Shortly after the meeting with O'Donnell and Dempsey, President Weihe assigned O'Donnell and McLuckie to speak at a labor meeting in Boston. Funds for the trip were supplied by the Boston people and O'Donnell was the purse bearer. When the men arrived in New York, O'Donnell urged McLuckie to go with him to Milholland's office, but without success. After the Boston meeting a reporter of the _Boston Herald_ was detailed to accompany the men back to Homestead. Arriving in New York, O'Donnell again broached the subject of visiting Milholland, but McLuckie was obdurate. At this point, according to the Burgess' own story, O'Donnell left his two companions, promising to meet them at the depot in time to catch a morning train. McLuckie and the _Herald_ man were on hand, but O'Donnell failed to keep his appointment. The day wore on without any sign of O'Donnell's coming. Finally McLuckie informed the _Herald_ man that, as O'Donnell carried the purse, he was unable to pay his fare to Pittsburgh. The reporter advanced the necessary cash and they left New York without an inkling of the whereabouts of their missing companion. It was afterwards ascertained that O'Donnell had hunted up Milholland to notify him of the impossibility of dealing with McLuckie and had probably forgotten his fellow-travelers in the excitement attending his "con-fab" with the great manipulator of industrial affairs for political purposes. O'Donnell's course in these negotiations may be excused on the dual ground of inexperience in politics and a desire to benefit his townsmen by securing somehow a termination of the strike favorable to the wage-workers. He was dealing with sharp and not over-scrupulous practitioners, who dealt largely in promises and cared little about performance and less about any damage that might be sustained by O'Donnell himself, provided that their immediate aims were accomplished. The sole reward obtained by the young leader was seven months' confinement in the Allegheny County jail and abuse at the hands of rival leaders at Homestead. William Roberts was especially severe in his condemnation of both O'Donnell and McLuckie, crediting them with being partners in an unauthorized political move, which was sure to be barren of results. Mr. Roberts himself entered the employ of the Democratic National Committee as a stump speaker before the campaign was over, and remained an ardent low-tariff Democrat until the rejection of his application for a position in the Internal Revenue Collector's office at Pittsburgh convinced him of the error of his ways and led him to take the stump for protection. Smarting under the criticisms to which he was subjected, Hugh O'Donnell went before the advisory board demanding that he be supported by a vote of confidence or else be permitted to resign. McLuckie seconded the request for a vote of confidence, and O'Donnell received his vindication.