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.
THE Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers is, with the possible exception of the Association of Window Glass Workers, the best generaled and most substantially organized labor organization in the United States. One of the fundamental principles in the doctrine of the association is to avoid and discourage strikes; and so closely has this article of faith been observed that the number of strikes officially ordered in the iron and steel industries has been small in comparison with the record of most other labor unions.
The adjustment of wage scales by the association is largely the affair of the lodges. The equipment and requirements of different iron and steel mills vary considerably, and hence, each mill or kindred group of mills must have a separate scale, adjusted to its needs. It is incumbent on the lodges to report their respective scales to the association at large through the medium of an annual delegate convention. Should there be a dispute in any district, the convention passes upon the merits of the case and decides whether or not it shall be taken up by the association as a whole. If not, the usual mode of procedure is to notify the belligerent lodge or lodges to yield the disputed points. If, on the other hand, the association decides to intervene, the chief executive officers are authorized to act, and it becomes their duty to exhaust all fair means of bringing the recalcitrant mill-owners to terms, before countenancing a strike. An official order to strike commits the association to the payment of weekly benefits to the strikers.
The president of the Amalgamated Association is always chosen with special reference to his capacity for cool, stable, conservative leadership. Mental brilliancy is not so much sought after in the man who is called upon to fill this responsible position, as level-headedness and inflexible nerve. William Weihe, who served as president during the troublous days of 1892, fully met these requirements. A giant in stature, slow and deliberate in speech and action, and never committing himself without being perfectly sure of his ground, Weihe was just the man to preserve the dignity and influence of the association when the spectres of riot and anarchy stalked abroad and organized labor, smarting from a thousand gaping wounds, threatened to break down the bulwarks of law and order and to sacrifice the good-will of its friends. At no time throughout a contest which set men's souls aflame from one end of the land to the other did President Weihe lose his self-possession or his ability to stand between the solid fabric of the association and those of its friends, who, in the rashness of the hour, would fain have involved it in the ruin which engulfed the lodges at Homestead.
The Homestead scale was prepared early in the spring. In January, the superintendent of the mill, Mr. Potter sent for the joint committee of the local lodges and requested that the men prepare a scale. It was not the policy of the Carnegie firm, Mr. Potter said, to leave the way open for a strike. If there were differences of opinion between employer and employees, the proper method of settlement was by arbitration, and it was, therefore, advisable that the scale should be presented early, so as to leave ample time for an amicable adjustment of disputed points.
For three years previous, the men had been working under what was known as a sliding scale, an expedient which at the time of its adoption was regarded as a sure preventive of strikes. This scale established as the basis on which wages were to be determined, the market price of steel billets, in the manufacture of which the Carnegie Company was extensively engaged. When the price of billets went up, wages were to go up correspondingly, and when the price of billets went down, wages were to be correspondingly lowered. $25 a ton was agreed upon as the minimum. If billets were quoted below that figure, there was to be no further depression of wages. In other words, the men and the firm were practically in partnership, increased profits to the latter meaning increased earnings to the former, unless the bottom fell out of the market, in which case it became the duty of the stronger partner to protect the weaker.
The circumstances under which this equitable compact was made are of interest in so far as they exhibit the very different temper of the Carnegie Company towards its men in the past from that which marked its line of conduct after Mr. Frick was placed at the helm. In January, 1889, the men, who had been working under a yearly scale, quarreled with the firm over the terms proposed for the ensuing year and a strike was declared. William L. Abbott, a man of comparatively mild and liberal disposition, was then serving as chairman. Mr. Abbott undertook to break the strike, and when the men resorted to riotous conduct, called upon the sheriff of the county for aid. The sheriff, Dr. Alexander McCandless, an official who enjoyed great popularity, and possessed the courage and tact essential in such an emergency, went promptly to the scene with a force of deputies recruited for the occasion. At the first encounter with the mob, the deputies let their courage ooze out at their fingers' ends and fled from the town.