Homestead Strike Quotes

Let us consider some of the most important Anarchist acts within the last two decades. Strange as it may seem, one of the most significant deeds of political violence occurred here in America, in connection with the Homestead strike of 1892. During that memorable time the Carnegie Steel Company organized a conspiracy to crush the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers. Henry Clay Frick, then Chairman of the Company, was intrusted with that democratic task. He lost no time in carrying out the policy of breaking the Union, the policy which he had so successfully practiced during his reign of terror in the coke regions. Secretly, and while peace negotiations were being purposely prolonged, Frick supervised the military preparations, the fortification of the Homestead Steel Works, the erection of a high board fence, capped with barbed wire and provided with loopholes for sharpshooters. And then, in the dead of night, he attempted to smuggle his army of hired Pinkerton thugs into Homestead, which act precipitated the terrible carnage of the steel workers. Not content with the death of eleven victims, killed in the Pinkerton skirmish, Henry Clay Frick, good Christian and free American, straightway began the hounding down of the helpless wives and orphans, by ordering them out of the wretched Company houses.

the headline death and disaster atop the latest dispatch from Homestead. “Capital and labor have met once more on a bloody field,” the article stated. “Never in the history of strikes and riots, since the railroad riots of 1877, have there been so many lives sacrificed, and such fighting between the representatives of the two great social divisions.” Members of the Pennsylvania National Guard were on their way to restore order, the dispatch reported. He and Goldman had been right. It was clear that Frick would soon vanquish the strikers. Exiting the station, Berkman looked to the east. Above him, perched on what locals still called Jenkins Hill, the Capitol dome was bathed in a flood of golden light from the deep red sun rising behind it. “Like a living thing the light palpitates,” Berkman recalled, “trembling with passion to kiss the uppermost peak, striking it with blinding brilliancy, and then spreading in a broadening embrace down the shoulders of the towering giant.

Finally, I applied to one of my roommates, more sagacious than the rest, for advice. Dave, I said. I’m broke and without prospects. I’ve blown my GI Bill on flying lessons. I can’t hide out here in college much longer. What should I do? Well, he said, at this crucial juncture you need to coldly appraise yourself. “I’ve only known you these few short years, but it strikes me you wouldn’t be good for anything important; I’d have to say you’re lazy, self-absorbed, glib and facetious, always ready to mock the suggestions of others, but never offering anything positive of your own. Intellectually shallow, no tap root anywhere, spiritually neutered, without feeling or compassion, unsteady of focus, lacking the fortitude for the long pull, with no fixed belief in anything.” I shook his hand and thanked him. The acuity of his analysis made my path clear. My only hope lay in daily journalism.

It seems that the real reason Asia is erroneously credited with being the sole origin of Martial Arts is that Europe and other regions failed to maintain their unarmed fighting styles. With the dawn of more deadly weapons, the more rudimentary arts of self-defence were discarded. After all, if the enemy is pelting your homestead with cannons it seems moot to learn a good throat strike.  

Heard of a chap once who reckoned it was good enough for a bath, but by the time he’d got himself nicely soaped the shower was travelling on ten miles a minute, and there wasn’t another drop of rain for a fortnight, which wasn’t too pleasant for the prickly heat.” The homestead rubbed its back in sympathy against the nearest upright, and Dan added that “of course the soap kept the mosquitoes dodged a bit,” which was something to be thankful for. “There generally is something to be thankful for, if you only reckon it out,” he assured all. But the traveller, reduced to a sweltering prickliness by his exertions, wasn’t “noticing much at present,” as he rubbed his back in his misery against the saddle of the horse he was unpacking. Then his horse, shifting its position, trod on his foot; and as he hopped round, nursing his stinging toes, Dan found an illustration for his argument. “Some chaps,” he said, “ ’ud be thankful to have toes to be trod on”; and ducking to avoid a coming missile, he added cheerfully, “But there’s even an advantage about having wooden legs at times. Heard once of a chap that reckoned ’em just the thing. Trod on a death-adder unexpected-like in his camp, and when the death-adder whizzed round to strike it, just struck wood, and the chap enjoyed his supper as usual that night. That chap had a wooden leg,” he added, unnecessarily explicit; and then his argument being nicely rounded off, he lent a hand with the pack-bags.

The commission paid attention as Clouser made his case against the offensive sign at Menard Park, then voted to have the sign removed. Moreover, they designated a square block, bordered by Avenues P and Q and 41st and 42nd streets, as a playground for black children. This was a magnificent, though short-lived, victory for Galveston’s blacks. Unfortunately, it created a backlash among a group of white racists. White vigilantes burned crosses at the site of the proposed park, and held a series of indignation meetings. Eventually, they forced a referendum vote, the first in Galveston’s history. By a two-to-one margin the commission was overturned, and the site became a park for white children instead. To placate the blacks the commission voted to turn a second site on what had been the old Lasker homestead into Wright Cuney Park for blacks. Most blacks accepted the compromise, but not John Clouser, who waited a chance to strike back at the power structure.