One afternoon a customer came in for an ice-cream, while I was alone in the store. Entire nights we would sit up discussing the various phases of the situation, almost engulfed by the possibilities of the gigantic struggle. We saturated ourselves with the events in Homestead to the exclusion of everything else. At daybreak one of the boys would be off to get the first editions of the papers. We became so absorbed in the news that we would not permit ourselves enough time even for sleep. We continued our daily work, waiting on customers, frying pancakes, serving tea and ice-cream but our thoughts were in Homestead, with the brave steel-workers. Our hearts were fired with admiration for the men of Homestead. The native toiler had risen, he was beginning to feel his mighty strength, he was determined to break the chains that had held him in bondage so long, we thought. To us it sounded the awakening of the American worker, the long-awaited day of his resurrection. Their tone was manly, ringing with the spirit of their rebellious forebears of the Revolutionary War.įar away from the scene of the impending struggle, in our little ice-cream parlour in the city of Worcester, we eagerly followed developments. The steel-workers declared that they were ready to take up the challenge of Frick: they would insist on their right to organize and to deal collectively with their employers. Labour throughout the country was aroused. They charged him with deliberately provoking a crisis that might assume national proportions, in view of the great numbers of men locked out by Frick’s action, and the probable effect upon affiliated unions and on related industries. ![]() Even the most conservative part of the press condemned Frick for his arbitrary and drastic methods. The sympathy of the entire country was with the men. It was an open declaration of war.įeeling ran high in Homestead and vicinity. “Not a strike, but a lockout,” Frick announced. Frick curtly refused the peace advances of the workers' organization, declaring that there was “nothing to arbitrate.” Presently the mills were closed. Thereafter they would have to apply for work individually, and the pay would be arranged with every worker separately. He would close the mills, and the men might consider themselves discharged. He would not treat with the employees collectively, as before. In fact, he would not recognize the union at all. The company would make no more agreements with the Amalgamated Association it would itself determine the wages to be paid. He declared that henceforth the sliding scale would be abolished. The philanthropic Andrew Carnegie conveniently retired to his castle in Scotland, and Frick took full charge of the situation. The current agreement was about to expire, and the workers presented a new wage schedule, calling for an increase because of the higher market prices and enlarged output of the mills. Wages were arranged between the company and the union, according to a sliding scale based on the prevailing market price of steel products. Its largest mills were in Homestead, near Pittsburgh, where thousands of workers were employed, their tasks requiring long training and high skill. ![]() The Carnegie Company had practically a monopoly of it and enjoyed unprecedented prosperity. The high tariff on imported steel had greatly boomed the American steel industry. Frick was also the owner of extensive coke-fields, where unions were prohibited and the workers were ruled with an iron hand. It was particularly significant that Andrew Carnegie, its president, had temporarily turned over the entire management to the company’s chairman, Henry Clay Frick, a man known for his enmity to labour. The Carnegie Company, on the other hand, was a powerful corporation, known as a hard master. ![]() It was one of the biggest and most efficient labour bodies of the country, consisting mostly of Americans, men of decision and grit, who would assert their rights. News from Pittsburgh announced that trouble had broken out between the Carnegie Steel Company and its employees organized in the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers. ![]() In this excerpt from her autobiography, Living my Life, radical Emma Goldman described how fellow radical Alexander Berkman decided to murder Frick during the Homestead strike. Known for his uncompromising and cruel tactics, Frick became an obvious target for labor activists looking to make a statement during the protracted strike. Henry Clay Frick, chairman of the Carnegie Steel Company, was demonized by labor for his role in the violent Homestead strike in 1892 in which a pitched battle was fought between strikers and company-hired Pinkerton detectives. “I Will Kill Frick”: Emma Goldman Recounts the Attempt to Assassinate the Chairman of the Carnegie Steel Company During the: Homestead Strike in 1892 by Emma Goldman
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