The Homestead relief committee kept up its good work until the end of March, by which time the necessities of the people ceased to be pressing. A report was then published showing receipts amounting to $5,587.28, of which $4,926.79 had been expended in relieving distressed families. A committee of three was appointed to use the unexpended balance in relief work, and the general committee then dissolved, having excellently discharged its mission.
Reference has already been made to the appointment of a committee of United States senators to investigate the Homestead affair and the postponement of action by Senator Gallinger, the Republican chairman of that committee, until after the presidential election. Within two weeks after election day, Senators Gallinger and Pfeffer began the inquiry at Chicago, where a hearing was given to Pinkerton agents and authorities on police methods, the latter submitting opinions on the best means of coping with labor disturbances. Chief of Police McClaughrey advocated the removal of the police force in great cities from the field of politics and placing municipal departments under a civil service system, and Marshal Hitchcock suggested the enactment of a law providing a severe penalty for refusing to serve on a posse comitatus. On November 23, Messrs. Gallinger and Pfeffer arrived in Pittsburgh. The other members of the committee, Messrs. Hansbrough, of North Dakota; Felton, of California; Sanders, of Montana; White, of Louisiana, and Hill, of New York, did not find it convenient to attend. The testimony taken was mainly a repetition of that given before the House Committee. Captain Rodgers repeated his tale of the adventures of the Little Bill; Superintendent Potter told of the innocence of the purpose entertained in the bringing in of the Pinkertonian Three Hundred; William Weihe explained how easily the trouble could have been adjusted if the Carnegie firm had desired an amicable settlement and condemned the facilities afforded for the importation of cheap labor in violation of the contract labor law; David Lynch and William G. Roberts testified to the peaceable disposition of the Homestead men prior to the Pinkerton invasion and their respect for the property rights of their employers; A. C. Robertson, a politician who had formerly been a glass blower, condemned arbitration, whether voluntary or compulsory, as a failure, and ex-Judge Thomas Mellon declared the employment of armed guards during strikes to be necessary because there is "too much politics" to permit of the proper enforcement of the law.
After a visit to the Homestead mill, the committee proceeded directly to New York where the testimony of Robert A. Pinkerton and Captain Heinde was heard. The Pinkerton chief described the men sent to Homestead as model citizens. It had been agreed, he said, that the guards should be sworn in as deputy sheriffs. There had been no firing from the barges until after the captain was shot, and then only in sheer self-defense. Witness claimed that his agency had lost $15,000 by the Homestead affair, owing to the seizure of 225 rifles and other property, and the cost of caring for men hurt in the battle. He thought it doubtful that Mr. Carnegie would reimburse the agency. Being asked if he thought that the violence committed at Homestead was due to the strikers or to the rabble attracted there, he said: "I think it was committed by the strikers, their leaders and the advisory committee itself." Captain Heinde's evidence was merely a recital of the events of July 6. With his examination the investigation was concluded.
The report of the committee, presented to the senate on February 11, 1893, denounced the employment of Pinkertons as "an utterly vicious system, responsible for much of the ill-feeling and bad blood displayed by the working classes," and suggested that if Mr. Frick had carried out the humane policy enunciated by Mr. Carnegie in his famous article in the Forum, the Homestead strike might have been avoided. At the same time, it declared that there was "no excuse for the scenes of disorder and terrorism for which the strikers were themselves responsible," and that "laboring men should learn the lesson that they cannot better their condition by violating the law or resisting lawful authority." The committee doubted the power of Congress to mend matters by legislation, and advised arbitration as the only middle ground on which employer and employe could meet without depreciating the rights of either.
About this time the House committee on investigation of the Homestead strike awoke from its lethargy and Messrs. Ray and Broderick, the Republican members, handed in a minority report, condemning the employment of armed guards, but advising that legislation on this question be left to the several states. In the judgment of the minority of the committee the "present system of federal taxation" had nothing to do with the Homestead strike, which was in reality a struggle for supremacy between organized capital and organized labor.
The majority report was presented shortly afterwards. It held that Mr. Frick should have united with the sheriff of Allegheny county, without regard to the inefficiency of that officer, in an appeal to the governor, instead of undertaking to crush the strikers on his own account; criticized the Amalgamated Association as a body the members of which were encouraged to become intemperate zealots, denied the right of the Homestead men to oppose the landing of the Pinkertons, and ended by suggesting that it be left to the several states to enact laws regulating Pinkertonism.
Individual minority reports were presented as follows:
By Mr. Broderick, advocating the passage of a compulsory arbitration law by the states.
By Mr. Buchanan, of New Jersey, declaring the investigation to have acted as a boomerang against the Democrats in that it showed a high protective tariff to be productive of high wages.
By Mr. Boatner, claiming that, under the clause of the constitution which authorizes the inter-state commerce law, inter-state carriers can be prevented from hiring Pinkertons.