The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-08-11
STRIKES COST MILLIONS
 TO BOTH CONTESTANTS
Andrew Carnegie and the WOrkmen Spent Princes RanSOmS in the Struggle at Home
 stead in 1892.

Philadelphia Record.
 It costs money to strike. Aside from the loss in wages, the loss to the com panies operating the mills. and the loss to business generally, there IS an lfn- mense financial loss which practically leaves a union bankrupt and in debt before the struggle ends. It makes no matter whether it wins or loses.
 The figures on the Homestead strike have never been made public. That strike, as is we'll known, was disastrous to the Amalgamated Association and fastened the decline of all labor unions. The workingmen almost learned in that dispute the futility of attempting 10 settle disputes by force. TNe lesson was not a thorough one, however, al- though it cost over a million and quarter of dollars.
 Easy in First Few Weeks When the Homestead strike began in 1892 the Amalgamated Association had a strike fund of $1s4,000. The money was on interest in the Lincoln National Ba nk of Hittsburg. It had beeD heaped together out of the contributions of the workmen in the shape of lodge dues and had been accommodating for several years.
 When the Homestead strike began the Amalgamated Association had o2,- oO0 members. About COCO of them be- came mixed up in that trouble. and the other 46, 900 Yemained at work in a vain endeavor to support the strikers. The first few weeks of the strike there were no hardship s and no trouble. Credit was good in the groceries and as it was summer time the children did not need many shoes nor much clothing, Dur ing the first few weeks the fight was on the men carried themselves along. Then the strike benefits began.
 Money Went Like Water. It does not take long to use up $164.- 900 when there are 5000 men drawing a weekly sum from 1t to support them selves and families. The money lasted only 6 little while and then the assess ments began to fall on the working members of the association. The money poured in through the head quarters of the Amalgamated and when the trouble ended the books of the as- sociation showed that $1.325.0O0 had been distributed among the strikers in Homestead or for their benefit. The strike practically lasted about three months. The average wages of an ironworker is $So per month. Six thou sand men. on a most conservative esti- mate, lost during the continuance of that struggle $1,440.00o.
 But the expense to the strikers was the little end of the real expense at- tached to that great dispute. It Is but little of a secret where the strikers spent their money. It went for the support of the men and the trials of the Homestead alleged poisoners. Hugh Dempsey and others, and the murder trials of Hugh O'Donnell, Jack Critch- low and the rest of the leaders in the strike cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Cyclone" William Erwin, the Minneapolis lawyer, whose fervid speech about following Pinkerton de- tectives to "the burning bosom of the Prince of Hell and shooting them there" cost $20.000. was one of the most expensive luxuries. There was a bright galaxy of lawyers there" Erwin and Montooth and Porter and other men whose names are known wherever criminal proceedings are tried-and they all cost money. It was a most expensive days amusement, that 9th day of July. 1892.
 The Company WAlipns.
 But nobody knows, nor~will they ever know, what the strike cost the Car negie Steel Company. It Is safe to say that the cost to the men was as noth- ing compared with the coststo the com pany The books which contain the record of expenses sustained then are sealed, and will never be opened to the prying eyes of the public. It is safe to assume that the strike cost the com pany a couple of millions of dollars lass in profits.
 That was only the beginning, how ever. The loss on broken machinery, broken while training new and inexpe- rienced men to take the places of the skilled strikers, is claimed by the men to have been as much more when ad- ded to the loss on material spoiled by the green hands. Then came the trials.
 No trials in the Allegheny County Court were ever fought more bitterly. District Attorney Clarence Burleigh. who is now city attorney of Pittsburg handled his side of the case with a vim and vigor that left no doubt whether or not the was working to convict But he had able lawyers to assist him, and they were high priced ones at that. The Carnegie Steel Company had Cap tain Brecht and William Patterson and many others who appeared in court, besides many others who were never heard of in connection with the case.
 Convictions Were Expensive.
 Five hundred thousand dollars would not more than pay the expense of those trials for the steel company, while the expense to the taxpayers of Allegheny County would mount well up into six figures There was an army of detec- tlves on both sides, and never a dollar was spared by either party If 1t would do a particle of good.
 HnRh DAmDSeV got seven VeQIS for the Homestead poisoraSg. His col leagues got four years Berkman, who shot Fl. c. Prick, got twenty-one years Bauer and Knold, two poor Germans from Allegheny. got four years for dis tributing Socialistic literature among the strikers at Homestead. Several others got few months in the work house for rioting. At an expenditure of fully $1,000,000 not dozen convlc- tions were secured andAnone of them were for high crimes except Berk- mans.
 Will Cost More Than Homestead.
 Che present strike will cost more than the one in Homstead. No per son outside of the national officers knows how many men there are ill the Amalgamated Association today. After the defeat at Homestead the organi- zation almost went to pieces. It was bankrupt in its treasury and in its reputation. The men deserted it like rats fleeing from a laundering ship. But the spirit was only bent a little. It was not broken.
 After Theodore Shaffer was made