CHAPTER II
THE SEAT OF WAR
Contentedly peaceful the Monongahela stretches before me, its waters lazily rippling in the sunlight, and softly crooning to the murmur of the woods on the hazy shore. But the opposite bank presents a picture of sharp contrast. Near the edge of the river rises a high board fence, topped with barbed wire, the menacing aspect heightened by warlike watch-towers and ramparts. The sinister wall looks down on me with a thousand hollow eyes, whose evident murderous purpose fully justifies the name of "Fort Frick." Groups of excited people crowd the open spaces between the river and the fort, filling the air with the confusion of many voices. Men carrying Winchesters are hurrying by, their faces grimy, eyes bold yet anxious. From the mill-yard gape the black mouths of cannon, dismantled breastworks bar the passages, and the ground is strewn with burning cinders, empty shells, oil barrels, broken furnace stacks, and piles of steel and iron. The place looks the aftermath of a sanguinary conflict,—the symbol of our industrial life, of the ruthless struggle in which the stronger, the sturdy man of labor, is always the victim, because he acts weakly. But the charred hulks of the Pinkerton barges at the landing-place, and the blood-bespattered gangplank, bear mute witness that for once the battle went to the really strong, to the victim who dared.
A group of workingmen approaches me. Big, stalwart men, the power of conscious strength in their step and bearing. Each of them carries a weapon: some Winchesters, others shotguns. In the hand of one I notice the gleaming barrel of a navy revolver.
"Who are you?" the man with the revolver sternly asks me.
"A friend, a visitor."
"Can you show credentials or a union card?"
Presently, satisfied as to my trustworthiness, they allow me to proceed.
In one of the mill-yards I come upon a dense crowd of men and women of various types: the short, broad-faced Slav, elbowing his tall American fellow-striker; the swarthy Italian, heavy-mustached, gesticulating and talking rapidly to a cluster of excited countrymen. The people are surging about a raised platform, on which stands a large, heavy man.