One of the most significant bits of news that reached the men was that conveyed in a dispatch from Washington, D. C., to the effect that Representative Caminetti, of California, had introduced in Congress a resolution reciting the benefits conferred upon Andrew Carnegie by protective tariff legislation and calling for the appointment of a committee to investigate and report upon the cause of the Homestead lock-out and its sanguinary consequences.
There were some cool-headed and conservative people in Homestead who tried to assemble a mass meeting for the purpose of taking measures to stop the shedding of blood and to have the Pinkerton barges removed and sent down the river. The pleas of these would-be peacemakers fell upon deaf ears. In fact, it became dangerous to suggest a cessation of hostilities within the hearing of those who had experienced their baptism of fire and felt that lust of bloodshed which is said to be latent in the breasts of most men. He who talked of meeting the "Pinkerton butchers" half way challenged suspicion as a coward or a traitor.
[CHAPTER VII.]
