CHAPTER VIII. 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.