to which they are entitled under the constitution and laws, it is a levying of war against the state, and the offense is treason ”

“ No sooner did the waiting multitude on the river bank perceive that the occupants of the barges meant to put in at the Carnegie Company's landing-place than, with a roar of anger, strong men tore down the fence that barred their path, and ran to the spot where, had they delayed five minutes longer, the Pinkerton men would have disembarked in safety. ”

“ Effigies of Frick and Potter were hung on telegraph poles. Denunciations of the firm and its policy were heard on every hand. Knots of angry men gathered outside the board fence that hedged the mill enclosure, peered through the loopholes at the watchmen on duty within and talked defiantly of what would happen if the methods that triumphed over the poor, disorganized serfs in the coke regions were to be tried upon four thousand sturdy and intelligent steelworkers. If an apostle of non-unionism had ventured upon the streets of Homestead that night he would have fared badly. ”

“ At no time throughout a contest which set men's souls aflame from one end of the land to the other did President Weihe lose his self-possession or his ability to stand between the solid fabric of the association and those of its friends, who, in the rashness of the hour, would fain have involved it in the ruin which engulfed the lodges at Homestead. ”

“ Perhaps even the great men who were interested in proving that protection protects would use their influence to obviate the astounding object lesson which would be presented to the world if the Carnegie firm, at the noontide of its prosperity, should reduce the wages of its employees. If there was hope in this way of looking at the prospect, it was a forlorn hope, and the most sanguine of the tonnage men, who were the first to be affected by a change in the scale, could not consider it otherwise. ”

“ I deny this, for witness after witness for the prosecution went upon the stand and swore to the contrary. What is the purpose of this move by the prosecution? It is simply a trick; a pure trick of the law to show that there was a cessation of firing which would permit the people of Homestead to withdraw. There was no cessation, but these Pinks poured out a continuous fire upon these defenseless people on the hillside from port-holes cut in the barges. Self-defense is a cardinal principle not depending upon the law of the state, but upon God. It does not depend upon man. ”

“ Merely the facts are stated here, leaving it to the reader to make his own deductions as to the justice or injustice of the assaults on the American system of protection to labor provoked by the seeming selfishness of tariff-enriched manufacturers. Suffice it to state that every shot told and that, if the whole truth were known, it would be found that political considerations went a long way to prevent the other manufacturers from joining Mr. Frick in a body and using their combined resources to destroy the Amalgamated Association and strip their employees of all means of self-defense. ”

“ Now some of your men are in prison, others out on bail, but you are now out three and one-half months on strike with your ranks practically unbroken. I would not ask you to stand out one moment longer than your rights demanded, but are there not some acts of the Carnegie firm that show you that you are working in a winning cause? Because you are here in Homestead you don't know the great victory you have won. ”

“ Then messages of sympathy and encouragement began pouring in, and, as these multiplied, the conviction impressed itself upon the men that they were fighting not only their own battle, for the salvation of themselves and their families, but the battle of organized labor as a whole, and that the eyes of workingmen all over the continent were upon them. Perhaps this was an extravagant conception, but it was substantially justified by the tone of the telegrams sent in from far and near, proffering aid and bidding the men of Homestead stand to their guns. ”

“ There were some cool-headed and conservative people in Homestead who tried to assemble a mass meeting for the purpose of taking measures to stop the shedding of blood and to have the Pinkerton barges removed and sent down the river. The pleas of these would-be peacemakers fell upon deaf ears. In fact, it became dangerous to suggest a cessation of hostilities within the hearing of those who had experienced their baptism of fire and felt that lust of bloodshed which is said to be latent in the breasts of most men. ”

“ It is Sunday morning, and we ought to be in church, but we are here to-day to see if we are going to live as white men in the future. The constitution of this country guarantees all men the right to live, but in order to live we must keep up a continuous struggle. This is the effect of legislation and nothing else. The McKinley bill reduced the tariff25 on the four-inch billet, and the reduction of our wages is the result. You men who voted the Republican ticket voted for high tariff and you get high fences, Pinkerton detectives, thugs and militia! ”

“ Although ignobly routed in the courts, the Carnegie Company lost not a foot of the ground gained at Homestead. On the contrary, it has since doubly re-inforced itself, for not only is the spirit of unionism stamped out among the employees of the firm, but fully three-fourths of the former union men are now working, most of them at their old jobs, without exhibiting a trace of the independence which was once their pride, or making any pretensions to a voice in the determination of their wages. ”

“ Throughout the afternoon thousands of outsiders—some of them millmen from South Pittsburgh, some roughs and toughs who relished the prospect of taking a hand in a fight of any kind, some Anarchists, aching for a chance to strike a blow at "Capital" and its representatives—had walked into Homestead over the railroad tracks and were now mingled with the steelworkers. These strangers, of course, were careless of consequences and indifferent to the restraining influence of O'Donnell and those associated with O'Donnell in ending the conflict. ”

“ Every man in that crowd had a right to defend himself with arms; the law gives to every man the right to defend himself, to defend his family; to defend his neighbors and his friends; this right is given every man by a power higher than the law of man. The people were attacked by an armed foe and they had the right to use weapons in self-defense. The evidence shows that the men on the barges were in command of officers whose names are known, who have testified in this case, yet your honorable district attorney has made no effort to bring these men to justice. ”

“ If it is necessary in his judgment to call out troops, he is the proper authority to do so. Everything is in his hands."
This, at a time when the sheriff was publicly announcing that he was powerless, and when the chances were a hundred to one that the entire force of Pinkertons would be destroyed like rats in a trap, betokened very clearly that the sacrifice of life was a trifle in the eyes of the Carnegie officials compared with the sacrifice of the non-unionist policy to which the firm had tied itself down. The Pinkertons might be killed to the last man, but the Frick ultimatum must stand. ”

“ By noon, the men who were posted behind the ramparts in the yard of the Homestead mill were almost worn out with fatigue and hunger. Most of them had been up all night without tasting food, and the strain upon them had been enough to tax sorely the most robust physique. At 1 o'clock a relief expedition was organized and a squad of men carrying baskets of provisions made their way into the yard and by dodging behind furnace stacks and piles of iron managed to reach their suffering comrades without exposing themselves to the fire of the enemy. ”

“ On Tuesday, June 28, the company ordered the armor-plate mill and the open-hearth department shut down, throwing 800 men out of employment.
This was the beginning of the lock-out, for a lock-out it was, and not a strike, as has been very generally represented.
A strike occurs when dissatisfied workingmen cease work of their own accord and refuse to return until the cause of dissatisfaction is removed.
A lock-out originates with the employing individual or corporation, and consists in the refusal to let the employees work until they come to terms with the employer. ”

“ Now the duty of the commonwealth is plain in this case. It must convince your minds and your consciences that the defendant is guilty. Who says this Pennsylvania boy killed Connors? Nobody. They want to say and want you to say a great riot was in progress. I deny it. A riot is some act done by several persons unlawful in its character. I deny that there was any riot on the shore that day; the state does not prove that the defendant had a gun in his hand that day. They do try to prove by one witness that he had a revolver in his hand. ”

“ Captain Coon, who knew Clifford for years and was standing at the gangway watching what was going on, swears that Jack Clifford was not there. Then again, there is the old man Gray, a watchman at that mill, with an eye as keen as any Pinkerton's, who swears that Jack Clifford was not there that morning. Then, I say, is it just in this commonwealth where a man is on trial for his liberty and his life, that the testimony289 of reputable witnesses of your state is of no more weight than that of the Pinkertons? ”

“ 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. ”

“ The firm which has made all this possible, which, by virtue of intelligent effort and phenomenal accumulation and utilization of capital has called into being a full-fledged American town, with schools, churches, prosperous mercantile establishments, independent minor industries and a well-organized municipal government, is controlled by two men, whose names have, through the events to be recorded in this volume, been made familiar as household words the world over—Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick. ”

“ There was a flavor of coke region discipline about the Frick ultimatum which was not calculated to promote good feeling at Homestead. Nor did it. The men who drove the sheriff's deputies out of Homestead in 1889 might yield to milder measures, but the crack of the whip was irritating. "Are we to be lashed into Mr. Frick's way of thinking?" men asked one another, and the very thought bred insurrection. ”

“ Nevertheless, the district attorney announced that every one of the Homestead cases would be brought to trial and as an earnest of sincerity, Hugh O'Donnell was brought forward to face a jury of his peers on February 13, the fifth day after Clifford's safe deliverance.
The young leader looked pale and thin as a result of his imprisonment, but his eye was as clear and his voice as firm as on the day when he marshaled the fighting men at the barricades, and there was no sign of flinching in his demeanor as he stood up to enter his plea of "not guilty." ”

“ On the fiat of the Carnegie Company depended almost entirely the price of steel in the market. Rivalry was dwarfed and competition nullified. Rarely in the industrial history of the world has a similarly powerful monopoly been built up on no other foundation than the combination of brains and capital, with such indirect aid as the protective tariff system affords.
Against this tremendous power,—a power equal to the control of 13,000 men and more than $25,000,000 of capital, the men of Homestead were destined to pit themselves in a life and death struggle ”

“ Here, for two hours that seemed like weeks, thousands of men and women waited for the arrival of the enemy—a dangerous enemy, they felt sure, judging by the manner of his coming.
56 As the barges drew nearer to Homestead, the noise on the shore grew louder and louder and soon the sharp crack of rifles rang out, giving a foretaste of what was in store for the unwelcome visitors. Whether these shots, which were fired before the Pinkertons attempted to land, were intended as signals or were aimed, in a random way, at the barges has never been determined. ”

“ Even from far-away Texas came the news that artillery would be shipped to Homestead to help the cause of labor. To many rough fellows, heroic in their way and easily misled by circumstances, it appeared more likely than not, that the killing of those two barge-loads of Pinkerton guards was but the first step in a conflict of national extent, which would wind up in the coming of an industrial millennium. Hardly a man among them imagined that the law would seek atonement for the death of Mr. Frick's hired invaders. ”

“ At the same time, the joint influence of fraternity and of confidence in the force of organization was deemed sufficient to inspire all the Homestead workers, in and out of the lodges, to make common cause in the event of a quarrel between the lodges and the Carnegie firm. Should this emergency arise, it was argued, the firm could not find enough non-union steelworkers in the United States to take the places of its army of employees, and as a consequence, if the men went out on strike, the mills would have to be shut down and the heavy loss resulting would force the firm to come to terms. ”

“ The meeting was held in one of the mill buildings. Mr. Weihe addressed the crowd, explaining that he came by virtue of an agreement with the sheriff to propose that the Pinkertons be allowed to depart with the guarantee that they would not return. The barbarity of continuing the battle until it ended in an absolute massacre was enlarged upon, and it was pointed out that the workmen were already victorious and could afford to rest on their laurels and to avoid tarnishing the good name of Homestead by committing what the world would regard as an outrage upon humanity. ”

“ One of the first results thereof was the enlistment of a corps of deputies to take the place of the Homestead police, the latter officials being so thoroughly in sympathy with the strikers that they devoted their attention chiefly to the apprehension of non-union men who happened to stray out of the works. The sight of a non-unionist was always sufficient to incite an uproar and on several occasions riotous demonstrations were caused by the appearance on the streets of men who had the hardihood to leave the mill and walk abroad. ”

“ At the suggestion of many members of labor organizations, the publishers of "Homestead" have decided to set apart five per cent. of the net profits derived from the sale of the work as the nucleus of a fund for the erection of a monument in commemoration of the battle of July 6, 1892. A suitable design shown in the engraving opposite page 288 has been chosen, and it is hoped that the workingmen of the United States will co-operate to secure the successful execution of the plan. Men and events of prominence in almost all other fields of human activity are immortalized by enduring testimonials ”

“ As the float moved along the street, men, women and children strained their lungs with the cry of "Carnegie's Blacksheep!" The success of the Homestead demonstration was the "last straw," and Republican missionaries visited the benighted town no more.
The Hungarians continued to grow more and more restless as they saw the number of men in the mill increase and the chances of their getting back their jobs diminish correspondingly. All these foreigners belonged to the laboring class and it was especially hard for them to stand the strain of a long period of idleness. ”

“ Secretary Lovejoy now made his final statement on behalf of the firm declaring the mill to be permanently non-unionized. "Hereafter," he said, "the Homestead steel works will be operated as a non-union mill. We shall not recognize the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers in our dealings with the men. The mill will be an open one where all men may work regardless of their affiliation with a labor organization. There will be, no doubt, a scale of wages; but we shall deal with the men individually; not with any organization. Such a thing as a union will not be recognized. ”

“ He did not waste any time in considering projects for immediately introducing non-union men into the mills, being well aware that, if men foolhardy enough to take the risk of "blacksheeping" at Homestead could be found, it would still be impracticable to get them past the picket lines of the locked-out steelworkers, and that, even if a force of non-unionists could be piloted into the mill their presence would be the signal for an attack by the union men and possibly for the destruction of the firm's property. ”

“ In Pittsburgh excitement rose to fever heat. Sheriff McCleary reached his office early and, having come to the conclusion that, where 300 Pinkerton men were worse than powerless, it was useless for him to think of interposing, sent a message to Governor Pattison, briefly detailing the situation at Homestead and the inability of the civil authorities to cope with it, and soliciting "instructions at once." The governor promptly answered as follows: "Local authorities must exhaust every means at their command for preservation of peace." ”

“ There was politics in this speech, but almost every member of a labor organization is a politician in a small way, and McLuckie's bill of indictment against the Republican party struck fairly home. It had been freely charged that, when the McKinley tariff bill was being prepared, Andrew Carnegie had waited on the conference committee which put the finishing touches to the measure and secured as a return for his generous contributions to the Republican campaign funds, a reduction in the duty on steel billets, this product being the single standard of wages in his Homestead works. ”

“ Who is it that likes darkness? Why did not Mr. Frick say he was bringing these men here to protect his property and not to intimidate people? Why did they steal into Homestead with guns that shot sixteen times?"
Mr. Marshall attacked the evidence for the prosecution,258 and especially the identification of Critchlow by the Pinkertons, who could only have seen the man once or twice, if they had seen him at all, and were, therefore, not qualified to swear to his identity. He held that the district attorney had no right to throw the weight of his talents and influence against the defendant. ”