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
Berkman was taken to the county jail on Sunday night, there to await
trial. He seemed indifferent to his fate and expressed regret that he
had not succeeded in killing Frick. Bauer and Knold, his supposed
accomplices, were locked up on the following day. A wagon load of
Anarchist literature was seized at the house of Bauer, who acted as an
agent for publications of this character.
The effect of the shooting on public opinion was strongly marked. The
press of Pittsburgh was unanimous in expressing sympathy for Mr. Frick,
and in so doing, voiced the general sentiment of the people. At
Homestead much regret was expressed, and the workmen seemed to feel
that, although Berkman did not represent them or their cause, directly
or indirectly, his cowardly act was certain to prejudice their
interests.
Undoubtedly the attempt to murder Mr. Frick served to hasten the defeat
of the workingmen. The courage displayed by the Carnegie Chairman won
him admiration in quarters where he had previously been condemned, and
there were other circumstances which took the edge off the animosity
generated by his harshness towards organized labor. During the crisis at
Homestead, his young wife became a mother and, so powerfully did the
events in which her husband was the central figure effect her that, for
a time, she lay at the point of death. The child lived only a few days.
Mr. Frick, it was said, in recognition of the fact that the New York
_Sun_ was the only newspaper in the country which took up the cudgels in
his behalf, intended to name the little one Charles A. Dana Frick, after
the editor of that journal. These incidents conspired to soften the
popular heart somewhat, although Mr. Frick did not abate in the least
his hostility towards the Amalgamated men and his determination to break
the back of unionism in the Carnegie mills at any cost.
There was, however, one man in Allegheny county who neither sympathized
with Frick nor scrupled to express his regret that Berkman's weapons
failed to do their work.
This man was W. L. Iams, a youth belonging to one of the best families
in Greene County, who was serving in Company K, Tenth Regiment, under
Colonel Hawkins.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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