Mr. Gompers intimated that a boycott might be declared against the Carnegie Company, in spite of the decisions of the Pennsylvania courts construing boycotting as conspiracy, and he added that he would not fear to come personally within the borders of Pennsylvania and declare it.
A highly encouraging event which took place at this time was the signing of the scale by the Pittsburgh iron manufacturers. The manufacturers' committee and the wage committee of the Amalgamated Association had been holding a succession of conferences, without approaching a settlement for a period of fully six weeks. Not until the second week in August did they arrive at an agreement. On the evening of the 11th the stubborn determination which characterized both sides was suddenly relaxed and the labor world was surprised with the announcement that the manufacturers had decided to sign the scale in consideration of a 10 per cent. reduction in the wages of finishers—the highest priced men employed in steel mills. They had originally demanded a reduction of puddlers' wages from $5.50 to $4.50 per ton. This the Association steadily resisted and with unquestionable justice. Even the American Manufacturer, the biased organ of the employers, was forced to admit editorially that the puddler, being a handicraftsman and in no wise affected by mechanical improvements, was not a proper subject for a wage reduction. Finding this demand hopelessly untenable, the manufacturers asked instead for a reduction in finishers' wages, and after fifteen useless conferences, suggested that the matter be referred for arbitration, as the Amalgamated committee had no power to act. The arbitration proposal was submitted to the lodges and overwhelmingly rejected, but the wage committee was authorized to act on a change in the finishers' scale. It was then decided to submit to the 10 per cent. reduction. The effect of this settlement was to give work at once to 40,000 idle men in the Pittsburgh district, and as the Mahoning Valley manufacturers and workmen quickly followed suit, the entire iron district of Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio was relieved from a situation pregnant with disaster to employers and workmen alike. The finishers were the only disgruntled ones, and so keenly did they resent what they professed to regard as unjust discrimination against their interests that a number of them seceded from the Amalgamated Association and formed a union of their own.
At Homestead the signing of the scale by the Manufacturers' Association was regarded as a capitulation to the power of organized labor which must force the Carnegie Company to abandon its individual fight. It was the belief that Mr. Frick had been chosen to bear the brunt of the general battle against the Amalgamated Association with the understanding that, if he won, all the mills in the Pittsburgh district would be made non-union; and the compromise agreed upon was accepted, therefore, as meaning that the other manufacturers had lost faith in Mr. Frick's ability to win, and that the Carnegie chairman himself could not rationally continue his fight, now that his brethren had fallen away from him. Subsequent events proved the baselessness of this supposition. It was merely one of many straws at which the Homestead men grasped eagerly in the face of the Carnegie firm's slow but sure fulfilment of its pledge to fill the mills with non-union workmen and rely solely thenceforward upon this class of labor.
The making of informations and counter-informations founded on the Pinkerton affair went on uninterruptedly. Fred. Primer was the first of the Pinkertons to be placed under arrest. He was held for court by Alderman King on the strength of testimony showing that the first shot on July 6 was fired from the barges. Primer, attended by the attorneys for the Carnegie firm, was hurried before Judge Ewing, who promptly released him on his own recognizance, stating very plainly at the same time that whatever trouble occurred at Homestead was of the workmen's own making and that no one else should be held responsible for the consequences. The court also held Edward Burke in $10,000 bail on the charge of murder preferred by Secretary Lovejoy. Burke had already acquired some notoriety by an altercation with Sheriff McCleary on the occasion of the Sheriff's last visit to Homestead before the arrival of the troops.
The reader has been informed of the inspiriting effect produced upon Sheriff McCleary by military protection. One of the first results thereof was the enlistment of a corps of deputies to take the place of the Homestead police, the latter officials being so thoroughly in sympathy with the strikers that they devoted their attention chiefly to the apprehension of non-union men who happened to stray out of the works. The sight of a non-unionist was always sufficient to incite an uproar and on several occasions riotous demonstrations were caused by the appearance on the streets of men who had the hardihood to leave the mill and walk abroad. The Sheriff kept adding to his force of deputies according as the military guard was reduced, until when the last of the troops left Homestead, there were enough civil officers employed to deal with any ordinary disorder.
The congressional investigation which was begun at Pittsburgh was resumed at Washington on July 23. Robert and William Pinkerton appeared to testify, and a committee of the Knights of Labor, consisting of Messrs. Hayes, Wright and Devlin, was also present and submitted to the investigating committee a series of questions to be put to the witnesses. The Pinkerton brothers presented a written statement, giving a history of their agency and an account of its methods. They upheld the character of their employees for trustworthiness and reliability, denied that it was customary for their men to carry arms or that the men ever wantonly or recklessly fired a shot or used weapons without being sworn in as deputy sheriffs or otherwise properly authorized, and alleged that the men sent to Homestead were to have been deputized and that Colonel Gray was understood to be authorized to deputize them.
When the sub-committee charged with the investigation came to sum up and prepare a report, it was found that the members were hopelessly divided, so that the work done, as far as it was likely to affect congressional action, might be considered as wasted. Some of the members, however, did not hesitate to give publicity to their individual views. Mr. Bynum held that if the Carnegie firm could legally bring in 300 Pinkerton guards, it would be equally justified in bringing in 10,000—that is to say, a full-sized army equipped to levy war. He spoke in very severe terms of Sheriff McCleary, describing him as a "poltroon," whose conduct during the riot was simply cowardly.
The House judiciary committee later received a supplementary statement from the Pinkerton brothers, replying to attacks made upon Pinkertonism by Senator Vest and Grand Master Workman Powderly of the K. of L. In this document many crimes were charged to members of secret labor organizations, and it was claimed that the organizations themselves, instead of showing sincere solicitude for law and order, by disciplining and controlling the guilty ones, were disposed to applaud outrages committed in their name and to elevate the criminals, when caught, to the dignity of martyrs. "Notwithstanding the protestations of the leaders at Homestead," said the Messrs. Pinkerton in conclusion, "no reasonable man can for a moment doubt that if the troops and deputy sheriffs were withdrawn, the non-union men now working in the mills would be murdered, and for no offense, no wrong, no injury to anyone."
PEMICKEY TRACK IN THE MILL YARD.