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
"Mr. Robb has attempted to tell you while he depicted that
horrible act of the people on the bank that there was another
side to that story. He forgot to tell you that a man from a
foreign state raised and leveled his rifle and in spite of
earnest pleadings shot a young man down. He forgot to tell you
that not a shot was fired from the river bank until that young
man lay weltering in his life blood. I will try to show you that
the trouble did not come from the men on the shore, but from the
men in the barges sent there. I want to see, and so do you, what
the commonwealth of Pennsylvania wants to prove. It does not
claim, because there is no evidence to prove it, that Jack
Clifford fired that shot that killed Connors. Because Clifford
was there they want to hold him responsible for an act committed
by another party. Before they do it they must prove that he was
acting and assisting those men to acts of violence. It matters
not what was done after 12 o'clock. It matters not if he threw
that dynamite or the can of powder. Because before that you must
be convinced that Jack Clifford was there when Connors was shot.
You might wonder at that; that it is not a crime to throw
burning oil or dynamite, but the prosecution specifies a
particular charge against Jack Clifford. They claim that he was
on the bank of the river in the forenoon when Connors was
killed. How have they proved it. Let us look at the forenoon.
They prove it by three detectives and three persons residing
around Homestead--but six witnesses; purely identification.
Three of these men saw Clifford before that morning. It is well
for the jury to consider these men and the prisoner. Men
gathered from the slums of the cities of New York, Chicago and
Philadelphia; men without employment, men without character, men
who can be impeached by their testimony. Suppose a difficulty
arose in Chicago and a person came here to employ a body of men
to go there and suppress it, what sort of men would go there?
Would a lawyer have the cinch? Oh, no. Would the banker leave
his duties? Oh, no. Would the business man? Oh, no. But the
idlers--the scrub of your city--would be the ones who would go.
Then I say to you is this not sufficient to show the character
of these people who invaded your state and are attempting to
swear away the life of Jack Clifford? Upon whose testimony is
this crime to be fixed upon Clifford? By three Pinkertons who,
in the excitement of that battle and having never seen him
before, swear that they saw him there. How do they prove it? By,
as they say, a pink shirt on Clifford. Think of it, looking out
in a crowd of 500 people and picking out a man with his coat
buttoned up, could they be so collected in their thoughts as to
distinguish him by a small portion of a pink shirt visible? I
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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