The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1892-08-02
TOO EXPENSIVE AT ANY PRICE.
Cost I'm Money of the Disturbance at Home
stead.

Cost I'm Money Of the Disturbance at Home
stead.
Brooklyn Eagle.
Whatever may be said about the advisa-
bIlity of strikes, there can be no doubt
about their unprofitableness from u iinsn-
cial point of view. The wOrkmen in Home
stead have been idle for q month be-
cause Of their refusal to accept the re-
vised scale of wages which the Car,
negie company offered to pay them. and
they have lost in that time at least $3.50 600.
If they had continued at their work they
would have received $1S0.000 in wages
which they would have used in me etin &
the ordinary expenses of living. Instead.
however. of having an income. they
have been com pelled to diminish their re-
serve fund, TO draw on the savings OF the
years w hen they were working. 1t would
be q small estimate to place the amount so
used at $4,000 - less than one half
of their average monthly wages Few
families save so per cent. of their
earnings, so that $50 zoo would be nearer
the expenditures of the Homestead people
during the last four weeks. Should they
return to work to- morrow IL would be five
months before they we're as well off as at
the time when they went out OF the mills.
This Is in Homestead alone. The workmen
at Beaver Falls, Duquesne and the Union
mills in Pittsburg, who struck out of SYM
pathy, have lost 100000 in wages. but
their actual loss on the above basis IS
much larger.
But il is not the idle workmen alone who
suffer. The State has incurred debt to
it's military forces of $500. 900 which the tax
payers must meet The Carnegie company
has lost the interest on its valuable plant
which is lying almost idle for want of men.
1t has spent large sums of money in at
tempts to get new MEN and in repairing the
damages done to the works by the strikers.
PEELED TO close down their works be-
cause of the failure of the Carnegie mills
to keep them supplied with material are
also losing money. Allegheny county will
have to pay the expenses OF large mum Der
of deputy sheriffs and the cost of several
murder trials This is simply the cost in
money of the disturbance. No account is
taken of the loss of ten lives, of the suffer
ing of forty or fifty men wounded In the
disgraceful fight which occurred early in
the month or of the loss OF confidence
which the sober-minded part of the COM
munity had hitherto reposed in the pru-
dence and discretion of the Pennsy lvania
workingmen.
All this loss of material wealth would not
be worthy of mention IT 1t was for any
No one thinks of counting the cost of the
civil war. Had the national debt in conse-
quence of 1t been swelled to
twice or three times its size. that
which was purchased by the money
would not have been called expensive.
Liberty 10 not to be measured by gold and
silver coin. Some of the Homestead strik-
ers may have thought that they were con-
tending for liberty. but their error has
been pointed out to them by every one ex-
cept the Anarchists and few demagogica
newspapers.
The whole trouble has come because they
have denied the right of an employer to
manage his own busIness and of the la Dor.
ing man to work Tor hom he pleases
This is right which is fundamental, and
any organization based on any other prin
ciple is like the house built upon the sane DIS
and any contest TO establish any Other
principle will eventually end in the defeat
of those who engage in it.