The Portland daily press., 1892-08-06
ADMITS OF NO DEFENCE.

That the spirit of riot is still rampant
among the strikers at Homestead is
shown by the attack upon the workmen
at the Duquesne mill The men there
who had been out had just signed the
scale and decided to return to work.
When this news reached the Homestead
strikers they organized committee to
go and see the Duquesne men, and en-
deavor by moral s1asion to induce them
to remain out. The committee, which
appears to have been a pretty numerous
body, was led by two Englishmen, and it
started out at such time as would en-
able it to intercept the workmen while
on the way to the mill. What followed
is told by dispatch to the Boston Her
aid as follows:
When the committee got to Duquesne
the men in it took up positions by the
paths leading to the mills, SO as to in
tercept the workmen before they reached
the companys property.
The worlmen began coming shortly
after o'clock by twos and threes. The
first pair got about half way down the
side of the gully before they were
stopped by any of the committeeman.
The committeeman asked them where
they were going. The men said they
were going to the mill. The Home
stead committee tried to stop them by
argument.
BY this time crowd of from 90 to 80
of the committeeman had gathered, and
stood between the mill and the work
men.
One of the workmen started to force
his way through the crowd. One of the
committee stepped up to him and hit
him in the face with his fist. The blow
staggered the man, but he kept on trying
to reach the mill. In a moment he was
knocked down, pounded, punched and
kicked.
His fellow-workman was also attacked
and pounded.
They were glad enough to escape with
their lives in a few minutes.
In the meantime another pair of work
men had been held up by others of the
committee. A relative of Supt Morris
sey of the mill was dubbed and struck
on the head with brickbats and stones.
His head was laid open and he was fear
fully bruised about the body.
This sort of amusement progressed for
at least 10 minutes, and in all from - to
IS men were waylaid and thumped The
last man was Foreman Millstagle. The
committee evidently had it in for him.
They gave him a severe beating. He
barely escaped with his life.
The deputy sheriffs stationed in the
town marched to the rescue. The COM
mittee did not have half it's fill of fight.
The men fell on the sheriffs and drove
them off.
The upshot of the affair was that a
regiment of militia had to be called out
to dispense the committee, which it did
at the point Of the bayonet. The attack
upon the Pinkertons has been extenuated
on the ground that they were the agents
of capital, especially hateful to labor,
and that the ultimate purpose of the
bringing of them to Homestead was to
intimidate the strikers into an abandon
ment of what the latter conceived to be
their rights. But this Duquesne affair
admits of no such extenuation. The
men assaulted were workingmen, whose
only offence was that they had, in the ex-
CIClSC VI Clldb llCClAOII UudU 10 ouRPOpOb
to belong to every American citizen,
concluded to go to work rather than re-
main idle, as the strikers desired them
to. They were not filling the places of
strikers. They were simply resuming
their old employment, which they had
temporarily thrown up out of sympathy
with their Homestead brethren. But the
strikers fell upon them with as much
savageness as upon the ''hated agents of
capitap' the Pinkertons. 1t will be said,
of course, that this outrage is not coun-
tenanced by the more intelligent portion
of the strikers, and that may be true.
But just such outrages always occur in
the progress of an extensive strike, and
the better disposed part of the strikers
have seldom interfered to prevent them.
Apparently they look upon them very
much as the chest people, in the South
look upon negro assassination, as bad
and indefensible in themselves, yet wink
at them because they are perpetrated to
help along the cause in which they are
interested. Nothing could be more bru-
tai and cowardly than this assault upon
the Duquesne laborers, and yet there are
thousands of ordinarily humane and law
abiding people, who will defend it, or at
least wink at it, on the ground that it
was committed in the name of labor.
Only a few weeks ago the Homestead
strikers were complaining that the pres
ence of the troops, and the preparations
to preserve order constituted gross libel
upon them, inasmuch as they implied that
they were disposed to resort to illegal
methods to accomplish their purpose,
and yet here is a spectacle of a COM
mittee of these same strikers, who while
ago were so sensitive of their good name,
deliberately lying in wait for their fellow
workmen and pummelling them within
an inch of their lives because, forsooth
they saw fit to work rather than remain
idle-beeause they preferred to earn
bread for their families by honest toll
rather than let them suffer or remand