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
On Saturday, the Democratic Committee of Allegheny County met in
Pittsburgh at the call of its chairman, William J. Brennen, Esq., the
attorney for the Amalgamated Association, and, after the completion of
routine business, adopted, by an unanimous vote, resolutions
sympathizing with the men of Homestead in their efforts to "maintain
American and resist European pauper wages," condoling with the friends
of those who had been "shot down by the hirelings of a greedy and
arbitrary combination of capital" and denouncing Pinkertonism. These
resolutions were presented by Jere Dougherty, of the Amalgamated
Association.
Resolutions of similar tenor were adopted by all the labor unions in
Allegheny County, and thousands of lodges in other localities placed
themselves on record to the same purpose and, in most cases, coupled
their expressions of sympathy and endorsement with offers of financial
support. The South Side Glassworkers' Union, of Pittsburgh, demanded
that the city councils reject Andrew Carnegie's gift of $1,000,000 for a
free library, since the library would be paid for by the reduction of
workingmen's earnings. This home-thrust was repeated by scores of other
unions in and around Pittsburgh, and, as a consequence, the councils let
public business go to the wall and avoided holding a meeting until the
excitement had simmered down. The fact is that, since the gift had been
accepted, the money received and deposited to the order of a special
commission, and some of it already spent, there was no way of returning
it; but anyhow the councils did not venture on a discussion of the
question, which must have led to a division on pro-Carnegie and
anti-Carnegie lines.
At Columbus, O., 2,000 workmen met in the statehouse yard and passed
resolutions calling upon the Pennsylvania authorities and the United
States Congress to exterminate the Pinkerton system.
At Chicago, representatives of 20,000 men engaged in the building trades
discussed the propriety of taking up arms and marching to the relief of
Homestead.
Even in England, the trades unions entered protest against the Carnegie
methods and called upon Kier Hardie, a workingmen's representative in
Parliament, to whose election expenses Andrew Carnegie had contributed
£100, to return the amount forthwith. Mr. Hardie very promptly forwarded
the money, not to Mr. Carnegie, but to the people of Homestead, who, he
held, had a valid title to receive and use it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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