Carnegie's Property Protected—Confidence Still Strong Among the Men—Homestead as a News Center—The Death-Roll—Burial of the Dead—Anarchists Get a Short Shrift—The Sheriff Fails Again—Interviewing the Governor—Martial Law In Sight—Proceedings In Congress—Opinions of Newspapers and Publicists—A Press Censorship Established at Homestead.
AT three o'clock on the morning of July 7, a committee of picked men made a search of the Homestead works, keeping a sharp look-out for stray Pinkertons, spies or other interlopers. Nothing was discovered. Even the rats were scared away from the place, where empty cartridge shells, wadding and discarded weapons—mute evidences of the bloody work that had been done the day before—were scattered around in profusion. Having completed its round, the committee retired to headquarters and prepared an order requiring the watchmen, who had deserted their posts when the battle with the Pinkertons began, to resume the guardianship of the Carnegie Company's property. The men had guaranteed protection to the plant and showed by this step that they meant to keep their word.
At an early hour all Homestead was stirring, and anxious crowds assembled at headquarters and other distributing centers of information to ascertain what the new day was likely to bring forth. For the most part, the feeling of self-confidence which had inspired the locked-out men was as strong now, when a reaction might have been expected to set in, as it was at any time previously. Rumors of the coming of a fresh detachment of Pinkertons put the men on their mettle, and it was apparent that a repetition of Mr. Frick's experiment would be worse than futile.
Nobody gave serious thought to the likelihood of prosecutions to follow. The Pinkertons were invaders, whose purpose was to murder, and the workmen were legally justified in repelling them vi et armis. So the people reasoned, and this line of argument seemed, in their judgment, to be the only one that could present itself to any fair-minded and intelligent person. Even if it was wrong to kill and wound armed invaders, they believed it would be preposterous to think of arresting and imprisoning several thousand citizens.
The extraordinary interest taken in affairs at Homestead by the world without was demonstrated by the fact that, within the twenty-four hours elapsing after the firing of the first shot on July 6, this usually quiet little town was transformed into the busiest and most prolific news center in the United States. An army of newspaper correspondents from all parts of the country found quarters in the hotels and took possession of the telegraph offices. The ten daily papers of Pittsburgh had variously from two to ten men on the ground. The New York World headed the list of outsiders with five correspondents and a special artist. The New York Herald, Sun and Mail and Express; the Chicago Tribune and Herald; the Philadelphia Press and Times; the Cleveland Leader and Press, and the Baltimore Sun and World all dispatched bright, able "specials" to the scene of disturbance with that admirable promptitude which makes American journalism a world's wonder. The Postal and Western Union Telegraph Companies also proved fully equal to the emergency. The Postal Company placed a corps of operators in a large room in the building where the Amalgamated Association held its meetings, and the Western Union, in addition to its regular office, established an annex in a restaurant, where two expert operators were kept busy handling huge masses of "copy," intended to be put in type, perhaps a thousand miles away. The excellence and magnitude of the work done by the newspaper men and telegraph operators at Homestead from this time on were unprecedented. Reporters from Pittsburgh were on hand to meet the Pinkertons when a landing was attempted, fraternized with the firing parties behind the barricades while the battle was in progress, interviewed the Pinkertons as they emerged from the barges after the surrender, and withal seemed to lead a charmed life, for there is no record of injury to any of the "gentlemen of the press." The latitude enjoyed by the journalistic fraternity was owing chiefly to the influence of Hugh O'Donnell, who had himself been a newspaper correspondent in a small way and who realized besides the advisability of aiding the press to secure accurate details of the struggle, so that the motives and actions of the workmen should not be injuriously represented. The gallant young leader had his reward. In a single day, the newspapers made him world-famous.
The making up of a list of the killed and wounded turned out to be a difficult matter. The Pinkertons had been hurried away, carrying many of their wounded with them and leaving not more than a dozen of their number in the Pittsburgh hospitals. At Homestead, there was a tendency to conceal the losses of the workingmen. How many of the latter were badly wounded has never been definitely ascertained. The official list of the dead, on both sides, as it appears on the books of the coroner of Allegheny County, is as follows:
Detectives—J. W. Klein, Edward A. R. Speer and T. J. Connors.
Workmen—Joseph Sotak, John E. Morris, Silas Wain, Thomas Weldon, Henry Striegel, George W. Rutter and Peter Farris.
Speer, who was a Pinkerton lieutenant in Chicago, was shot in the leg and lingered at the Homeopathic Hospital, in Pittsburgh, until July 17, when death ended his sufferings.