The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1892-07-16
HOW THE TROUBLE BEGAN

HOW THE TROUBLE BEGAN
Frick Always an Enemy Of Organ
lied Labor.
While President of tho Edgar Thompson
Stool Company He Drove Out tile
Union---Carcer of Money
Grasper.
PITTsBuRG, Pa.. July Son the south
bank of the narrow Monongahelnr river,
eight miles 20 the southeast of Pitts
burg, is the little town of Homestead,
which the whole world is now watch
ing. There is u levee bordering the
river. but the great Carnegie works oc-
cupy most of this. The town rises
from the river upon tho terraccd and
gently sloping hillsides The houses
are none of them pretcntious. and most
OF them nre the modest homes OF labol-
ers, bath skilled and unskillcd. Each
laborer owns his own house. Each has
little yard about it Ten years ago
Homestead had less than 1000 inh b.
itants, now it has over l2, 1000, of whom
$500 are directly employed by the Car
negie mills These mills with their
dozen largo and substantial buildings
| and their hugo chimnevs, shadow
the whole town and dwarf
1T You SEQ ut a glance,
no matter from what direction
you approach it, that the Carnegie
Steel association is tho life cause the
life. the whole OF this town; that with
out it the town never would have cx-
listed; that with its closing tho town
would be deserted. It's 5, 500 nborers,
with their families and tho few shop
keepers, policemen and other employees
incident to u municipality, arc entirely
dependent upon tho $4,000 handed
out at the little window of tie business
Office to the long line of intelligent and
] prosperous-looleing mon who have
earned it ut the Carnegie mills
Until few weeks ago this town was
place of honest labor, with quiet and
contentment and domestic happiness
The fires in the furnaces blazed night
and day, the machinery never ceased
its roar and the noise OF it filled all the
town under the vast canopy of smoke
from the chimneys. Now tho
sounds of honest industry have ceased.
/ I
into fortress.
into the zeal for violence and
bloodshed. The battle has only be-
gun. The little town is the greatest
l-producing center in the world, the
output being greater than that OF the
immense Krupp works at Essen. These
works, which are but Il branch of the
Carnegie Steel association, occupy ITO
acres with n dozen substantial build
| ings and score of sheds and small
out buildings Here all kinds of iron
work is done from tho making of
Bessemer steel to the making of those
armor plates for war vessels that re-
quire the highest kind of skilled
labor.
This is not the first trouble that has
arisen between tho works and the
men In 1890 there were serious diff
culties which ended III July in that
year with the signing of sliding
scale of wages This scale was signed
for three years. and until early in June
of this year everything has been quiet
But the worllmen have never been fond
of Mr.. Carnegie and his association,
and have grumbled continually und
have announced that they ha nll sorts
of forebodings of evil. These fore
bodings were realized, they claimed,
when Mr. Carnegie ceased to take an
active part in the affairs of the great
association he had formed, and was
succeeded Il short time ago by II. c.
Fricke, who became Mr.. Cnrnegies S
right-hand man and representative
with the official title of chairman of
the board of 'rusteos of the Carnegie
association. The Alnalgamated Asso-
citation of Iron and Steel Workers, of
which all the Homestead workers are
members, does not like and never has
liked Andrew Carnegie. But for II.
G. Fricke it has an antipnthy TINT be-
gan with distrust and has ended in n
hatred, active in the breasts Of each Of
its 5000 memb bers.
The career of this hatred and tho
career of Mr. Frick generally will be
found interesting lie was born in
West 0verton, Westmoreland county,
fifty-two years ngo, He was the son
of fairly prosperous farmer, and be-
gan his commercial career as dry
goods clerk in Mount Pleasant Then
he became book-kccper in his grand
fathers 5 distillery, and there began to
study the possibilities of the manufac-
ture of coke. Before he was % years
old he induced several young men to
go in with him in the building of fifty
coke ovens mt Bradford. Pa. In 1875,
when the great panic came, he saw his
chance and took it The owners of
coke ovens frightened by the de-
pressed markets, were anxious to sell
at almost my price. Young Frick, de-
spite the jeering at the setting of the
Judgment of n boy of 25 against the
experience of old and rich men, bought
all the coke ovens his capital would
permit, leased us many more MS
he could, and. in short, staked his
savings and his credit on the turn of
che coke market The result was that
In less than two years he was n rich
man whose shrewdncSs had marked
him to all the business lnen Of western
Pennsylvania. The Carnegics bought
| an interest In ms coke business. which
has been extended vastly. aud thus he
and Andrew Carnegie camo to know
each other well, and when Carnegie
retired he selected this young m ;llion-
aire to sue CO him us president of the
Edgar thompson Steel company, then
the largest OF the Carnegie interests,
and on Saturday last he became the
head Of the Carnegie Steel association
AS manufacturer of coke he had
bitterly opposed unions, and had sue
cessfully insisted upon managing
his own business without the
aid OF committees from the
unions. AS president of the Edgar
Thompson Steel company he broke
up the union among its employees and
earned the everlasting hatred of tho
Amalgamat ted association. When the
announcement of his promotion came
the Amalgamated associate felt that