Homestead : $b A complete history of the struggle of July, 1892, between the Carnegie-Steel Company, Limited, and the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel WorkersBurgoyne, Arthur Gordon
History
Homestead : $b A complete history of the struggle of July, 1892, between the Carnegie-Steel Company, Limited, and the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers
Burgoyne, Arthur Gordon
Homestead Strike, Homestead, Pa., 1892
Gallagher, Mr. Porter said, being a self-confessed accomplice, was
unworthy of credit. He was a spy, procured by Pinkerton Detective Ford,
and the fact that he was left at large for five weeks after his
confession indicated in what a questionable relation he stood to the
prime movers in the prosecution of Dempsey. Dempsey, the speaker said,
was the honored choice of 600,000 men for the chieftanship of the K. of
L. in the Pittsburgh district. He was a frank and generous man, to whose
kind heart no one ever appealed in vain. Was it humanly probable that
this man would have bribed Gallagher to poison men? Would he, if such
had been his purpose, have conferred with Gallagher and have given him
money in broad daylight? The issue was between Gallagher, the hired
informer, and Dempsey, the honorable citizen, whom it was proposed to
take away from his wife and home on the testimony of strangers without
title to belief.
Attorney Marshall followed his colleague with a telling analysis of the
evidence for the commonwealth. He read from the report of the mill
physician, Dr. Weible, figures showing that there was actually more
sickness in the mill, in proportion to the number of men employed,
before Gallagher went there than at any time afterwards. He also showed
by Gallagher's testimony that on the day of the Wolfe family's supper,
the coffee which Gallagher claimed to have dosed was all used up at
dinner time and, as there was none left over, where, Mr. Marshall asked,
did the poison come from by which the Wolfes' claimed to have been
sickened. After commenting on the improbability of Dempsey's employing
strangers to aid him in a poisoning plot, Mr. Marshall said in
conclusion: "We ask you to put the stamp of your disapproval on these
corruptionists and send Hugh Dempsey home to those who love him, a free
man, with a character as spotless as it was before these two worthless,
degraded creatures tried to ruin it."
Mr. Robb closed for the prosecution. His strongest point consisted in
ridiculing the idea that if Dempsey wanted reports on the operations of
the mill he would have sent cooks instead of steelworkers to secure
them.
Judge Stowe charged the jury in a perfectly dispassionate and unbiased
manner. This was on the morning of Friday, January 20, the seventh day
of the trial. The jury remained out less than three hours and brought in
a verdict of "Guilty as indicted." A demand for a new trial was promptly
made and, pending the hearing of the application, Dempsey was liberated
on $2,500 bail.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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