resolute action of the committee, yet they were, although dispersed as
a body, holding meetings and still breathing sullen threats of further
outrage and murder. The strike had spread to the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne
& Chicago Railway, and its trains were for two or three days virtually
stopped; in other sections of the country the railroad troubles were
increasing, and the committee thought best to call Major-General Joseph
Brown and Colonel P. N. Guthrie, of the Eighteenth National Guards, into
consultation. Under their advice a camp of the military was formed at
East Liberty, to be held in readiness for any further outbreak. Mayor
McCarthy, at last inspirited by the determined men who urged him to his
duty, enrolled five hundred extra police, and issued a proclamation in
which he said:
I have determined that peace, order, and quiet shall be restored to
the community, and to this end call upon all good citizens to come
forward at once to the old City Hall and unite with the police and
military now organizing. I call upon all to continue quietly at
their several places of business and refrain from participating in
excited assemblages.
A proclamation had also been issued by Governor Hartranft, and he had
come to Pittsburgh to address the rioters, and subsequently two or three
thousand troops were ordered by him to Pittsburgh, and were encamped
near East Liberty for several days.
Under these vigorous measures quiet was in a few days restored,
although the Committee of Public Safety continued to hold sessions and
to take steps not only to prevent any further demonstrations, but to
arrest and bring to punishment a number of the prominent rioters.
Claims for losses in the riot were made on Allegheny County in the sum
of $4,100,000, which the commissioners settled for $2,772,349.53. Of
this sum $1,600,000 was paid to the Pennsylvania Railroad, whose claim
for $2,312,000 was settled for that sum. In addition to the buildings
already specified as burned, there were 1,383 freight-cars, 104
locomotives, and 66 passenger coaches destroyed by fire. Twenty-five
persons in all were killed.
The lesson was worth all it cost, and anarchy has never dared to raise
its head in the corporation limits since that time.
XVII
The Homestead strike and riot of 1892 is another incident of false
leadership in industrial life which must be chronicled here.
For many years the Carnegie Steel Company, whose principal works were
situated at Homestead, just outside the present boundaries of the city,
had employed a large number of skilled workmen who belonged to the
Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, and had contracted
for their employment with the officers of that Association. On July 1,
1889, a three years' contract was made which was to terminate at the end
of June, 1892. The workmen were paid by the ton, the amount they
received depending on the selling price of steel billets of a specified
size which they produced. If the price of these billets advanced, the
wages they received per ton advanced proportionately. If the price
declined, their wages also declined to a certain point, called a
minimum, but a decline in the selling price below this minimum caused no
reduction in wages. The minimum was fixed in the contract at $25.00 per
ton. At the date the contract was made the market price of the billets
was $26.50 per ton.
As the time drew near for the contract to expire, the Carnegie Company,
through its chairman, Mr. Henry C. Frick, submitted to the workmen
belonging to the Association a proposition as the basis of a new
contract. The three most important features of the proposed contract
were, first, a reduction in the minimum of the scale for billets from
$25.00 to $22.00; second, a change in the expiration of the date of the
scale from June 30th to December 31st; third, a reduction of tonnage
rates at those furnaces and mills in which, by reason of the
introduction of improved machinery, the earnings of the workmen had been
increased far beyond the liberal calculation of their employers. At
those places where no such improvements had been made, no reduction in
tonnage rates was proposed. The company gave as a reason for reducing
the minimum that the market price of steel had gone down below $25.00
per ton, and that it was unfair for the workmen to have the benefits of
a rise in the market above $25.00, and share none of the losses of the
company when the market price fell below that figure. Indeed, the
company contended that there ought to be no minimum as there was no
maximum under the sliding scale. The workmen insisted that there ought
to be a minimum to protect them against unfair dealing between the
company and its buyers, as they had no voice or authority in selling the
products of their labor.
The reason for changing the time for closing the contract was that the
company's business was less active at the end of the calendar year than
in midsummer, and that it was easier to complete new arrangements for
employment at that time. Another reason was that the company often made
sales for an entire year, and consequently contracts for labor could be
more safely made if they began and ended at times corresponding with
contracts made with their customers. The workmen opposed this change in
the duration of the contract on the ground that in midwinter they would
be less able to resist any disposition on the part of the company to cut
down their wages, and that in the event of a strike, it would be more
difficult to maintain their situation than it would be in summer. They
claimed, therefore, that the change in time would be a serious
disadvantage to them in negotiating with their employers. They proposed
to the company, as a counter proposition, that the contract should end
the last of June, as had formerly been the case, and that if any change
was to be demanded, three months' notice must be given them, and that,
if this was not done, the contract, which was to run for three years,
should continue for a year longer; in other words, from June 30, 1895,
until June 30, 1896. This suggestion was rejected by the company. But
the company then proposed to make the minimum $23.00 per ton for steel
billets, and the Association, through its committee, named a price of
$24.00, refusing to concede any more.
While these negotiations were pending, the superintendent of the
Homestead Steel Works had concluded contracts with all the employees,
except three hundred and twenty-five of the highest skill, who were
employed in three of the twelve departments. All the others were to be
paid on the former basis of remuneration without any reduction whatever.
Of the three hundred and twenty-five high-priced men with whom contracts
had not been made, two hundred and eighty would have been affected by
the tonnage reductions and about forty-five more by the tonnage
reductions and scale minimum.
Under the proposed readjustments those who received the low grades of
compensation and the common laborers would not have been touched in
their earnings. The actual controversy was thus narrowed down to a
small number of men, less than ten per cent. of those employed at
Homestead.
During the remainder of the month of June other steps were taken to
effect an agreement, but the relations between the officers of the
company and the workmen, instead of improving, grew worse. On the 28th
the company began to close the different departments, and on the last
day of the month work in all of them ceased. On July 1st the striking
workmen congregated about the gates, stopped the foremen and employees
who came to work, and persuaded them to go away. The watchmen of the
company were turned away from the works; guards were placed at all the
entrances, the river, streets and roads entering the town were patrolled
by strikers, and a rigid surveillance was exercised over those who
entered the town or approached the plant. When the sheriff came on July
4th and attempted to put deputies of his own selection in possession of
the works, to guard them for the company, he was opposed by a counter
force, the striking workmen proposing to place guards of their own and
give indemnity for the safety of the property; but this the sheriff
declined because it would enable the strikers to keep any new non-union
men from taking their places. On July 5th, when the sheriff sent twelve
deputies to take possession of the works, they were driven away.
In the meantime Mr. Frick had begun negotiations as early as June 20th
with Robert A. Pinkerton, of New York, for the employment of three
hundred watchmen to be placed in the works at Homestead. They were
brought from Ashtabula to Youngstown by rail, thence to Pittsburgh by
river. On the evening of July 5th, Captain Rodgers' two boats, with
Deputy Sheriff Gray, Superintendent Potter, of the Homestead works, and
some of his assistants, on board, dropped down the river with two barges
in tow, until they met the Pinkerton men. When the boat, with the barges
in tow, approached Homestead in the early morning of the 6th, they were
discovered by a small steamer used by the strikers as a patrol, and the
alarm was given. A short war of words was followed by firing on each
side, which resulted ultimately in the death of three of the Pinkertons
and seven of the workmen, and the wounding of many on each side. After a
brief fusillade those on shore fled in various directions, and the
Pinkerton men retreated into their barges. About five o'clock in the
afternoon the Pinkertons surrendered, being allowed to take out their
clothing, but their arms and supplies fell into the possession of the
Homestead people. The barges were immediately set on fire and burned,
and in their burning the pump-house belonging to the Carnegie Company
was also destroyed. The Pinkerton men, now being practically prisoners
of war, were marched up-town to the skating-rink for temporary
imprisonment. The sheriff was notified, and he came down that night and
took the prisoners away. He then informed the governor of Pennsylvania
of what had occurred, and called upon him for troops to enforce the law
and restore public order. Governor Pattison made a prompt response to
this appeal, as his duty under the law required him to do. On the
morning of the 12th the soldiers of the State militia entered Homestead.
As soon as they arrived the Carnegie Company took possession of its
works, and began to make preparations to resume work with non-union men.
It was difficult to secure employees, and several months passed away
before the company was able to obtain all the men it desired. At first
the new employees were fed and housed within the enclosure, and this
plan continued for several weeks until their number had increased to
such a degree that they felt secure in going outside for their meals
with the protection afforded by the sheriff's deputies.
The company made an effort to employ their old workmen and fixed a time
for receiving applications for employment from them. When the time had
expired, however, which was on July 21st, not one participant in the
strike had returned. At a later period many of the old employees
returned to work. By the close of July, nearly a thousand men were at
work at Homestead. On July 23d Mr. Frick was shot in his office by
Alexander Berkman, an anarchist, who was not, and never had been, an
employee. The chairman recovered from his wounds and his assailant was
sent to the penitentiary.
The last of the troops were not withdrawn until October 13th. At that
time the mill was in full operation with non-union men.
Though the strike was ended in October, its formal termination by the
Amalgamated Association was not declared until November 20th, when the
disposition of the strikers to return to work was very general. Assuming
that the strike lasted nearly five months, as the monthly pay-roll of
the mill was about $250,000, the loss to the striking employees for that
period was not far from $1,250,000. No estimate of the loss sustained by
the company has been published. The cost to the State in sending and
maintaining the National Guard at Homestead was $440,256.31.
INDUSTRIAL
I
Pittsburgh has thus passed through many battles, trials, afflictions,
and adversities, and has grown in the strength of giants until it now
embraces in the limits of the county a population rapidly approaching
one million. This seems a proper moment, therefore, turning away from
the romantic perspective of history, to attempt a brief description of
Pittsburgh as we see her to-day. In order to give value to the record it
will be necessary to employ certain statistics, but the effort will be
to make these figures as little wearisome as possible. The present
population after the annexation of Allegheny (December 6, 1907) is
estimated at 550,000, and if we were to add McKeesport with its tube
mills, Homestead with its Carnegie works, and East Pittsburgh with its
Westinghouse plants, all of which lie just outside of the present
corporate limits, the population would be 700,000. In 1900 we can give
the population definitely (omitting Allegheny) at 321,616, of whom
85,032 were foreign born and 17,040 were negroes. Of these foreign born
21,222 were natives of Germany, 18,620 of Ireland, 8,902 of England,
6,243 of Russian Poland, 5,709 of Italy, 4,107 of Russia, 3,553 of
Austria, 3,515 of German Poland, 2,539 of Wales, 2,264 of Scotland,
2,124 of Hungary, 1,072 of Sweden, 1,025 of Austrian Poland, and 154
Chinese.
[Illustration: Pittsburgh, showing the junction of the Allegheny and
Monongahela Rivers]
II
It has already been said that the city is a gateway from the East to the
West and South, and as such it is the center of a vast railway system.
The principal railroads serving Pittsburgh are the Pennsylvania,
Baltimore and Ohio, the New York Central Lines, and the Wabash System,
and she has also a numerous fleet of boats plying the three rivers. Coal
is brought to the city by boats as well as by rail, and great fleets of
barges carry it and other heavy freight down the Ohio. A ship canal for
the establishment of water transportation between Pittsburgh and Lake
Erie (127.5 miles) has been projected. The railroads carry through
Pittsburgh over eight per cent. of all the railroad traffic of the
United States; and have a particularly heavy tonnage of coal, coke, and
iron and steel products; while a large proportion of the iron ore that
is produced in the Lake Superior region is brought here to supply
Pittsburgh manufactures. The total railway and river tonnage is greater
than that of any other city in the world, amounting in 1906 to
122,000,000 tons, of which about 12,000,000 tons were carried on boats
down the Ohio. Her tonnage is equal to one half the combined tonnage of
the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The following table will be very
interesting as showing the extraordinary fact that the tonnage of
Pittsburgh exceeds the combined tonnage of the five other greatest
cities in the world (1902):
Pittsburgh 86,636,680 tons
London 17,564,110 tons
New York 17,398,000 "
Antwerp 16,721,000 "
Hamburg 15,853,490 "
Liverpool 13,157,720 "
----------
Total 80,694,320 "
----------
Pittsburgh's excess 5,942,360 "
Pittsburgh has freight yards with a total capacity for more than 60,000
cars. Its harbor has a total length on the three rivers of twenty-eight
miles, with an average width of about one thousand feet, and has been
deepened by the Davis Island Dam (1885) and by dredging. Slack water
navigation has been secured on the Allegheny River by locks and dams at
an expense of more than a million and a quarter dollars. The
Monongahela River from Pittsburgh to the West Virginia State line (91.5
miles) was improved by a private company in 1836, which built seven
locks and dams. This property was condemned and bought by the United
States Government, in 1897 for $3,761,615, and the Government is
planning to rebuild and enlarge these works.
Pittsburgh is surrounded by the most productive coal-fields in the
country. The region is also rich in petroleum and natural gas, and
although the petroleum in the immediate vicinity has been nearly
exhausted, it is still obtained through pipes from the neighboring
regions. The first petroleum pipe line reached Pittsburgh in 1875.
Pittsburgh is also a port of entry, and for the year ending December,
1907, the value of its imports amounted to $2,416,367.
In 1806 the manufacture of iron was begun, and by 1825 this had become
the leading industry. Among the earlier prominent iron industries was
the Kensington Iron Works, of which Samuel Church (born February 5,
1800; died December 7, 1857), whose family has been resident in
Pittsburgh from 1822 to the present day, was the leading partner. In the
manufacture of iron and steel products Pittsburgh ranks first among the
cities of the United States, their value in 1905 amounting to
$92,939,860, or 53.3 per cent. of the total of the whole country.
Several towns in the near neighborhood are also extensively engaged in
the same industry, and in 1902 Allegheny County produced about 24 per
cent. of the pig iron; nearly 34 per cent. of the Bessemer steel; 44 per
cent. of the open hearth steel; 53 per cent. of the crucible steel; 24
per cent. of the steel rails, and 59 per cent. of the structural shapes
that were made that year in the United States. In 1905 the value of
Pittsburgh's foundry and machine-shop products amounted to $9,631,514;
of the product of steam railroad repair shops, $3,726,990; of malt
liquors, $3,166,829; of slaughtering and meat-packing products,
$2,732,027; of cigars and cigarettes, $2,297,228; of glass, $2,130,540;
and of tin and terne plate, $1,645,570. Electrical machinery, apparatus,
and supplies were manufactured largely in the city, to a value in 1905
of $1,796,557. The Heinz Company has its main pickle plant in
Pittsburgh, the largest establishment of its kind in the world.
Pittsburgh's first glass works was built in 1797 by James O'Hara. In
1900, and for a long period preceding, the town ranked first among
American cities in the manufacture of glass, but in 1905 it was
outranked in this industry by Muncie, Indiana, Millville, New Jersey,
and Washington, Pennsylvania; but in the district outside of the limits
of Pittsburgh much glass is manufactured, so that the Pittsburgh glass
district is still the greatest in the country. In Pittsburgh or its
immediate vicinity the more important plants of the United States Steel
Corporation are located, including the Carnegie Works at Homestead. Just
outside the limits also are the plants of the Westinghouse Company for
the manufacture of electrical apparatus, of air-brakes which George
Westinghouse invented in 1868, and of devices for railway signals which
he also invented.
Alexander Johnston Cassatt, one of the greatest of the Pennsylvania
Railroad presidents, and perhaps the most far-seeing and resourceful of
all our captains of industry of the present generation, was born here.
James McCrea, the present wise and conservative president of that road,
lived here for twenty years. Andrew Carnegie, Henry Phipps, and Henry C.
Frick were the strongest personalities who grew up with the Carnegie
steel interests. George Westinghouse, whose inventive genius, as shown
in his safety appliances, has so greatly reduced the hazards of railway
travel and of operation, has long been one of the industrial and social
pillars of the community. John A. Brashear, astronomer and educator, the
maker of delicate instruments, is a well-beloved citizen.
Pittsburgh ranks high as a banking center. She is the second city in the
United States in banking capital and surplus, and leads all American
cities in proportion of capital and surplus to gross deposits, with 47.1
per cent., while Philadelphia ranks second with 26 per cent. In 1906,
there were one hundred and seventy-nine banks and trust companies in
the Pittsburgh district with a combined capital of $72,058,402, and a
surplus of $87,044,622. The gross deposits were $395,379,783, while the
total resources amounted to $593,392,069. Pittsburgh, with
clearing-house exchanges amounting to $2,640,847,046, ranks sixth among
the cities of the United States, being exceeded by the following cities
in the order named: New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, and St.
Louis, and often on a given day exceeds those of St. Louis.
III
The tax valuation of Pittsburgh property is $609,632,427. She mines one
quarter of the bituminous coal of the United States. With an invested
capital of $641,000,000, she has 3,029 mills and factories with an
annual product worth $551,000,000, and 250,000 employees on a pay-roll
of about $1,000,000 a day, or $350,000,000 a year. Her electric
street-railway system multiplies itself through her streets for four
hundred and ninety-two miles. Natural-gas fuel is conveyed into her
mills and houses through one thousand miles of iron pipe. Her output of
coke makes one train ten miles long every day throughout the year. Seven
hundred passenger trains and ten thousand loaded freight cars run to and
from her terminals every day. Nowhere else in the world is there so
large a Bessemer-steel plant, crucible-steel plant, plate-glass plant,
chimney-glass plant, table-glass plant, air-brake plant, steel-rail
plant, cork works, tube works, or steel freight-car works. Her armor
sheaths our battle-ships, as well as those of Russia and Japan. She
equips the navies of the world with projectiles and range-finders. Her
bridges span the rivers of India, China, Egypt, and the Argentine
Republic; and her locomotives, rails, and bridges are used on the
Siberian Railroad. She builds electric railways for Great Britain and
Brazil, and telescopes for Germany and Denmark. Indeed, she distributes
her varied manufactures into the channels of trade all over the earth.
[Illustration: The Pittsburgh Country Club]
INTELLECTUAL
I
But while these stupendous industries have given Pittsburgh her wealth,
population, supremacy, and power, commercial materialism is not the
_ultima thule_ of her people.
Travelers who come to Pittsburgh, forgetting the smoke which often dims
the blue splendor of its skies, are struck with the picturesque
situation of the town, for they find rolling plateaus, wide rivers, and
narrow valleys dropping down from high hills or precipitous bluffs
throughout the whole district over which the city extends. Yet the
surpassing beauty of nature is not more impressive to the thinking
stranger than the work of man who has created and dominates a vast
industrial system. The manufactories extend for miles along the banks of
all three rivers. Red fires rise heavenward from gigantic forges where
iron is being fused into wealth. The business section of the city is
wedged in by the rivers, its streets are swarming with people, and there
is a myriad of retail houses, wholesale houses, banks, tall office
buildings, hotels, theaters, and railway terminals; but right where
these stop the residence section begins like another city of happy
homes--an immense garden of verdant trees and flowering lawns divided
off by beautiful avenues, where some houses rise which in Europe would
be called castles and palaces, with scarce a fence between to mark the
land lines, giving an aspect almost of a park rather than of a city.
There are many miles of asphalt streets set off with grass plots. On the
rolling hills above the Monongahela River is Schenley Park (about four
hundred and forty acres) with beautiful drives, winding bridle paths,
and shady walks through narrow valleys and over small streams. Above the
Allegheny River is Highland Park (about two hundred and ninety acres),
containing a placid lake and commanding fine views from the summits of
its great hills. It also contains a very interesting zooelogical garden.
Close to Schenley Park are Homewood and Calvary Cemeteries and near
Highland Park is Allegheny Cemetery, where the dead sleep amidst
drooping willows and shading elms. Connecting the two parks and leading
to them from the downtown section is a system of wide boulevards about
twenty miles in length. On the North Side (once Allegheny) is Riverview
Park (two hundred and seventeen acres), in which the Allegheny
Observatory is situated. A large number of handsome bridges span the
rivers. The Pittsburgh Country Club provides a broad expanse of rolling
acres for pastoral sports.
II