In complete control of the billet market, the Carnegie firm engineered a depression of prices, as a seeming consequence of a lower duty. Every product of his mills protected, Andrew Carnegie secured a reduction in the duty on steel billets, in return for his generous contribution to the Republican campaign fund.
With smooth words the great philanthropist had persuaded the workers to endorse the high tariff. Manufacturers should meet their men more than half-way.” The right of the workingmen to combine and to form trades-unions is no less sacred than the right of the manufacturer to enter into association and conference with his fellows, and it must sooner or later be conceded. “I would lay it down as a maxim,” he had declared, “that there is no excuse for a strike or a lockout until arbitration of differences has been offered by one party and refused by the other. Perfidious Carnegie shrank from the task, having recently proclaimed the gospel of good will and harmony. Foreseeing refusal, it flaunted warlike preparations to crush the union under the iron heel. The Carnegie firm challenged the Amalgamated Association by the submission of conditions which it knew the workers could not accept. Like a bolt from a clear sky came the blow: wages were to be reduced! Peremptorily the steel magnates refused to continue the sliding scale previously agreed upon as a guarantee of peace. Yet patiently they had waited for the promised greater share of the wealth they were creating. out of their flesh and bone grew the great steel industry on their blood fattened the powerful Carnegie Company. The steel-workers were not the aggressors. But the People, the workers of America, have joyously acclaimed the rebellious manhood of Homestead. What humiliating defeat for the powers that be! Does not the Pinkerton janizary represent organized authority, forever crushing the toiler in the interest of the ex ploiters? Well may the enemies of the People be terrified at the unexpected awakening. By force of arms the workers of Homestead have compelled three hundred Pinkerton invaders to surrender, to surrender most humbly, ignominiously. Never before, in all its history, has American labor won such a signal victory. The country looks young and alluring in the early morning sunshine. Green woods and yellow fields circle in the distance, whirl nearer, close, then rush by, giving place to other circling fields and woods. The gust of perfumed air, laden with the rich aroma of fresh-mown hay, is soothingly invigorating.
The air is oppressive with tobacco smoke the boisterous talk of the men playing cards near by annoys me. Only now and then we exchange a word, a searching, significant look. We sit in silence, each busy with his own thoughts. The report details the conspiracy on the part of the Carnegie Company to crush the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers the selection, for the purpose, of Henry Clay Frick, whose attitude toward labor is implacably hostile his secret military preparations while designedly prolonging the peace negotiations with the Amalgamated the fortification of the Homestead steelworks the erection of a high board fence, capped by barbed wire and provided with loopholes for sharpshooters the hiring of an army of Pinkerton thugs the attempt to smuggle them, in the dead of night, into Homestead and, finally, the terrible carnage. In growing excitement I read the vivid account of the tremendous struggle, the Homestead strike, or, more correctly, the lockout. Her words ring like the cry of a wounded animal, the melodious voice tinged with the harshness of bitterness - the bitterness of helpless agony. Pinkertons have killed women and children.” “Have you read it?” she cries, waving the half-open newspaper. As I turn to her, I am struck by the peculiar gleam in her eyes and the heightened color. Her naturally quick, energetic step sounds more than usually resolute. We are quietly sitting in the back of our little flat - Fedya and I - when suddenly the Girl enters. The Call of the Homestead IĬlearly every detail of that day is engraved on my mind.
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