Meet You in Hell

by Les Standiford

  “I ran down a side street and through a yard,” Holway said. “I ran about half a mile I suppose, but I was weak and had had nothing to eat or drink and my legs gave out. I could not run any further. Some man got hold of me by the back of my coat, and about twenty or thirty men came up and kicked me and pounded me with stones. I lost control of myself then. I thought I was about [to die] and commenced to scream. There were two or three strikers with rifles rushed up then and kept off the crowd and rushed me forward to a theater. I . . . found about 150 of the Pinkerton men there, and that was the last violence offered me.”

  It was the end of the physical threats to Holway, but it certainly wasn’t the end of his worries. “That evening,” Holway continued, “I was told we were going to be arrested for murder and put in jail.”

  Such rumors quickly swept through the fearful group of captives, making for a harrowing night, especially for Holway and others like him, who had had little intention of signing on for such a nightmare. Finally, at about 1:00 a.m., the doors to the opera house where the Pinkertons had been detained flew open and Hugh O’Donnell entered, along with AAISW president William Weihe and Sheriff McCleary.

  O’Donnell raised his hands to quell the excited questions directed his way. The Pinkertons would be given safe passage from the opera house to a special train that waited at the Homestead station, he announced. From there they would be taken back to Pittsburgh, escorted by Sheriff McCleary.

  At first the captives resisted. They wanted no part of another parade through the streets of this bloodthirsty town, but O’Donnell and Sheriff McCleary reassured them. It was late, and the streets were clear. That’s why this time had been chosen. Were the captives to linger in the opera house, who could say what a new dawn would bring?

  The debate did not last long. In moments the Pinkertons were filing out of the opera house, two by two, surrounded by moderate workers who were faithful to O’Donnell and Weihe. In short order, the train, accompanied by a great shout of triumph from the workers who had escorted them, was off to Pittsburgh.

  Though some of the men feared that they would be held for trial, there proved to be no need for concern. After a brief layover, the trainload of Pinkertons was moving again, this time hell-bent for New Jersey. Nor would there be any stops in Pennsylvania along the way, for word of what had happened at Homestead was out, and workingmen everywhere were joined in outrage and were gathering along the line, itching for a chance to get their hands on a Pinkerton.

  On that train, one of the wounded conscripts found himself sharing a seat with a reporter for the New York World. He held out a pair of thickly callused hands and told the correspondent that he was a workingman himself, a maker of organ bellows in a factory in Chicago.

  He didn’t even know the name of the river that ran alongside the grounds of the Homestead works where he had nearly died, he told the reporter. “We were engaged as private watchmen, but we did not know we were to be used to shoot down honest workingmen,” the man insisted. “We are workingmen ourselves and sympathize with the strikers now that we know the truth.”

  According to his version of the facts, the rank-and-file Pinkertons had no idea of what awaited them at Homestead until the barges had reached the outskirts of the town and the firing began. By the time the barges had been tied off and the first men shot, it was too late to do anything.

  “All our men were not armed,” this maker of bellows continued. “Those who had rifles used them. . . . They were desperate. It was a case of being shot to death on one side or drowning on the other.”

  Another of the more experienced “watchmen,” a Philadelphian named Ed Spear, allowed that he and his fellow Easterners suspected that they were bound for the troubled Carnegie works, but that no one expected what they had encountered. “I have had plenty of experience,” Spear said, “but this is the worst. I was in the New York Central strike and other big ones, but this one beats them all. It was an awful day. By God, but those men did shoot. I never saw and heard so many missiles in all my life. . . . I never saw anything like it and don’t want to see the like again.”

  17

  WHILE ROME BURNED

  THE STRIKERS AND THE RESIDENTS of Homestead viewed the rout of the Pinkertons from completely different perspectives, of course. To the former, a hated enemy had invaded, armed to the teeth, attempting to take their jobs and their homes and, by extension, to obliterate their very community, and these invaders had not stopped short of anything, not even murder.

  Moreover, the intentions of the Pinkertons had been foiled, their leaders sent packing, their ranks reduced to sniveling bands of cowards who, though they had shot down sons and brothers of the millworkers, then begged for mercy as they were driven from their dens and chased back from whence they came. It must have seemed a glorious victory, especially to those who had seen fellow strikers and loved ones maimed or killed by Pinkerton fire.

  But for Weihe and O’Donnell, and the more perceptive of the union leadership, the calm that descended over the Homestead works was clearly temporary. For throughout the afternoon of July 6, telegrams had flown back and forth from Pittsburgh to Harrisburg, and they suggested no cause for the workers to celebrate.

  As the standoff continued into the day, High Sheriff McCleary sent a formal request to the governor, stating that he lacked the resources to maintain order in Homestead and requesting that the militia be sent in. While the exact number of casualties was still in question, it appeared that six workers had been killed and seventeen wounded; only two of the Pinkerton men were reported to have died, though more than two hundred of them were said to have been wounded.

  Despite the alarming tally and McCleary’s desperate tone, the governor responded that he could not—and would not—entertain such a request until he could be satisfied that all available resources of the local authorities had been exhausted. An exasperated McCleary posted a call to the local citizenry, offering to deputize anyone who would immediately join ranks to help quell the disturbance in Homestead. All of sixty men responded.

  Frick, meantime, was steadfast in his contention that the matter was in the hands of the sheriff and the governor. He claimed to be “satisfied without a doubt that the watchmen employed by us were fired upon by our former workmen and friends for twenty-five minutes before they reached our property, and . . . they did not return the fire until after the boats had touched the shore and after three of the watchmen had been wounded, one fatally.”

  Frick went on to tell reporters that no man who had been known to raise a rifle or pistol in the battle would ever again be employed in his operations. Nor would any man asserting any claims to union membership. Carnegie Steel would not be dictated to. Non-union replacements would take the places of every man who had joined the fray.

  WHILE BLOOD FLOWED, FRICK SMOKED, ran one headline in the July 7 edition of the New York World, and the lede described Frick as one of the coolest men in Pittsburgh during the strife: “While the men whom he had locked out and the men he had employed to force an entrance into the mill were killing each other at Homestead the steel king sat in his magnificently furnished office and smoked cigars, gave orders to subordinates or chatted with visitors.” When he was told that the Pinkerton men had surrendered and that the mill grounds had been left in control of the mob, the report continued, Frick expressed little emotion.

  “I was very sorry to hear of the disturbance at Homestead,” he was quoted as saying. “We are entirely out of the deal now so far as protecting our interests up there are concerned. The matter now rests entirely with the Sheriff, and to him we look for protection of our property.”

  Pressed to explain just what he meant, Frick asserted that as the mob had broken down fences and trespassed onto company property of their own accord, the firm could in no way be deemed responsible for any subsequent damage. He intended, in fact, to present a bill for repairs to Allegheny County, once a proper assessment was complete.

  How much of this was bravado is difficult
to know, but Frick had never been one to equivocate. A cable he sent to Carnegie, meant to bring his majority stockholder up to speed, sheds further light on his state of mind. Dated July 7 and dictated to the company’s agent in New York for relay by transatlantic cable, the message was addressed to Carnegie care of the London offices of J. P. Morgan: SMALL PLUNGE, OUR ACTIONS AND POSITION THERE UNASSAILABLE AND WILL WORK OUT SATISFACTORILY.

  Perhaps the message was intended simply to placate Carnegie, but given Frick’s history, it is just as likely that matters had developed at Homestead more or less as anticipated. After all, his marching orders from Carnegie had been unequivocal: “We are with you, no matter what, and not stopping short of a contest.”

  It might be debated what, if anything, would have constituted a real crisis in Frick’s view. Suffice it to say that Frick’s pose was generally one of equanimity, and the message was apparently well received by Carnegie. He wrote back immediately, to “Frick, Pittsburgh. Cable just received. All anxiety gone since know you stand firm. Never employ one of these rioters. Let grass grow over works. Must not fail now. You will win easily next trial. Only stand firm. Law and order. Wish I could support you in any form.”

  Not everyone saw it Frick and Carnegie’s way, certainly, and some influential outsiders took it upon themselves to weigh in. During an impromptu discussion on the Senate floor on July 7, Senator John Palmer of Illinois declared that the millworkers were well within their rights in driving off the Pinkertons. Manufacturing establishments were public institutions just as railroads were, Palmer reasoned, and while owners had a right to defend their property, workers had an equal right to defend their employment and means of livelihood.

  Nor was criticism directed solely at Frick. On July 8, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch carried an editorial letter addressed to “My Lord of Cluny Castle,” and signed by “Uncle Tom.” The writer skewered Carnegie as “My lord,” and went on to say that he had seen fit “to throw his gauntlet at those who produced for him the colossal fortune which he legally enjoys, and when they manfully resist . . . the author conclusively proves that ‘Triumphant Democracy’ is a huge swindle.”

  On July 9, a correspondent sent by the Post-Dispatch actually made his way to the grounds of the country shooting estate in rural Scotland where Carnegie was spending the remainder of his summer, far from any madding crowds. The correspondent was ushered by a liveried servant inside the reception hall of a two-story fieldstone building overlooking a sprawling loch and its surrounding forests and grouse moor.

  While the reporter idled about the trophy-filled room of a house said to be costing the steel magnate $10,000 for its eight-week rental, he discovered on a table a copy of the Times of London with a story detailing the riot at Homestead circled in pencil. Twelve strikers and nine Pinkertons were reported as dead by the Times, and the reporter was still holding the paper when Carnegie entered the room.

  Did Mr. Carnegie have anything to say regarding these troubles at his mills, the correspondent inquired.

  Carnegie gave the reporter a scathing look. “I have nothing whatever to say,” he responded. “I have given up all active control of the business, and I do not care to interfere in any way with the present management’s conduct of this affair.”

  So far, so good, one could imagine Frick murmuring, had he enjoyed the perspective of a fly on a nearby wall.

  “But do you not still exercise a supervision of the affairs of the company?” the reporter persisted.

  “I have nothing whatever to say on that point. The business management is in the hands of those who are fully competent to deal with any question that may arise.”

  “Have you heard from Homestead since the riot occurred?”

  “I have received several cables and among them several asking my interference with the parties in control.”

  “But you must have some opinion. . . .” the reporter tried.

  Carnegie shook his head decisively. “No sir. I am not willing to express any 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 approbation and sanction.”

  It was Carnegie’s final word, and with it he turned and left the room, his heels echoing on the hard floors. The correspondent watched him go, then turned to make his own exit. He was met on the stairs of the shooting house by the servant who had shown him in earlier.

  He had found Mr. Carnegie in his garden, the servant smoothly intoned, and his master wished him to convey that he had nothing to say on the matter.

  The reporter thanked the servant. “So I’ve heard,” he said. And made his way out.

  IN HOMESTEAD, MEANWHILE, scores of broadsides and ballads had already been published damning the Pinkertons and the company, and celebrating the triumph. “Tyrant Frick,” one was titled. “A man named Carnegie, who owns us, controls us, his cattle, at will,” went another. “Fort Frick’s Defenders” began with this: “Hurrah for the light of Truth and Right!”

  But exultation had turned to grief, and to some trepidation as well. IN THE HOUSES OF MOURNING, read one headline. Another story was titled OVER THE BIER. A New York World piece titled BURIAL OF THE DEAD detailed the funerals given Henry Striegel, Thomas Weldon, and Joseph Sotak, the man who had been shot in the throat as he ran to help his fallen comrade.

  At Weldon’s service, Father John J. Bullion, a Catholic priest, echoed the remarks of Illinois senator John Palmer, saying that “the workman has a certain right on account of the length of time he has been employed . . . and when he protects that property he is doing only what is right. . . . [I]t is wrong for a mob to come here and deprive the workman of the right that is his.”

  The service for John Morris, the twenty-eight-year-old skilled laborer who had been shot off the top of the mill’s pump house, was conducted by the pastor of the Fourth Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church, Reverend James J. McIlyar, who excoriated the company generally, and Frick specifically, in his remarks: “This town is bathed in tears to-day, and it is all brought about by one man, who is the least respected by the laboring people of any man in the country. There is no more sense of excitement in that man than there is in a toad.”

  While the remarks were rousing to those in attendance, they would not find favor among McIlyar’s superiors. In less than a year they would force McIlyar’s retirement.

  Local churchmen were not the only ones to condemn company tactics; a New York City minister denounced the Pinkertons and said that “if every man of them were taken out and hanged the only loss to the nation would be the wear and tear of rope.” And a pastor in Newark, New Jersey, chimed in: “The manager of the Carnegie company is morally, if not legally, guilty of the bloodshed which has taken place.”

  The Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette published what claimed to be a comprehensive list of the dead, including two Pinkerton men and twelve workers. The list of the seriously injured included thirty-four names, most of them workers, though the paper also reported that all 305 Pinkerton men had sustained injuries of one degree or another.

  At the mill grounds and on the streets, order seemed to have regained a foothold. The Commercial Gazette reported that all damage at the Homestead mill had been repaired. The breached fence had been boarded up, the makeshift fortifications and other debris had been cleared, even “the hose used in throwing oil on the water restored to its place.”

  Reports claimed that control of company property had been restored to that of the company’s watchmen, and that no damage to buildings or machinery was apparent. The streets of Homestead were quiet, according to the Gazette, with order assured by a special contingent of workers under the direction of moderate strike leaders.

  Still, the mood was one of great uncertainty, as residents shared bits of news gleaned from the streets along with their fears of another pending invasion. “But the slightest attempt to break through the guard line of the strikers around the mill property will precipitate a battle in comparison with which the conflict
of Wednesday will be a mere skirmish,” the Gazette reported. Telegrams pledging support from other union groups and sympathizers arrived at union headquarters by the hundreds, along with one detailed missive from an anarchist detailing methods for the construction of more effective dynamite bombs than had been employed in the assault on the barges.

  On July 8, a contingent of Homestead citizens, headed by Hugh O’Donnell, traveled to the Pennsylvania capital in Harrisburg to meet with Governor Robert Pattison. The delegation pleaded with Pattison to hold off sending troops in, arguing that such a move would only encourage a fresh round of fighting.

  The company’s fence had been repaired, O’Donnell argued, and while pickets once again surrounded company property, they were only exercising their established rights to strike. The union’s advisory committee had been reestablished and even the town’s saloons remained closed, a sure sign that the locals were serious in their intention to maintain order.

  Pattison agreed to take the matter under advisement, though he warned O’Donnell that he would not delay in sending in the militia if the slightest act of violence was reported. Since Pattison had clearly been hesitant to respond to Sheriff McCleary’s entreaties from the outset, O’Donnell and his men could be forgiven for hoping the governor was sympathetic to their position. Pattison was actually in something of a quandary. He was, like McCleary, an elected official, and though he was a staunch Democrat, he owed a great political debt to Allegheny County Republican chairman Christopher Magee, who had been in league with the interests of Frick and Carnegie for some time. According to political historian Paul Krause, Magee, owing to a dispute within his own party, had actually delivered his county’s swing vote to Pattison during the 1890 gubernatorial election and now was ready for payback.

  But Pattison owed an equal debt to rank-and-file working Democrats across the state. Like High Sheriff McCleary, he was not eager to alienate his traditional base of support, and thus was dragging his feet as long as possible, hoping that somehow the situation would right itself.