was by arbitration, and it was, therefore, advisable that the scale should be presented early, so as to leave ample time for an amicable adjustment of disputed points.
For three years previous, the men had been working under what was known as a sliding scale, an expedient which at the time of its adoption was regarded as a sure preventive of strikes. This scale established as the basis on which wages were to be determined, the market price of steel billets, in the manufacture of which the Carnegie Company was extensively engaged. When the price of billets went up, wages were to go up correspondingly, and when the price of billets went down, wages were to be correspondingly lowered. $25 a ton was agreed upon as the minimum. If billets were quoted below that figure, there was to be no further depression of wages. In other words, the men and the firm were practically in partnership, increased profits to the latter meaning increased earnings to the former, unless the bottom fell out of the market, in which case it became the duty of the stronger partner to protect the weaker.
The circumstances under which this equitable compact was made are of interest in so far as they exhibit the very different temper of the Carnegie Company towards its men in the past from that which marked its line of conduct after Mr. Frick was placed at the helm. In January, 1889, the men, who had been working under a yearly scale, quarreled with the firm over the terms proposed for the ensuing year and a strike was declared. William L. Abbott, a man of comparatively mild and liberal disposition, was then serving as chairman. Mr. Abbott undertook to break the strike, and when the men resorted to riotous conduct, called upon the sheriff of the county for aid. The sheriff, Dr. Alexander McCandless, an official who enjoyed great popularity, and possessed the courage and tact essential in such an emergency, went promptly to the scene with a force of deputies recruited for the occasion. At the first encounter with the mob, the deputies let their courage ooze out at their fingers' ends and fled from the town.
The sheriff, nowise disheartened by the desertion of his forces, took the best possible means of ending the trouble by constituting himself a mediator between the Carnegie firm and the strikers. Through his efforts a conference was arranged, and peace was restored through the adoption of the famous sliding scale, with the understanding that it would hold good until June 30, 1892. Mr. Carnegie, then absent in Europe, professed to be much pleased with the amicable settlement arrived at and the incidental guarantee of peace for three years to come, and for the time being the names of Sheriff McCandless and William L. Abbott were surrounded with a halo of glory.
When Superintendent Potter, in January, 1892, spoke to the men about a new scale, he gave no hint of the prospect that the firm contemplated sweeping away the beneficial arrangement which had so long governed their earnings. As already noted, Mr. Potter touched upon the subject of possible differences of opinion and of the firm's desire that such differences should be settled in a friendly way.
The shadow of Mr. Frick loomed up gloomily in the background, it is true, but there was really no occasion to think of shadows when the genial Potter presented himself as the very embodiment of sunshine. The ideas put forth by this gentleman bore the special brand of Mr. Carnegie. Mr. Carnegie was on record as being opposed to the use of force in settling disputes between capital and labor. In 1886, he had written for the magazines on this question, and the liberality of his views had elicited general commendation. Thus he said in the Forum:
"Peaceful settlement of differences should be reached through arbitration. I would lay it down as a maxim that there is no excuse for a strike or a lock-out until arbitration of differences has been offered by one party and refused by the other."
Mr. Carnegie declared further, that "The right of the workingmen to combine and to form trades unions is no less sacred than the right of the manufacturer to enter into association and conference with his fellows, and it must sooner or later be conceded." Manufacturers should "meet the men more than halfway" and "To expect that one dependent upon his daily wage for the necessaries of life will stand by peaceably and see a new man employed in his stead is to expect much."
This was the gospel of Carnegie in 1886, and, the shadow of Frick to the contrary, notwithstanding, it was not singular that it should have been the gospel of Potter in January, 1892.
It was, then, with a feeling of reasonable security that the men went to work upon their scale. This, when completed, differed little from that of the previous three years. It was presented to Mr. Potter in February, but, strange to say, did not seem to please that worthy exponent of the Carnegie idea of harmony. The joint committee of the lodges waited frequently upon the superintendent in the hope of reaching some definite conclusion, but the conferences were barren of results.
At length, to the amazement of the men, the Carnegie firm officially promulgated a new sliding scale, based on billets at $26.50 per ton as a standard, but fixing as the minimum basis of wages, $22 per ton, instead of $25 as formerly. As the billet market was now abnormally depressed – a condition which, it was claimed by many, had been designedly brought about in order to give the Carnegie Company a pretext for wage reductions – it was apparent that a serious reduction in many departments of the mill would follow the acceptance of the firm's propositions.
June 24 was fixed as the last day on which the men could accept as members of the Amalgamated Association. After that date, the firm would not consent to treat with them otherwise than as individuals. In short, Mr. Frick wanted it to be understood, definitely and finally, that, if his employees did not yield promptly and with a good grace, he would non-unionize the mill and abolish the right of self-protective organization, to which Mr. Carnegie, six years before, had feelingly referred as "sacred."
There was a flavor of coke region discipline about the Frick ultimatum which was not calculated to promote good feeling at Homestead. Nor did it. The men who drove the sheriff's deputies out of Homestead in 1889 might yield to milder measures, but the crack of the whip was irritating. "Are we to be lashed into Mr. Frick's way of thinking?" men asked one another, and the very thought bred insurrection.
If there was a calm now, it was the calm that preceded a hurricane.
As if to accentuate the sentiment of disaffection among the Homestead people, Mr. Frick accompanied the issuance of his ultimatum with preparations of a warlike character. A large force of men was employed upon the construction of a solid board fence, three miles in extent, surrounding the property of the firm between the Pittsburgh, Virginia & Charleston railroad and the Monongahela river. All the workshops were included within this enclosure. The offices and stables, situated on the other side of the railroad, were similarly enclosed. An elevated wooden bridge connected the two enclosures. The fence was surmounted with strands of barbed wire, and perforated at intervals, as if for the convenience of sharpshooters stationed within, although Mr. Frick, in his testimony before a committee of Congress, averred that the holes were simply for the purpose of observation. High in the air, at the ends of the tall mill buildings, twelve-foot platforms were erected, on which were placed electric search-lights, designed to enable sentinels to keep watch at night over every part of the mill yard.
There was a cold and sanguinary determination about these provisions which boded ill for the workmen. Clearly, the redoubtable tamer of the coke-workers had made up his mind to force a bloody conflict with organized labor, and the wage ultimatum was his defi. One of King John's barons could not equip his feudal castle with more elaborate offensiveness than this nineteenth century ironmaster displayed in fortifying his mill, with the apparent intention of making war – actual war with arms upon the men of Homestead. So it was that the men viewed the preparations at the mill. The supposition that Mr. Frick might regard their disposition as one of invincible stubbornness, sure to lead to deeds of violence, and that his fences, barbed wire, loopholes, platforms and search-lights might be pure measures of self-defense was not entertained for an instant.
The fortification of the mill was a huge threat – a challenge – an insult. With this exhibition of brute force held up before them, the workmen deemed their manhood, as well as the life of their organization to be at stake. Come what might, they must now burn their boats
