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.