Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-07-19
rITTsBuRG. TUESDAY. JULY 10. 1892.
TWELVE PAGES
LET JUSTICE BE IMPARTIAL.

The particular development of the
Homestead affair yesterday which will at
tract most attention was the swearing out
OF warrants by Secretary Lovejoy of the
Carnegie Company against Burgess Nc
Luckie, Hugh O'Donnell, Sylvester Critch-
low, Anthony Flaherty, Samuel Burkett,
James Flanagan and Hugh Ross, leaders
among the locked out men, directly
charging them with murder. The victims
named in the information are one of the
Pinkerton force and resident Of Home
stead who fell in the firing on the early
morning of the 9Th.
That prosecutions of some sort would
be undertaken was of course evident from
the first Where blood is shed in defiance
of law there must be legal inquiry, and
clear adjustment of the responsibility as
the facts may disclose it. The supposition
prevailed that the Coroner's investigation
would, as usual in such cases, bring out the
testimony and lay the basis for action by
the county authorities. But for some
reason this has dropped out Of sight, and
the Carnegie Company's officers yesterday
took the initiative.
Where lives OF liberty of individuals are
at stake it is not the custom to forejudge
the results of proceedings in courts. The
Homestead affray presents an instance Of
such grave concern, that the parties to it
and the public are entitled to the facts
under oath as to the part taken by accused
and to an exposition of the law from the
Courts rather than from the press. tits in
place, however, to note the probable de-
fense of the persons against whom the
warrants are sworn. Some of them at
least will doubtless claim that they either
did not do the shooting, OF as in the case
of O'Donnell and Burgess McLuckie and
other members of the Advisory Committee
that they were on the ground in semi
official capacity. Not improbably it may
be set up that their purpose was to pre-
vent violence. How much legal force
these points will carry in Court or what
the facts are to give them color can only
be known when the sworn evidence is
heard.
But it is also necessary to note that the
Carnegie Company's officers and the men,
bers OF the Pinkerton force are them
selves not wholly free from the possibility
of being subjected to legal proceedings.
From the day of the conflict to the pres
ent moment, the impartial public judg-
ment has been that they made at the least
a serious and utterly inexcusable blunder
in not placing the assertion of their legal
rights in the hands of the regularly au-
thorized officials of the county, to be
prosecuted in the due and orderly course
of law Instead they resorted to the de-
vice of organizing private military force
and proceeded literally with an army to
battle. The wrong-doing of the locked
out men in taking possession of the Car
negie works, and in entering upon a
bloody conflict is not defended or paIliated
in any quarter; but the full recognition Of
that and the prosecution of those con-
cerned, does not relieve the Company in
the least from any moral or legal response
bility its agents incurred on their own be-
half.
1t was held by the veteran criminal law
yer General Butler-whose knowledge of
law is not to be lightly dismissed, how
ever his views on other questions be criti-
cised-that the Carnegie Company agents
were themselves indictable precisely in the
manner and form in which the leaders of
the men are now prosecuted. Other law
yers, also, have not hesitated to declare
that legally the Pinkerton force and its
organizers and the men who met them in
bloody conflict were in law all rioters to-
gether, and should be punished as such.
The company's counsel hold that the COM
pany had the same right to bring armed
forces to take possession of its property
that man would have had to defend his
house; but there is widespread doubt about
this view. Also the reliance placed upon
the intimation that the Pinkerton force
was in the nature of posse comitatus
may prove exceedingly shaky when it is
tested in court
The idea of posse comitatus-a force
of the county supposed to be made up of
citizens of the county-does not harmonic
very well with regiment of mercenaries
gathered from Philadelphia, Chicago, Gin
cinnati and other points outside of the
State, and stealthily armed for secret ex-
pedition. The law, in asserting the ma
jesty of its processes, neither contemplates
resistance from citizens, nor ordinarily |
comes upon them like thief in the night. |
A single Sheriff's officer, armed with such |
a writ from the Court as the Philadelphia |
Ledger has pointed out might have been
under the act of 1886, for the es-
tablishment of the company in its prop |
erty, would have succeeded where the |
expedition failed.
Prosecutions under the law are neces- |
sary for its vindication. 1t would have |
been better if the county officials had |
investigated fully and then proceeded |
sarlessly, in place of leaving it to one of |
lie combatants to start the proceedings. |
But, now that the law has gone into i
motion, let it not fail to be thorough; and |
if the Carnegie Oompany's agents have
,Ilned against it let them also answer. 1t |
IS rs desirable to know the limits to the |
evying of private war by corporations as
& IS to visit justice upon the most mis-
rp.ded, violent and dangerous of their
IL agonists.
HODGE AND THE HAYSEEDS.
Ono of tho Striklno features in tbo |