On Saturday, the Democratic Committee of Allegheny County met in Pittsburgh at the call of its chairman, William J. Brennen, Esq., the attorney for the Amalgamated Association, and, after the completion of routine business, adopted, by an unanimous vote, resolutions sympathizing with the men of Homestead in their efforts to "maintain American and resist European pauper wages," condoling with the friends of those who had been "shot down by the hirelings of a greedy and arbitrary combination of capital" and denouncing Pinkertonism. These resolutions were presented by Jere Dougherty, of the Amalgamated Association.
Resolutions of similar tenor were adopted by all the labor unions in Allegheny County, and thousands of lodges in other localities placed themselves on record to the same purpose and, in most cases, coupled their expressions of sympathy and endorsement with offers of financial support. The South Side Glassworkers' Union, of Pittsburgh, demanded that the city councils reject Andrew Carnegie's gift of $1,000,000 for a free library, since the library would be paid for by the reduction of workingmen's earnings. This home-thrust was repeated by scores of other unions in and around Pittsburgh, and, as a consequence, the councils let public business go to the wall and avoided holding a meeting until the excitement had simmered down. The fact is that, since the gift had been accepted, the money received and deposited to the order of a special commission, and some of it already spent, there was no way of returning it; but anyhow the councils did not venture on a discussion of the question, which must have led to a division on pro-Carnegie and anti-Carnegie lines.
At Columbus, O., 2,000 workmen met in the statehouse yard and passed resolutions calling upon the Pennsylvania authorities and the United States Congress to exterminate the Pinkerton system.
At Chicago, representatives of 20,000 men engaged in the building trades discussed the propriety of taking up arms and marching to the relief of Homestead.
Even in England, the trades unions entered protest against the Carnegie methods and called upon Kier Hardie, a workingmen's representative in Parliament, to whose election expenses Andrew Carnegie had contributed £100, to return the amount forthwith. Mr. Hardie very promptly forwarded the money, not to Mr. Carnegie, but to the people of Homestead, who, he held, had a valid title to receive and use it.
Three days elapsed after the battle at Homestead, before the English agents of the American press associations, who had been ordered to follow him up, were able to locate Mr. Carnegie and obtain an interview. Although regularly advised by cable of the progress of the troubles at his mills, he did not let the news interfere with his pleasures, but spent those three days on a coaching tour from Edinburgh to Kinloch, in Scotland. At Kinloch, he rented a shooting-box for eight weeks at a cost of $10,000. Here an American interviewer found him. According to the correspondent's statement, he was received by Mr. Carnegie in a "contemptuous and insulting" manner, as if the "intrusion upon his ducal magnificence" were a thing to be resented with the hauteur distinctively belonging to an American iron baron, who can afford to have castles and shooting-boxes in Europe. In response to a request for his opinion on the occurrences at Homestead, Mr. Carnegie said: "I am not willing to express an opinion. The men have chosen their course and I am powerless to change it. The handling of the case on the part of the company has my full approval and sanction. Further than this, I have no disposition to say anything."
Possibly this brusque statement may have been prompted in a measure by the irritation resulting from the use of the deadly parallels at the little millionaire's expense in the Pall Mall Gazette, a marked copy of which lay upon a table in the reception hall of the lodge. On one side appeared a report of Mr. Carnegie's philantrophic talk at the opening of the free library at Aberdeen, where he was seconded by the Earl and Countess of Aberdeen, and on the other a tell-tale table of reduced wages at Homestead.
The report of this interview with the high-priest of arbitration supplied a rich theme of comment to the locked-out men and it was well for Mr. Carnegie's dignity, that, just at this time, 3,000 miles separated him from his employees. Even at that distance, his ears must have tingled.
On Saturday evening, the press committee of the Amalgamated lodges, of which Hugh O'Donnell was chairman, distributed official press badges to the newspaper correspondents whose credentials were approved, and the committee signified its purpose of keeping close watch on the work of these gentlemen and of expelling from the town anyone of the number who, either by a violation of confidence or by sending out false statements proved himself unworthy of toleration. The reporters proposed the appointment of a committee composed of two newspaper men, two workmen and a fifth member, selected by these four, to pass upon disputes as to news matter, but this proposition was dropped on the receipt of a guarantee from Hugh O'Donnell that the rights of the press would be respected.
Throughout all these proceedings, the men acted in the belief that they were doing their best to maintain good order, and, although the committee which had been sent to Harrisburg returned without genuinely reassuring news, no one seemed to have the least idea that the military would be called out.