The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1892-07-07

and is Independent in its ptews on all
local questions.
The Carnegie Strike and the Riot.
The entire blaule for the terrible trag-
edy on the Monongahela belongs to
Andrew Carnegie and the other mem
bers of the Carnegie Iron Trust. They
instigated and provoked 1t, and the
party which represented them in the
fight was, in the eyes of the law. just
as much a riotous and violent mob as
was the body of strikers who opposed
them.
The iron workers at Homestead
have. in long years of industry, ac-
quired certain rights regarding the
iron works of that place which bear
a strong resemblance to the tenant
right which the Irish farmer is held to
possess in the farm which his labor
has fortified and developed. The
labor, the skill, the sobriety of the
puddlers and heaters and moulders
and fnishers and other operatives have
been the main element In building up
that great industry, which now ranks
among the greatest of its kind In the
world.
Aud while the intelligence, the
training, the toll OF humble thousands
have built up this great industry to be
a pride to the nation, one of the main
PURGE of its wealth, and a leading
element in its military defence, the
principal profits, fabulous in extent
have poured into the pockets of the
capitalistic hackers, and made them
the exposures of the political, social
and artistic worlds by the princeli-
ness of expenditure which they we're
enabled to maintain. Nobody has
complained of this. The part which
capital played in creating the great
industry was recognized. 1t was an
indispensable element of success. The
enterprise displayed by the heads of
the concern also was worthy of rich
compensation. Tue foresight and
wisdom of Carnegie and his fellows,
their careful management and lusty
progressiveness. were all essentials of
the enormous successes that have been
made. and nobody, including their
Homestead workmen grudged them
the splendid fortune they had won or
the brilliant and powerful position it
had brought with it.
But, meanwhile, the workers in the
iron mills had not failed to acquire
certain humble advantages from the
general success. By increasing effort
aid unrelaxing frugality, many in
deed of the greater number of them
had saved money, bought little plots
of ground and built homes, where
they hoped to spend their lives in
rugged comfort and die in peace.
There is something beautiful and
touching in this picture of these men
tying themselves for life to the great
concern they helped to create, but
over which they had no control. by
stalking the savings of their
lives, the money coined from their
very flesh and blood, upon the per-
manent success of the enterprise and
the stability of their own connections
with it. 1t shows that these men had
honest hearts and a manly conscious
ness of the value of their W work
and it is a blot upon the civilization
of the age to think that the confidence
they reposed in their employers whose
fortune they had made, should be
outraged and betrayed, and they
themselves brought face to face with
ruin and starvation to crafty an in
satiable love of gain and a tyrannical
lust of domination.
The change came when National