The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1892-07-12
Railroad Graders Supplies.
HAY AND GRAIN.
HELENA.

17H, and is directly opposite Homestead.
At that place the big rail mills and blast
furnaces of the Carnegie company are To-
Gated.
Homestead lies on a broad stretch of level
lane along tho river bank. The mills are
workmen are further back and reach up the
hills which slope rather stesply from the
fats. Up the river from the mills, and just
above Homestead, is the Pittsburg Door
farm, which has Just been sold to the Car
neQie COMPANY: 1t. too: is on the river
ton, a branch of the Pennsylvania, and the
Pittsburp, McKeesport & Youghiogheny
railroads run through the town just outside
the mills, with a number of spurs running
into them. The latter road crosses to the
north bank a short distance above Home
stead.
The $500 mon who are engaged in the
present struggle are nearly ali members of
the A"malgamatsd Association Of Iron and
Steel Workers, one of the most powerful la
Dor unions in the country. The skilled
workmen are chiefly Americana, English.
Welsh and Irish, while there is a large pro-
portion Of Poles and Hunearinns among
the unskilled workmen. Unlike other iron
and steel workers the Homestead men do
not arrange their scale of wages annually.
Three years ago they agreed op a sliding
scale, the wages for each three months to
be based On the average price Of steel bill
lets for the previous three months, but the
at $25 a ton we're to be the min
imum. For some time steel billets
have been below $25 a ton and, the agree
ment having expired June 30, the company
wanted to reduce The minimum and pro-
posed . reduction OF wages running az high
rs so per cent. Al the men rejected the re-
duotion. they were discharged and prepara-
tvnnu WnRn v1 oIA tn Erip,p i ,, n u ynAr Tho
mill was fenced aad fortified. as has been
been described in previous dispatches.
The determination of the men to resist
being %supplanted by new men ia the more
intense because a majority Of them own
homes in Homestead, many of which are
away, it would be q great sacrifice.
simultaneously with the beginning of
this struggle all the Carnegie interests were
consolidated under the mana ement Of II.
G. Friok, who visited the coast with Andrew
Carnegie last spring. MI. Frick has had a
great deal OF experience in labor disputes.
He made his millions in the Connellsville
coke business and has had conflicts with
workmen in 1892, 1886. 1883 and 1891. In
1882 he destroyed the miners union
and brought III Hungarians to sup
plant its members. but in 1886
. new struggle began, and these
same Hungarians in their law!ess fury
swept all before them. In 1888 MI. Friok
broke away from the other members of the
coke syndicate and yielded to the workmen,
forced to it bv Carnegie's need of coke, but
the other operators continued the struggle,
which WAS marked by riots, burning of
tipplea. employment of Pinkerton mon and
final defeat for the workmen. Last year
there WAS an even more desperate struggle,
in which a fatal riot occurred at Frick's
Norwood works. the Pinkerton men being
led by the same Captain Helm who tiau ed
in Wednesdays riot. This time Mr.. Friok
replaced his Hungstians with Italia ms and
noQrOoB.