In one respect, however, the men do unite to meet conditions arising under the industry. The work in the mills brings them constantly face to face with the danger of accident. Almost daily, occur minor accidents: a foot bruised by a heavy weight, a hand lacerated by a machine; accidents not serious enough to prevent work for any length of time, or perhaps to justify damages. But where the margin is small, two weeks or even one of enforced idleness means a serious problem in family finances. While the men injured are eligible to the Carnegie Relief Fund, this fund gives assistance only when a man has been disabled for a year or more, and consequently is of no help in minor accidents. In order to meet these emergencies, then, the men have utilized the fraternal orders which form one of the chief centers of interest in Homestead life. There are more than forty lodges, and while it was impossible to learn the exact membership, twenty-three lodges report a total membership of 3,663, of whom 3,400 are men. The strongest of these is the Odd Fellows, with a membership of over 1,000, most of whom are steel workers. In all but two out of twenty-seven, concerning which data were secured, there are benefit features; a sick benefit usually of five dollars a week for three months with a smaller sum thereafter; and a small death benefit of only $150 or so. The fraternal insurance orders, which vary the assessments with the amount of the benefit, give as high as $5,000. Sometimes both regular and lodge insurance policies are carried. In sixty-three families investigated, only nine of the heads of families were uninsured, while eighteen carried both kinds. What this insurance means, however, is but feebly shown by the amounts involved. One woman, speaking of her early struggles, told how in the first year of her married life, her husband was seriously burned in the mill and for three months was unable to do a stroke of work. Fortunately, from the three benefit orders to which he belonged came $12.50 a week, which supported the family. "My baby came then," she added feelingly, "and if it had not been for that money, I could have bought no clothes for her."
In addition to this benefit feature, the lodge offers an opportunity for the development of sympathy and the consciousness of social solidarity. A woman, who was a rather recent comer to Homestead, had been a member of one of these lodges in another town. Her little baby became ill and died, and where otherwise she would have been alone in her grief, her fellow members came at once to watch with her during his sickness, and to console her after his death. "Why, they were like my own sisters," she said, and it was this which counted rather than the twenty-five dollars which helped meet the funeral expenses.
The lodge also affords an opportunity to show that interest in outside matters, which otherwise finds scanty means of expression. I saw one day a half bushel of fine potatoes ready for baking, which a woman told me were her contribution to a supper being given for an emergency hospital in Homestead. "We don't need that hospital," she said, "because my man isn't in a dangerous place in the mill, but I'm glad to help even if most of them are 'Hunkies.'" During the winter of 1907-8, almost every lodge in town gave some sort of entertainment for the benefit of this hospital. Aroused by the suffering of men seriously injured in the mill, who have to be taken on the train to Pittsburgh, the whole town united in a determination to meet this need of their community. While the individual contributions of the workingmen would have been discouragingly small, their real interest could express itself through the existing lodge organizations. In fact, aside from the church, the lodge seems to offer the one possibility of co-operative effort.
Many men also find here their one chance of meeting other men socially. All the lodges, even the purely insurance ones, have social features, and often at special meetings the whole family go together. While these features of fraternal orders are of course common in all communities, in Homestead, with its danger of accident and its limitation as to other amusements, they play an especially important role.
ITEMS FROM THE HOMESTEAD "MESSENGER."
Illustrating how accidents become everyday happenings in a steel town. Period: two weeks when the mills were running slack.
Yet life needs some outlook for the future other than preparation to meet its disasters. With the increase in the size of the corporation, the days are passing when a rise to a position of eminence is possible for a poor boy, so that personal ambition has become a negative factor. But to the parents who seek for their children a better position, more education and more of the refinements of life, the future is full of interest. One woman complained that her neighbor was "all right, only she talks too much about her children," but when one realized how much the mother's interest and devotion had done to make her sons successful, it was easy to forgive her. Another woman, of natural sweetness and grace of manner, told of her efforts to teach her little girls those formal niceties in which she had not been trained. "I bought a book on manners," she said, "so as to teach the children, and I make myself do the things so they will. It's awfully hard to say 'excuse me' when I leave the table, but if I don't they'll never learn," and the greeting given a stranger by the little daughter showed how well this mother was succeeding.
The center of interest, especially to the fathers, is in the future of their sons. Often the sons go ahead of their fathers in the race, and one elderly man told me with pride that he owed his easy job to his son who had become an assistant superintendent. Sometimes parents, most frequently the mothers, are unwilling that their boys should enter the mill, for the fear of accident makes the long nights a time of terror. Many a woman has said, "When I was first married, I couldn't sleep when the 'mister' was on night turn, but, of course, I'm used to it now." Still when their sons grow up, they begin again to dread the danger. The great mill, however, has a fascination of its own, so that most of the boys "follow the stacks." They then live at home, contributing their share to the family income, and we find that economic bond which Mrs. Bosenquet has pointed out as so dominant a factor in strengthening family life in England. This mutual affection is undoubtedly the most potential factor in keeping pure the moral life of the town.
Morally the town is an average one. Along one of the railroads is a section comparable in a small way to some of the dark parts of a great city, and there gambling, immorality and drunkenness have their meeting place, but in the districts where most of the workmen have their homes, the former two evils are practically unknown. A doctor in a position to know the situation well, believes that in the main this town is clean morally, and his statement is confirmed by clergymen and other physicians.