Homestead

Chapter I. Capital in Its Stronghold.

Homestead and Its Mills--The Rise and Progress of the Carnegie Firm--How The "Star Spangled Scotchman" Made His Fortune--He Labors For Years and Then Lapses Into Luxury--H. C. Frick's Career as Coke King and Iron Master--The Fine Art of Crushing Strikes--Carnegie and Frick Join Hands and the Latter Becomes the Master-Spirit--Condition of Organized Labor at Homestead 3-14

Chapter Ii. the Gathering of the Storm.

History and Methods of the Amalgamated Association--Operation of the Sliding Scale at Homestead--Superintendent Potter Makes Amicable Suggestions a la Carnegie--An Ultimatum From Frick--He Threatens Non-Unionism and Fortifies the Mills--Lodges Hold a Sunday Morning Meeting--Burgess McLuckie's Bold Speech--"High Fences, Pinkerton Detectives, Thugs and Militia"--Political Exigencies Give Hope to the Workmen 15-26

Chapter Iii. Locked Out.

Frick's Allies--A Plan of General Assault on the Amalgamated Association Falls to the Ground--The Labor Question in Politics--Democrats Make Capital Out of Wage Reductions--Frick Confers With a Workmen's Committee and Rejects a Compromise--Mills Shut Down and Are Declared Non-Union--"Fort Frick"--Lodges Appoint an Advisory Committee--Guarding the Town 27-40

Chapter Iv. the Pinkerton Guards.

Planning a Siege--History of the Pinkertons--Hatred of Organized Labor for Soldier Policemen--Frick's Cold-Blooded Letter--The Sheriff of Allegheny County is Enlisted in the Carnegie Forces--Millmen Dispose of a Sheriff's Posse--The Gathering of the Invaders--Departure of the Pinkerton Barges for Homestead 41-51

Chapter V. the First Shot.

On Board the Barges--Floating Barracks Equipped for Bloody Warfare--Up the Monongahela at Midnight--Homestead Gets Warning--Defenders at the Mill Landing--Frick's Army Repulsed With Heavy Loss--Hugh O'Donnell Takes Command of the Workmen--Sheriff McCleary's Appeal to the Governor--Frick Refuses to Interfere 52-64

Chapter Vi. the Bombardment.

Cannonading the Barges--Silas Wain's Sad Death--The Little Bill Returns and Runs the Gauntlet--A Car of Fire Terrifies the Pinkertons and Drives Captain Rodgers to Flight--Amalgamated Officials Arrive--Dining Under Fire--Horrors in the Guardsmen's Quarters--The Killing of Detective Connors--Dynamite--Suicide on the Barges--Messages From Abroad--Congress Acts 65-77

Chapter Vii. the Surrender.

Amalgamated Officials as Mediators--President Weihe Calls a Mass Meeting and Counsels Peace--Hugh O'Donnell's Speech--The Brave Young Leader Procures a Surrender--Pinkertons Run the Gauntlet--A Savage Mob Assails the Prisoners--Arrival of the Sheriff--The Frick Troop of Invaders Driven From the State 78-88

Chapter Viii. After the Battle.

Carnegie's Property Protected--Confidence Still Strong Among the Men--Homestead as a News Center--The Death-Roll--Burial of the Dead--Anarchists Get a Short Shrift--The Sheriff Fails Again--Interviewing the Governor--Martial Law in Sight--Proceedings in Congress--Opinions of Newspapers and Publicists--A Press Censorship Established at Homestead 89-101

Chapter Ix. Soldiers to the Front.

The Sheriff's Last Effort--Mr. Frick Issues a Statement and the Amalgamated Association Responds--Political and Industrial Organizations Indorse the Homestead Men--Interviewing Carnegie--Censorship of the Press--Governor Pattison Orders Out the National Guard--Strength of the Militia--Locked-Out Men Prepare to Welcome the Blue Coats--A Speech That Burgess McLuckie Never Delivered 102-115

Chapter X. Camp Mcclellan.

Snowden's Sharp Tactics--The Taking of Homestead--Troops in Possession--Soldiers Repel Advances and the Fraternal Reception is Declared Off--O'Donnell's Committee at Headquarters--Suspicion and Resentment Abroad--The Little Bill Returns--Congressmen Hold an Investigation--Capital and Labor in Conflict on the Witness Stand--The Cost of Producing Steel Remains a Riddle 116-132

Chapter Xi. the First Arrests.

Bringing in the "Blacksheep"--Pittsburgh, Beaver Falls and Duquesne Men Come Out--An Alarm in Camp--The Governor Arrives--The Boycott as a Persuader--Politics to the Rescue--Murder Charged and Warrants Issued--McLuckie, O'Donnell and Ross Surrender and are Released on Bail--General Snowden's Disheartening Announcement 133-145

Chapter Xii. the Shooting of Frick.

Berkman, a Russian Autonomist, Attempts the Life of the Carnegie Chairman--Mr. Frick's Bravery--"The Shooting Will in no Way Affect the Homestead Strike"--Militiaman Iams Cheers the Assassin and is Drummed Out of Camp--Public Indignation over the Iams Affair--Snowden, Hawkins, Streator and Neff Indicted--Workingmen Prosecute Carnegie Officials for Murder 146-158

Chapter Xiii. Berkman and Iams.

Frick's Assailant Railroaded to the Penitentiary--The Iams Trial--Hanging by the Thumbs Approved by a Jury--The Mills Filling Up--Sermons to Non-Unionists--Strikers Go Through the Plant--The Relief Fund--Gompers Arrives and Makes an Incendiary Speech--Pittsburgh and Mahoning Manufacturers Capitulate--William and Robert Pinkerton on the Defensive 159-173

Chapter Xiv. Politicians At Work.

A Suppressed Congressional Report--Sympathy Strikes Prove a Failure--Gompers as a Boycott Wielder--The Slavs Weaken--Plans of the Republican National Committee--Smooth Mr. Milholland Enlists Hugh O'Donnell--Honest John McLuckie Refuses to be Muzzled--The Milholland Scheme Falls Through--Outbreaks at Homestead--The Search for Pinkerton Guns--Mr. Frick Revisits the Mill 174-188

Chapter Xv. Treason.

Progress in the Mill--A Quartette of Aristocratic Non-Unionists--Sickness Breaks Out--More Arrests--Jack Clifford Suspected of Treachery, but is Held Without Bail for Murder--167 True Bills Returned--Supreme Justice Paxson in the Saddle--He Orders Arrests for Treason and is Generally Condemned--Snowden Favors the Gallows for Homesteaders--Judge Agnew on Treason--Paxson Instructs the Grand Jury and Pronounces the Homestead men Traitors--Carnegie in Scotland 189-208

Chapter Xvi. the First Break.

More Prosecutions--The Soldiers Withdraw--A Non-Union Hotel Dynamited--Homestead Figures in Parades and Gives a Democratic Majority--Slavs Weakening--The Local News Predicts Defeat--Gompers Again--Sheriff McCleary is Harassed and Increases His Corps of Deputies--Lawyer Jones in Trouble--Schwab Succeeds Potter as Superintendent--Homestead's Last Riot--Striker Roberts Hints at Defeat--Mechanics and Laborers Go Back to Work 209-225

Chapter Xvii. Capitulation.

The Last Mass Meeting--Strikers Surrender Unconditionally--Cost of the Homestead Dispute to Capital, Labor and the State--Few Old Hands Get Work and Poverty Stalks Abroad--Noble Service of Relief Committees--The Coming of Santa Claus--Congressional Investigations Wind Up Without Accomplishing anything--A Batch of Useless Reports--The Kearns Anti-Pinkerton Bill Becomes a Law in Pennsylvania 226-240

Chapter Xviii. the First Trial.

Sylvester Critchlow Arraigned--Pinkertons on the Stand--The Prosecution Makes a Strong Showing--A Suspicious Carnegie Banquet--Attorneys Erwin and Argo to the Rescue--An Alibi for the Defense--John S. Robb Attacks Mr. Erwin--The "Northwestern Whirlwind's" Magnificent Oration--He Captures the Court and Confounds the Prosecution--"Not Guilty"--The Backbone of the Murder Charges Broken 241-260

Chapter Xix. Weaving New Toils.

An Epidemic Investigated--Detectives Charge Poisoning and Arrests are Made--Gallagher and Davidson Turn Informers--Dempsey and Beatty are Indicted--Hearings and Trials--A Tangled Mass of Medical Testimony--Mr. Brennen's Little Hibernicism--Defendants are Convicted and Heavy Sentences Imposed--Gallagher Recants and Then Reconsiders--Clemency Refused by the Pardon Board 261-279

Chapter Xx. the Denouement.

Clifford Tried For His Life--Alibi Testimony--Attorneys Erwin and Anderson Win New Laurels--"Not Guilty"--Hugh O'Donnell at the Bar--The Homestead Leader as a Reporter and Peacemaker--Weak Testimony for the Prosecution--Major Montooth Ridicules the District Attorney's Substitute--O'Donnell Acquitted--The Carnegie Lawyers Abandon the Field--Berkman's Accomplices Disposed Of 280-295

CONCLUSION 296-298

CHAPTER I.. [illustration: Capital in Its Stronghold]

HOMESTEAD AND ITS MILLS--THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE CARNEGIE FIRM--HOW THE "STAR-SPANGLED SCOTCHMAN" MADE HIS FORTUNE--HE LABORS FOR YEARS AND THEN LAPSES INTO LUXURY--H. C. FRICK'S CAREER AS COKE KING AND IRON MASTER--THE FINE ART OF CRUSHING STRIKES--CARNEGIE AND FRICK JOIN HANDS AND THE LATTER BECOMES THE MASTER-SPIRIT--CONDITION OF ORGANIZED LABOR AT HOMESTEAD.

In a bend of the south bank of the Monongahela River, eight miles from Pittsburgh, nestles the thriving town of Homestead, a place of about 12,000 inhabitants, built up by the wealth and enterprise of the Carnegie Steel Company and the thrift of the artisans employed by that great manufacturing corporation.

Without the Carnegie mills there would be no Homestead. Like the mushroom towns that sprang up along the Northern Pacific Railroad while the line was in process of construction and that died out as fast as the base of operations was shifted, so Homestead sprang into being when the site now occupied by the town was picked out by Andrew Carnegie as a producing center, and so, too, if the Carnegie firm were to move its works to-morrow, would Homestead be blotted off the map, or, at best, reduced to the rank of an insignificant village.

The interdependence of the works and the town is absolute.

The mill property covers 600 acres, bordering on the river, and includes thirty-seven acres under roof. The products comprise boiler and armor plates, beams and structural iron of various kinds. The manufacture of armor-plate for the United States Navy is conducted on a scale of unparalleled magnitude. From the huge hydraulic cranes lifting and carrying from place to place a weight of 200 tons, yet operated easily by one man, down to the delicate machinery in the finishing department, the equipment of the armor-plate mill is a marvel of mechanical perfection. The great beam and structural mills, the Bessemer department and the bloom and billet mills are also magnificently equipped and are conducted on a mammoth scale, in comparison with which the operations of other American steel mills are almost insignificant.

Railroad tracks gridiron the yards and nineteen locomotives are required for the transportation of material. The repair shops cut an important figure and an army of blacksmiths, roll-turners, carpenters, tinners and other mechanics is employed to keep every detail of the working equipment in perfect order.

The plant is lighted throughout with electricity.

Within easy reach of the mills are the offices of the mill superintendent and his corps of clerks, draughtsmen and engineers. Eight handsome residences, farther back from the yard, are occupied by the assistant managers. There is also a club house for the use of guests and officers.

The foundation of this immense concern, representing a capital of many millions of dollars, and employing nearly 4,000 men, was laid in 1880, when, according to the census report, Homestead had a population of less than 600. 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.

Andrew Carnegie is a self-made man, the son of a poor weaver of Dunfermline, Scotland. In 1845, the lad, then 12 years old, emigrated to the United States with his parents and settled in Pittsburgh. He was put to work tending a small stationary engine, and afterwards became a telegraph messenger boy and, in course of time, an operator. The Pennsylvania Railroad Company made him clerk to the superintendent of its Pittsburgh office and manager of its telegraph lines. About this time he met Woodruff, the inventor of the sleeping-car, and took a share in his venture. The enterprise was profitable and yielded what may be considered the nucleus of Mr. Carnegie's wealth. Again the young man was promoted, securing the superintendency of the Pittsburgh division of the Pennsylvania road. His future was now assured if he chose to continue in the railroad business; but his tastes, or rather his keen foresight led him in another direction. In company with his brother Thomas and others he purchased an established rolling mill, and from this grew the most extensive and profitable system of iron and steel industries in the world.

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