SURRENDER AT HOMESTEAD.--ORGANIZED LABOR DEFEATED.
It is fitting to follow the chapter composed so largely of what Mr.
Walker has written concerning the condition of affairs at Homestead,
with an account of the surrender. Carnegie, the owner of castles
and coaches in Scotland, the many times millionaire, and Frick, his
representative, living in luxury and attempted social superiority, have
vanquished the forces of organized labor. They have won the battle.
Some victories are more disastrous than defeats, and this victory, at
Homestead, of capital, wealth, sham aristocracy, against the people,
will teach the people to seek other methods by which their wrongs
may be righted. It will show them, coming as it does just after the
exhibition of the great power of the people, November 8, 1892, that
their plan of action must be changed; that the effective missile to
be used against the autocratic aristocrat is not the bullet, but the
missive called the “ballot.”
The plan of campaign of the poor “Common People” must be changed.
Their defeat at Homestead will be the precursor of a long line of
victories yet to be recorded. Organizations of _voters_ will spring
into existence, instead of Knights of Labor. The nation will give birth
(as it ever has, when necessity has demanded) to men of organizing
abilities. The Carnegies and Fricks will find the ballot of organized
voters more effective in preventing encroachment on the rights of the
people than the bullets of the strikers at Homestead hurled at the
hirelings of Pinkerton. As Mr. Walker so ably says, in a conflict of
physical force, the people--that is, the poor--are superior; when,
according to law, they deposit their ballots, they will enforce the
election of the chosen of the majority in spite of all the private
armies of the Carnegies and Fricks. And, should that occasion arise,
the militia and General Snowden will be found acting _with_ the people
in defending the rights of the people. There will be no insolence
and arrogance then upon the part of the commander of the militia;
for, after an election wherein the people have legally chosen their
representatives and legislators, not one militiaman would obey the
orders of the “well-bred” gentleman of Philadelphia, if such orders
were contrary to the will of the majority as expressed at a legal
election.
The representatives of the first grade of “caste” have won at
Homestead! In their “well-bred” bosoms, exultation may be the feeling
of the hour. Enjoy the brief respite in the fullness of selfishness;
but the hour is at hand when, according to the laws as enacted by
legally-elected representatives, the people of the Union shall fill
your “well-bred” bosoms with a sorrow and disappointment occasioned
by your arrogance, selfishness, and disregard of their claim for
respectful treatment upon your part of their representatives of
organized labor. When their representatives, as _organized voters_,
issue their mandates, no supercilious commander of militia, blessed
with a little brief authority, will dare resist them.
Organized labor is defeated at Homestead. Organized labor, organized
in heart and spirit, if not by an expressed Association, won a great
battle November last. The victory of the sham aristocracy at Homestead
was but a skirmish. The victory at the polls in November was a
Waterloo and Gettysburg rolled into one. The commander-in-chief of the
victorious army is Grover Cleveland. In his hands the people place the
power of their support--the great majority. He represents the choice
of the “Common People”--not because he’s a Democrat--not because the
people have become Democratic, in the narrow sense of the word, but
because Cleveland represents to their minds the opposition to sham
aristocracy, “caste.”
Grover Cleveland is an exponent of that sentiment that made Abraham
Lincoln President in ’61; Jackson, President in ’28; Jefferson,
President in 1800. Call the party by whom he was nominated any name
that best suits the fancy of the speaker. It’s the same grand old,
broad party of the people; triumphant now as it ever will be, God
grant, in this Republic! We want no Republic in America like that of
Venice. The people have entrusted Grover Cleveland with the executive
power of the nation. At his hands they will expect the righting of
those wrongs which these petty tyrants, sham aristocrats, believers in
social distinction and “caste,” have inflicted upon the people. They
have chosen representatives in Congress who control both branches of
the legislature, through whom the people shall express their will and
pleasure; and the people will expect of Grover Cleveland, as they did
of Abraham Lincoln, Jackson, and Jefferson, the execution of their
wishes. The people have never been disappointed by the actions of their
former chieftains in this matter. When made chief magistrate of the
nation, every former leader of the people has executed the will of the
masses, according to the laws as enacted. No former chief magistrate
has ever presumed to use his power of veto contrary to the will of the
people as expressed by a majority of their representatives.
The eyes of the nation are upon Grover Cleveland. In return for the
defeat in their skirmish at Homestead, the people will expect to
reap the fruits of their victory in the great battle of ballots last
November. Long have they suffered, and now that the golden opportunity
has arrived, the people are not to be thwarted. With kindly but
scrutinizing gaze, the people regard their new leader, Grover Cleveland.
The New York _Sun_, of November 20th, in an account of the defeat of
the Amalgamated Association, prints the following:--
“A prominent member of the Association was seen at his house
this afternoon. His grate was piled high with burning pamphlets.
Pointing to them, he said:
“‘I have no more use for them. They contain the laws and rules of
the Amalgamated Association, and I have taken this means to be rid
of them. I hardly think the Amalgamated lodges will be continued
here, as nothing can be derived from membership in it. A potent
fact in losing the strike was that too many of our men returned to
work, and this helped the company to get its mills into working
order. It was not the company, but our own men, that lost the
strike.’”
This prominent member of the Association, who was engaged in burning
the laws and rules of the Amalgamated Association, was inadvertently
acting in accordance with the unexpressed thought that the people had
found a surer means of righting their wrongs than that furnished by
associated labor. They had learned that their power, when opposed to
the rich and aristocratic, was better utilized in the exercise of the
ballot than when expressed through associated labor and associations
of crafts and certain kinds of labor. If the Carnegies and Fricks were
wise, they would view with fear and trembling the disruption of this
thing called organized labor, which has been a toy by which the people
have been amused and entertained and diverted from the use of their
most effective weapon, the ballot.
Organized labor and association have proved a pretty tin toy sword,
which was attractive to gaze at upon a holiday parade, but utterly
valueless in actual warfare. Its absolute inefficiency was never more
clearly demonstrated, because it had never been so thoroughly tested in
any previous contest of labor, as at Homestead.
Here is given concisely--as that most excellent journal, the New York
_Sun_, always presents all matters of public interest--an account
of the cost of the strike to the laborers, to the capitalist, and
to the State of Pennsylvania. Even the most careless reader and the
most superficial inquirer after truth will read in this statement the
evidence of the brave and valiant battle made by labor, which was
defeated because the very sword it fought with was not of the kind of
metal for actual warfare. The Ballot! the Ballot! the Ballot! is the
weapon of the future:--
“It is almost impossible to give figures at this time on the
cost of the strike, but conservative estimates place it at about
$10,000,000. Of this, about $2,500,000 were in wages to the men.
The firm’s loss is thought to be two or three times that. The
direct cost of the troops was nearly half a million. The indirect
loss has been very large indeed.
“This contest was brought on by a demand for a reduction of wages
of about 33-1/3 per cent. on certain classes of work in the open
hearth departments, Nos. 1 and 2 mills, and in the 119-inch and
32-inch plate mills. This reduction directly affected only about
325 out of the 3,800 men in the works, but the others took up the
matter as a common cause through sympathy, and agreed to stand by
the men interested in case of a strike.
“The scale expired under which they were working on June 30th.
The company wanted the Amalgamated Association, which controlled
the workmen in the mills, to sign the scale at the reduction. The
scale was to be renewed on January 1st, instead of July 1st. The
Association refused, and the men threatened to strike should the
request for the existing scale not be granted before July.
“On June 30th, the company locked out all men before they had the
opportunity to strike. The wages question was soon lost sight of,
and the contest for the recognition of organized labor followed.
On the dawn of July 6th, the famous battle took place between the
workmen on the mill property and the Pinkerton force attempting to
land and take possession of the mill.
“Then followed the trying times at Homestead, the reign of the
Advisory Board, the scenes of lawlessness, the calling out of
the troops, their long and trying stay, the shooting of Mr.
Frick by Berkman, the departure of the troops, the arrest of the
Homesteaders, the beginning of their trials, and now the ending of
the strike.
“According to Superintendent Wood, of the Homestead works, not
more than 800 or 900 of the total number of old employés will be
able to secure employment. Before the break of last Thursday,
there were left in Homestead about 2,800 of the original 3,800 men
who were locked out. Of these 2,800 men, 2,200 were mechanics and
laborers and 600 Amalgamated Association men.”
If Carnegie, Frick, son-in-law W. Seward Webb, of the New York Central
Road, and men of that class can find any comfort in this evidence that
the “Common People” have at last realized the utter lack of merit
in their weapons, called “Organizations and Associations of Labor,”
then most heartily are they to be congratulated. Let them enjoy for a
brief period their dreams of autocratic power; for there will be a sad
awakening as the result of the realization upon the part of the people
that the ballot-box is the place for effective battle, and not the
lodge rooms of Associations and Organizations.
Grover Cleveland is the Grand Master of the great Organization of the
Associated People, who legally will now enforce the demands of the
“Common People.”
The defeated laborer, mechanic, and workman of Homestead has a prospect
before him, so full of hope and promise, presenting a picture so
pleasing to his oppressed soul, that the scene of his disastrous defeat
becomes obliterated. Let him turn from those days of suffering, so
vividly portrayed by the _Herald_ of November 25th:--
“There were dozens of tables in Homestead to-day where the
Thanksgiving Day bird was absent, and on many of these tables
hunger was the only sauce in sight.
“To-day while plenty ruled in American homes, starvation and cold
were closing their grip on the families of the Homestead strikers.
While the horn of plenty unrolled its golden store into the hands
of the nation, there were children in Homestead crying for bread,
with weeping mothers and despairing fathers.
“While well-clothed citizens were going to highly respectable
churches to return thanks, there were people in Homestead
shivering over scant fires, wondering where the next meal would
come from. There were men with shoes so full of holes and clothes
so ragged as to barely cover them.
“The present sufferings of these men, women, and children were
made all the keener by their forebodings of the future; of a
winter without work, to be passed at the gates of starvation; with
no work to be had at the Carnegie mills or any other mills on
account of the terrible blacklist.”
The question will arise in the mind of the poor man, when recalling
HIS Thanksgiving dinner, With what did Andrew Carnegie and H. C. Frick
feed their families that day? With what kind of conscience did they bow
the knee and raise their voices in their costly churches and address
the throne of the lowly Jesus, who left in the records of His life,
utterances like these:--
“If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the
poor.” “Sell that ye have, and give alms.”
The answer which will force itself upon the minds of the “Common
People” will not be such as to lessen or moderate the demands which
they will make for the fruits of their victory in November.
They have endured much; they have starved at Homestead; they have been
cold and hungry; they have been led astray by false gods; but the Land
of Canaan is now spread before them. The ballot-box has become their
guiding star and hope. The bitter experience endured that Thanksgiving
Day will prove a benefit to them in removing from them the danger of
relying upon the tin sword in future. Every line of this article in the
_Herald_ is full of danger to the insolent power of the rich, arrogant,
sham aristocrats. It is brimming over with a lesson that the blindest
is bound to read by the light of the recently-achieved victory of the
people:--
CANNOT LEAVE HOMESTEAD.
“Dozens there are who cannot leave Homestead or its vicinity. They
are under heavy bonds to appear in the Allegheny County courts on
charges of murder, treason, and riot. To stay means starvation,
because here they will find little or no work. To go means to be
sent to jail, because bondsmen are fearful and do not relish the
idea of forfeiting thousands of dollars.
“Most of the storekeepers in Homestead have ceased to give the
locked-out men credit. If they did, it would mean bankruptcy.
All of them are already creditors for hundreds and in some cases
thousands of dollars, with poor prospects of getting any of it
back for months, possibly years.
“The last strike benefits that will be paid by the Amalgamated
Association have been received by the idle men. Right here be it
said that these benefits were by no means as reported during the
strike. Not one-half of the men got $4 a week, and the majority
received about $2 a week.
“The Homestead steel-workers and their families are in need of
almost everything that goes to make life comfortable. All need
clothing more or less. One man I met to-day was trying to prevent
the biting wind from sweeping a well-ventilated straw hat from his
head.
“Then there is fuel. There is hardly a street or roadway in
Homestead on which there did not stand a house or several of
them in which the cold stoves made the temperature more frigid
by contrast. Those families that did burn coal or wood did so
through the kindness of the neighbors or the good-will of the fuel
merchant.
PLAYING THANKSGIVING.
“In walking through Homestead to-day I passed a vacant lot on
Fourth avenue, in which a fire was burning. The fuel consisted of
logs dragged from the river. Surrounding the fire were ill-clad
boys and girls. They were keeping warm and roasting potatoes. One
of the boys told me that ‘Maw hadn’t much for dinner at home, and
we are playing Thanksgiving.’
“This was their feast; they were children of the strikers, who
lived in a clump of shanties near by.”
Playing Thanksgiving! God of justice! look down upon such a picture.
Playing at praying! Absolutely making a game and jest of thanking Thee!
So cynical has become the hearts of even these children, caused by the
oppression and injustice of the oppressor, that they would make a game,
a jest, of giving thanks to the Giver of all good things! because the
good things were on the tables of Carnegie, Frick, Webb, and others,
while they, somebody’s children--poor, “Common People’s” children,
perhaps--were cold, ragged, and hungry; making a feast of half-burned
potatoes, veritably, in a spirit of irony. So hard and desolate has
become the destiny of the poor of our land that the children cease to
be natural, loving, gentle, and sincere, and have become ironical,
sarcastic, holding so lightly the respect due to the God of all men,
that they make a jest of the day consecrated to rendering thanks to the
Giver of all good things of life!
A picture like this, for which the sham aristocrats are absolutely
responsible, does more to arouse a feelings of socialism and anarchism
in the breasts of even the best citizens, than all the ravings of
crazed nihilistic leaders. Stop such scenes now! Socialism and
anarchism have no foothold in America. Don’t allow these dangerous
“isms” to form an entering wedge. Such scenes as those poor children,
playing Thanksgiving, are the greatest allies of the socialists and
anarchists.
The gentleman (?) known as Ollie Teall should receive, at the hands
of the disciples of anarchy and socialism, a medal for his valuable
services in attempting to present a picture to the delectation of the
assembled “Four Hundred,” of the children of the poor feeding (as
animals, poor creatures!) in Madison Square Garden, last Christmas.
This man, Teall, may have no qualities to recommend him other than
this, that he is a superlative example of those who would create a
state of anarchy in this country.
It was his proposition, so it appears from the newspapers, to make
a kind of horse-show at Madison Square Garden, wherein the children
of the poor should perform the part of the horses, the animals. It
was proposed to sell boxes to the rich, that they might sit around
and behold the exhibition of the animals! To the originators of this
novel exhibition is due the thanks and praises of the anarchists, who
have sought a haven here, for they played into the hands held by the
anarchists with wonderful precision.
We must all respect the courage and manliness of one man who, justly
conceiving his duty as a teacher of the doctrine of his Master, arose
and protested. Yes, and he was worth more than a brigade of soldiers in
quieting the wrath of the people, the Rev. Dr. Rainsford, of St. George
Episcopal church, in Brooklyn, and let his name be remembered for his
courage in denouncing the most damnable exhibition of the tendency of
the “Four Hundred” of New York. The name of the Rev. Dr. Rainsford, of
the St. George Episcopal Church, will ever be remembered by the poor as
that of a man, a Christian, an American, and a gentleman. Vigorous was
his denunciation of the spectacular exhibition of the feeding of the
poor like so many cattle.
Yes, fair “Four Hundred,” as the nobles of France told the peasants to
“eat grass” and were amused at their attempts of the performance, so
you would feed a lot of poor children in Madison Square Garden, and
take stalls and boxes to look on at the peculiar performances of the
hungry eating! You know that each child is but the coming American man
or woman. You would make a Roman holiday to exhibit the necessities
of the People, who are your rulers. Delightful entertainment for the
exclusive “Four Hundred,”--to sit around with their many millions and
gaze at the ravenous appetites exhibited by the children of the poor.
It was a holiday like the holidays in Rome, when the nobles assembled
to see the persecuted Christians torn and mangled by every form of
beast that, by research, could be brought to the Roman arena. Dr.
Rainsford, thou art “a man for a’ that.”
Do you wonder, millionaires, why the people whose children you would
exhibit to create a carnival for you, did not vote with you November
8, 1892? Of the purchasers of the boxes at Madison Square Garden for
this unique performance, ninety per cent. were Republicans. Shades
of Abraham Lincoln, look down and see the strong oak of thy creation
benumbed by this parasite entwined around it! Imagine the creator, the
originator, the father of the Republican party, this high priest in
the hearts of the “Common People,” Abraham Lincoln, at such a scene.
He would have been down with the children. In his loving arms he would
have held the children of the poor. And these “Four Hundred,” a little
better than the “Common People,” would look on at the feeding of the
“common folks,” and, from their assumed exalted position, view the
performance gotten up by their money, and would have had a sensation
of almost hunger aroused where abundance had produced satiety. The
proposition to hold such an exhibition as the feeding of the poor
children in Madison Square Garden was in itself an insult to every
American citizen. Imagine, fair lady, as you loll in your carriage
drawn by your high-priced bays on Fifth avenue, how pleasant it would
be to have your little curled and perfumed darling, left at home under
the watchful eye of some imported French _bonne_, exhibited as a freak
in a dime museum. Think of the tears that should be shed on a mother’s
bosom, being paraded before the public as an object of amusement. A
child’s sorrows and its joys are as sacred as the law of God delivered
to Moses on Sinai, for a child has more of God in it; and you would
make of the children of the poor, and their wants, and needs, and
appetites, a spectacle that you may pay so much money and see?
The lisped prayer of the child of the poor ascends to the throne of God
as surely, though it proceed from a hovel or the gutter, as that from
the downy couch of the ease of luxury in the palace on Fifth avenue. Do
not the poor love their children with the same earnestness and fervor
as the rich? Have you to learn this lesson anew? Need you wonder, you
people who seem astonished at the result of election, why the mighty
voice of the people should be raised against you? You who wonder why
the party of you, “the respectable,” should have been so overwhelmingly
defeated, recall to mind the contemplated carnival you would have
held in Madison Square Garden, feeding like pigs, the children of the
poor, and thank God that the volcano upon which in seeming security
you rested found a vent without tossing you heavenward. There would
have been rivers of blood instead of lava; the ballot of 1892 was your
salvation.
Slumbering wrath was in the breasts of the people. One Robespierre or
Danton would have set aflame this feeling, and the “Common People”
only need a leader, an organizer who will teach them under form of law
that their mighty voice is paramount, and the sham aristocracy will be
crushed and annihilated, as was a better aristocracy in France in the
latter part of the eighteenth century. Don’t let history repeat itself.
Can such pictures as depicted in these few lines of the _Herald_ about
those poor children’s Thanksgiving dinner, the feast proposed by the
“Four Hundred” at Madison Square Garden, be accurate and represent
scenes in free America, the richest, freest, best country on earth?
or are these some occurrences seen in poor, starving, Czar-ridden
Russia? A bow of promise was in the sky that Thanksgiving Day,
however. The people had spoken a few days before. They had selected
their representatives to make laws relieving them of the presence of
such scenes as above described. They had selected an Executive of
unquestioned honesty, who will execute such laws as will emanate from
the representatives of the people.
The people had given no sign, but in silence had been thinking of
scenes like that proposed at Madison Square Garden. They had voted
November the 8th in silence.
Silence is often more dangerous than utterance. The deadly cobra gives
no signal before he strikes. “General apathy” and the silence of the
people was deadly earnest, and you know whether it was forceful or not.
And if the party that the people have put in power will not do the will
of the people, then the people will put some other party in power which
_will_ execute the desire of the masses. It is a quicksand that the
rich tread upon. So accustomed have the rich become to the patience,
long-enduring suffering of the poor, that they deem it impossible that
any condition could exist other than the present. Only remember that
Charles Stuart, Louis XVI., Tarquin, all thought it was impossible
that aught could interfere with the set order of things; but righteous
indignation, the wrath of the people, like a whirlwind may obliterate
the little edifices of dust built upon the past.
The rest of the story, so vividly portrayed by the _Herald_, is worthy
of consideration and attention:--
“I visited the house of J. W. Grimes, a striker, on the hillside,
above the mill. He had a pair of rubbers on his feet. The rubbers
were worn away and had been sewed together with twine. ‘You see,
my shoes are so bad,’ said the mill-man, apologetically, ‘that I
have to wear these rubbers. Jim Sweeney threw them away, but I
found them and sewed them up,’ and he exhibited a shoe that would
almost have fallen from his foot, but for the rubber which held it.
“Grimes was doing the family washing when I met him. His arms were
covered with soapsuds. He told me his wife was very sick. He had
been injured in the mill before the strike and had been able to
save but little. Since the strike he has been able to get only a
few days’ work, and his wife took in washing and did scrubbing to
keep the family in bread. Now she is near death’s door, a mere
apparition, while her husband has no work and there is little in
the house.
“I went to the house of Bridget Coyle, who, during her testimony
in the Critchlow case the other day, said she would not tell a lie
for all the money Carnegie is worth. Two of her boys worked in the
mill; one has secured work in another city, but is making barely
enough to keep himself. Another son is at Homestead, and idle.
‘We have enough in the house to keep us another week,’ said Mrs.
Coyle, ‘but after that the Lord knows what we’ll do. I just got a
little coal on trust, and do wish I had a pair of shoes.
“‘We own this little house; my son paid the last on it just before
the strike.’ She had rented, out a couple of rooms to Joshua
Bradshaw, a mill-man, with his wife and four children. ‘They owe
me six months’ rent, but Lord, I know they can’t pay it, so I
don’t ask them. They are poor people, and the missus is badly
sick.’
“Patrick Sweeney, another ex-striker, who can’t get work in the
mill, and who lives on Sixteenth street, has been hunting for a
pair of shoes for several days. Those he has were shoes once, now
they are tatters. Sweeney, like dozens of the other men, has paid
no rent for several months, and lives in daily dread that his
family will be evicted. Being blacklisted, he cannot find work in
Homestead or elsewhere.
“William Davis, of Fourteenth street, told me there wasn’t a
pound of coal in his house, and a little less in the house of his
mother, who lives alongside of him.”
AN APPEAL FOR AID.
“The instances mentioned are only an index to the suffering.
Through personal pride most of the misery in Homestead is hidden
as yet. When winter sets in, dozens of cases will come to light.
“On Saturday a meeting will be held to issue a call for aid. It
has been called by Elmer Bales and John Wilson.
“Mr. Bales said to-day: ‘There is positive suffering in Homestead
from lack of food, fuel, and clothing. The sufferers will not
speak of their distress to you or any other outsider, but we who
live here know of it only too well. In a week or two it will be
much worse.’
“Hugh O’Donnell did not eat any turkey in the Allegheny county
jail. There was no observance of Thanksgiving in his case. He was
compelled to put up with the regular prison fare, which is not
fattening to those who have tried it.”
Capital has vanquished labor at Homestead; but the skirmish left
scars which will long remain unforgotten. Labor suffered, and learned
that the power of the people resided in their presence at the polls
on election day, when Carnegie, Frick, Webb, and others of the sham
aristocrats and believers in “caste,” became of no more importance than
each poor laborer, workman, mechanic, clerk, shopkeeper, or farmer, to
whom on other days they assumed an air of superiority. The learning
of the lesson was worth all the suffering that it cost the “Common
People,” as represented by the workmen and strikers at Homestead, Pa.