A Short History of Pittsburgh Part 3

For many years the Carnegie Steel Company, whose princ.i.p.al works were situated at Homestead, just outside the present boundaries of the city, had employed a large number of skilled workmen who belonged to the Amalgamated a.s.sociation of Iron and Steel Workers, and had contracted for their employment with the officers of that a.s.sociation. On July 1, 1889, a three years' contract was made which was to terminate at the end of June, 1892. The workmen were paid by the ton, the amount they received depending on the selling price of steel billets of a specified size which they produced. If the price of these billets advanced, the wages they received per ton advanced proportionately. If the price declined, their wages also declined to a certain point, called a minimum, but a decline in the selling price below this minimum caused no reduction in wages. The minimum was fixed in the contract at $25.00 per ton. At the date the contract was made the market price of the billets was $26.50 per ton.

As the time drew near for the contract to expire, the Carnegie Company, through its chairman, Mr. Henry C. Frick, submitted to the workmen belonging to the a.s.sociation a proposition as the basis of a new contract. The three most important features of the proposed contract were, first, a reduction in the minimum of the scale for billets from $25.00 to $22.00; second, a change in the expiration of the date of the scale from June 30th to December 31st; third, a reduction of tonnage rates at those furnaces and mills in which, by reason of the introduction of improved machinery, the earnings of the workmen had been increased far beyond the liberal calculation of their employers. At those places where no such improvements had been made, no reduction in tonnage rates was proposed. The company gave as a reason for reducing the minimum that the market price of steel had gone down below $25.00 per ton, and that it was unfair for the workmen to have the benefits of a rise in the market above $25.00, and share none of the losses of the company when the market price fell below that figure. Indeed, the company contended that there ought to be no minimum as there was no maximum under the sliding scale. The workmen insisted that there ought to be a minimum to protect them against unfair dealing between the company and its buyers, as they had no voice or authority in selling the products of their labor.

The reason for changing the time for closing the contract was that the company's business was less active at the end of the calendar year than in midsummer, and that it was easier to complete new arrangements for employment at that time. Another reason was that the company often made sales for an entire year, and consequently contracts for labor could be more safely made if they began and ended at times corresponding with contracts made with their customers. The workmen opposed this change in the duration of the contract on the ground that in midwinter they would be less able to resist any disposition on the part of the company to cut down their wages, and that in the event of a strike, it would be more difficult to maintain their situation than it would be in summer. They claimed, therefore, that the change in time would be a serious disadvantage to them in negotiating with their employers. They proposed to the company, as a counter proposition, that the contract should end the last of June, as had formerly been the case, and that if any change was to be demanded, three months' notice must be given them, and that, if this was not done, the contract, which was to run for three years, should continue for a year longer; in other words, from June 30, 1895, until June 30, 1896. This suggestion was rejected by the company. But the company then proposed to make the minimum $23.00 per ton for steel billets, and the a.s.sociation, through its committee, named a price of $24.00, refusing to concede any more.

While these negotiations were pending, the superintendent of the Homestead Steel Works had concluded contracts with all the employees, except three hundred and twenty-five of the highest skill, who were employed in three of the twelve departments. All the others were to be paid on the former basis of remuneration without any reduction whatever.

Of the three hundred and twenty-five high-priced men with whom contracts had not been made, two hundred and eighty would have been affected by the tonnage reductions and about forty-five more by the tonnage reductions and scale minimum.

Under the proposed readjustments those who received the low grades of compensation and the common laborers would not have been touched in their earnings. The actual controversy was thus narrowed down to a small number of men, less than ten per cent. of those employed at Homestead.

During the remainder of the month of June other steps were taken to effect an agreement, but the relations between the officers of the company and the workmen, instead of improving, grew worse. On the 28th the company began to close the different departments, and on the last day of the month work in all of them ceased. On July 1st the striking workmen congregated about the gates, stopped the foremen and employees who came to work, and persuaded them to go away. The watchmen of the company were turned away from the works; guards were placed at all the entrances, the river, streets and roads entering the town were patrolled by strikers, and a rigid surveillance was exercised over those who entered the town or approached the plant. When the sheriff came on July 4th and attempted to put deputies of his own selection in possession of the works, to guard them for the company, he was opposed by a counter force, the striking workmen proposing to place guards of their own and give indemnity for the safety of the property; but this the sheriff declined because it would enable the strikers to keep any new non-union men from taking their places. On July 5th, when the sheriff sent twelve deputies to take possession of the works, they were driven away.

In the meantime Mr. Frick had begun negotiations as early as June 20th with Robert A. Pinkerton, of New York, for the employment of three hundred watchmen to be placed in the works at Homestead. They were brought from Ashtabula to Youngstown by rail, thence to Pittsburgh by river. On the evening of July 5th, Captain Rodgers' two boats, with Deputy Sheriff Gray, Superintendent Potter, of the Homestead works, and some of his a.s.sistants, on board, dropped down the river with two barges in tow, until they met the Pinkerton men. When the boat, with the barges in tow, approached Homestead in the early morning of the 6th, they were discovered by a small steamer used by the strikers as a patrol, and the alarm was given. A short war of words was followed by firing on each side, which resulted ultimately in the death of three of the Pinkertons and seven of the workmen, and the wounding of many on each side. After a brief fusillade those on sh.o.r.e fled in various directions, and the Pinkerton men retreated into their barges. About five o'clock in the afternoon the Pinkertons surrendered, being allowed to take out their clothing, but their arms and supplies fell into the possession of the Homestead people. The barges were immediately set on fire and burned, and in their burning the pump-house belonging to the Carnegie Company was also destroyed. The Pinkerton men, now being practically prisoners of war, were marched up-town to the skating-rink for temporary imprisonment. The sheriff was notified, and he came down that night and took the prisoners away. He then informed the governor of Pennsylvania of what had occurred, and called upon him for troops to enforce the law and restore public order. Governor Pattison made a prompt response to this appeal, as his duty under the law required him to do. On the morning of the 12th the soldiers of the State militia entered Homestead.

As soon as they arrived the Carnegie Company took possession of its works, and began to make preparations to resume work with non-union men.

It was difficult to secure employees, and several months pa.s.sed away before the company was able to obtain all the men it desired. At first the new employees were fed and housed within the enclosure, and this plan continued for several weeks until their number had increased to such a degree that they felt secure in going outside for their meals with the protection afforded by the sheriff's deputies.

The company made an effort to employ their old workmen and fixed a time for receiving applications for employment from them. When the time had expired, however, which was on July 21st, not one partic.i.p.ant in the strike had returned. At a later period many of the old employees returned to work. By the close of July, nearly a thousand men were at work at Homestead. On July 23d Mr. Frick was shot in his office by Alexander Berkman, an anarchist, who was not, and never had been, an employee. The chairman recovered from his wounds and his a.s.sailant was sent to the penitentiary.

The last of the troops were not withdrawn until October 13th. At that time the mill was in full operation with non-union men.

Though the strike was ended in October, its formal termination by the Amalgamated a.s.sociation was not declared until November 20th, when the disposition of the strikers to return to work was very general. a.s.suming that the strike lasted nearly five months, as the monthly pay-roll of the mill was about $250,000, the loss to the striking employees for that period was not far from $1,250,000. No estimate of the loss sustained by the company has been published. The cost to the State in sending and maintaining the National Guard at Homestead was $440,256.31.

INDUSTRIAL

I

Pittsburgh has thus pa.s.sed through many battles, trials, afflictions, and adversities, and has grown in the strength of giants until it now embraces in the limits of the county a population rapidly approaching one million. This seems a proper moment, therefore, turning away from the romantic perspective of history, to attempt a brief description of Pittsburgh as we see her to-day. In order to give value to the record it will be necessary to employ certain statistics, but the effort will be to make these figures as little wearisome as possible. The present population after the annexation of Allegheny (December 6, 1907) is estimated at 550,000, and if we were to add McKeesport with its tube mills, Homestead with its Carnegie works, and East Pittsburgh with its Westinghouse plants, all of which lie just outside of the present corporate limits, the population would be 700,000. In 1900 we can give the population definitely (omitting Allegheny) at 321,616, of whom 85,032 were foreign born and 17,040 were negroes. Of these foreign born 21,222 were natives of Germany, 18,620 of Ireland, 8,902 of England, 6,243 of Russian Poland, 5,709 of Italy, 4,107 of Russia, 3,553 of Austria, 3,515 of German Poland, 2,539 of Wales, 2,264 of Scotland, 2,124 of Hungary, 1,072 of Sweden, 1,025 of Austrian Poland, and 154 Chinese.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Pittsburgh, showing the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers]

II

It has already been said that the city is a gateway from the East to the West and South, and as such it is the center of a vast railway system.

The princ.i.p.al railroads serving Pittsburgh are the Pennsylvania, Baltimore and Ohio, the New York Central Lines, and the Wabash System, and she has also a numerous fleet of boats plying the three rivers. Coal is brought to the city by boats as well as by rail, and great fleets of barges carry it and other heavy freight down the Ohio. A s.h.i.+p ca.n.a.l for the establishment of water transportation between Pittsburgh and Lake Erie (127.5 miles) has been projected. The railroads carry through Pittsburgh over eight per cent. of all the railroad traffic of the United States; and have a particularly heavy tonnage of coal, c.o.ke, and iron and steel products; while a large proportion of the iron ore that is produced in the Lake Superior region is brought here to supply Pittsburgh manufactures. The total railway and river tonnage is greater than that of any other city in the world, amounting in 1906 to 122,000,000 tons, of which about 12,000,000 tons were carried on boats down the Ohio. Her tonnage is equal to one half the combined tonnage of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The following table will be very interesting as showing the extraordinary fact that the tonnage of Pittsburgh exceeds the combined tonnage of the five other greatest cities in the world (1902):

Pittsburgh 86,636,680 tons London 17,564,110 tons New York 17,398,000 "

Antwerp 16,721,000 "

Hamburg 15,853,490 "

Liverpool 13,157,720 "

---------- Total 80,694,320 "

---------- Pittsburgh's excess 5,942,360 "

Pittsburgh has freight yards with a total capacity for more than 60,000 cars. Its harbor has a total length on the three rivers of twenty-eight miles, with an average width of about one thousand feet, and has been deepened by the Davis Island Dam (1885) and by dredging. Slack water navigation has been secured on the Allegheny River by locks and dams at an expense of more than a million and a quarter dollars. The Monongahela River from Pittsburgh to the West Virginia State line (91.5 miles) was improved by a private company in 1836, which built seven locks and dams. This property was condemned and bought by the United States Government, in 1897 for $3,761,615, and the Government is planning to rebuild and enlarge these works.

Pittsburgh is surrounded by the most productive coal-fields in the country. The region is also rich in petroleum and natural gas, and although the petroleum in the immediate vicinity has been nearly exhausted, it is still obtained through pipes from the neighboring regions. The first petroleum pipe line reached Pittsburgh in 1875.

Pittsburgh is also a port of entry, and for the year ending December, 1907, the value of its imports amounted to $2,416,367.

In 1806 the manufacture of iron was begun, and by 1825 this had become the leading industry. Among the earlier prominent iron industries was the Kensington Iron Works, of which Samuel Church (born February 5, 1800; died December 7, 1857), whose family has been resident in Pittsburgh from 1822 to the present day, was the leading partner. In the manufacture of iron and steel products Pittsburgh ranks first among the cities of the United States, their value in 1905 amounting to $92,939,860, or 53.3 per cent. of the total of the whole country.

Several towns in the near neighborhood are also extensively engaged in the same industry, and in 1902 Allegheny County produced about 24 per cent. of the pig iron; nearly 34 per cent. of the Bessemer steel; 44 per cent. of the open hearth steel; 53 per cent. of the crucible steel; 24 per cent. of the steel rails, and 59 per cent. of the structural shapes that were made that year in the United States. In 1905 the value of Pittsburgh's foundry and machine-shop products amounted to $9,631,514; of the product of steam railroad repair shops, $3,726,990; of malt liquors, $3,166,829; of slaughtering and meat-packing products, $2,732,027; of cigars and cigarettes, $2,297,228; of gla.s.s, $2,130,540; and of tin and terne plate, $1,645,570. Electrical machinery, apparatus, and supplies were manufactured largely in the city, to a value in 1905 of $1,796,557. The Heinz Company has its main pickle plant in Pittsburgh, the largest establishment of its kind in the world.

Pittsburgh's first gla.s.s works was built in 1797 by James O'Hara. In 1900, and for a long period preceding, the town ranked first among American cities in the manufacture of gla.s.s, but in 1905 it was outranked in this industry by Muncie, Indiana, Millville, New Jersey, and Was.h.i.+ngton, Pennsylvania; but in the district outside of the limits of Pittsburgh much gla.s.s is manufactured, so that the Pittsburgh gla.s.s district is still the greatest in the country. In Pittsburgh or its immediate vicinity the more important plants of the United States Steel Corporation are located, including the Carnegie Works at Homestead. Just outside the limits also are the plants of the Westinghouse Company for the manufacture of electrical apparatus, of air-brakes which George Westinghouse invented in 1868, and of devices for railway signals which he also invented.

Alexander Johnston Ca.s.satt, one of the greatest of the Pennsylvania Railroad presidents, and perhaps the most far-seeing and resourceful of all our captains of industry of the present generation, was born here.

James McCrea, the present wise and conservative president of that road, lived here for twenty years. Andrew Carnegie, Henry Phipps, and Henry C.

Frick were the strongest personalities who grew up with the Carnegie steel interests. George Westinghouse, whose inventive genius, as shown in his safety appliances, has so greatly reduced the hazards of railway travel and of operation, has long been one of the industrial and social pillars of the community. John A. Brashear, astronomer and educator, the maker of delicate instruments, is a well-beloved citizen.

Pittsburgh ranks high as a banking center. She is the second city in the United States in banking capital and surplus, and leads all American cities in proportion of capital and surplus to gross deposits, with 47.1 per cent., while Philadelphia ranks second with 26 per cent. In 1906, there were one hundred and seventy-nine banks and trust companies in the Pittsburgh district with a combined capital of $72,058,402, and a surplus of $87,044,622. The gross deposits were $395,379,783, while the total resources amounted to $593,392,069. Pittsburgh, with clearing-house exchanges amounting to $2,640,847,046, ranks sixth among the cities of the United States, being exceeded by the following cities in the order named: New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, and St.

Louis, and often on a given day exceeds those of St. Louis.

III

The tax valuation of Pittsburgh property is $609,632,427. She mines one quarter of the bituminous coal of the United States. With an invested capital of $641,000,000, she has 3,029 mills and factories with an annual product worth $551,000,000, and 250,000 employees on a pay-roll of about $1,000,000 a day, or $350,000,000 a year. Her electric street-railway system multiplies itself through her streets for four hundred and ninety-two miles. Natural-gas fuel is conveyed into her mills and houses through one thousand miles of iron pipe. Her output of c.o.ke makes one train ten miles long every day throughout the year. Seven hundred pa.s.senger trains and ten thousand loaded freight cars run to and from her terminals every day. Nowhere else in the world is there so large a Bessemer-steel plant, crucible-steel plant, plate-gla.s.s plant, chimney-gla.s.s plant, table-gla.s.s plant, air-brake plant, steel-rail plant, cork works, tube works, or steel freight-car works. Her armor sheaths our battle-s.h.i.+ps, as well as those of Russia and j.a.pan. She equips the navies of the world with projectiles and range-finders. Her bridges span the rivers of India, China, Egypt, and the Argentine Republic; and her locomotives, rails, and bridges are used on the Siberian Railroad. She builds electric railways for Great Britain and Brazil, and telescopes for Germany and Denmark. Indeed, she distributes her varied manufactures into the channels of trade all over the earth.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Pittsburgh Country Club]

INTELLECTUAL

I

But while these stupendous industries have given Pittsburgh her wealth, population, supremacy, and power, commercial materialism is not the _ultima thule_ of her people.

Travelers who come to Pittsburgh, forgetting the smoke which often dims the blue splendor of its skies, are struck with the picturesque situation of the town, for they find rolling plateaus, wide rivers, and narrow valleys dropping down from high hills or precipitous bluffs throughout the whole district over which the city extends. Yet the surpa.s.sing beauty of nature is not more impressive to the thinking stranger than the work of man who has created and dominates a vast industrial system. The manufactories extend for miles along the banks of all three rivers. Red fires rise heavenward from gigantic forges where iron is being fused into wealth. The business section of the city is wedged in by the rivers, its streets are swarming with people, and there is a myriad of retail houses, wholesale houses, banks, tall office buildings, hotels, theaters, and railway terminals; but right where these stop the residence section begins like another city of happy homes--an immense garden of verdant trees and flowering lawns divided off by beautiful avenues, where some houses rise which in Europe would be called castles and palaces, with scarce a fence between to mark the land lines, giving an aspect almost of a park rather than of a city.

There are many miles of asphalt streets set off with gra.s.s plots. On the rolling hills above the Monongahela River is Schenley Park (about four hundred and forty acres) with beautiful drives, winding bridle paths, and shady walks through narrow valleys and over small streams. Above the Allegheny River is Highland Park (about two hundred and ninety acres), containing a placid lake and commanding fine views from the summits of its great hills. It also contains a very interesting zoological garden.

Close to Schenley Park are Homewood and Calvary Cemeteries and near Highland Park is Allegheny Cemetery, where the dead sleep amidst drooping willows and shading elms. Connecting the two parks and leading to them from the downtown section is a system of wide boulevards about twenty miles in length. On the North Side (once Allegheny) is Riverview Park (two hundred and seventeen acres), in which the Allegheny Observatory is situated. A large number of handsome bridges span the rivers. The Pittsburgh Country Club provides a broad expanse of rolling acres for pastoral sports.

II

In Schenley Park is the Carnegie Inst.i.tute, with its new main building, dedicated in April (11, 12, and 13), 1907, with imposing ceremonies which were attended by several hundred prominent men from America and Europe. This building, which is about six hundred feet long and four hundred feet wide, contains a library, an art gallery, halls of architecture and sculpture, a museum, and a hall of music; while the Carnegie Technical Schools are operated in separate buildings near by.

It is built in the later Renaissance style, being very simple and yet beautiful. Its exterior is of Ohio sandstone, while its interior finish is largely in marble, of which there are sixty-five varieties, brought from every famous quarry in the world. In its great entrance hall is a series of mural decorations by John W. Alexander, a distinguished son of Pittsburgh. The library, in which the inst.i.tution had its beginning in 1895, contains about 300,000 volumes, has seven important branches, and one hundred and seventy-seven stations for the distribution of books.

Mr. Edwin H. Anderson inaugurated the library at the time of its creation, and, after several years of successful service, was followed by Mr. Anderson H. Hopkins, and he by Mr. Harrison W. Craver, who is now the efficient librarian. The Fine Arts department contains many casts of notable works of architecture and sculpture, sufficient to carry the visitor in fancy through an almost unbroken development from the earliest times in which man began to produce beautiful structures to the present day. It is now the aim of this department to develop its galleries on three lines: first, to gather early American paintings from the very beginning of art in this country; second, to acquire such portraits of eminent men as will, in the pa.s.sage of years, make these halls to some extent a national portrait gallery; and, third, to obtain such pieces of contemporary art as will lead to the formation of a thoroughly representative collection of modern painting. The Art Gallery is already rich in this latter purpose, and is renowned for its annual compet.i.tive exhibits which are open to the artists of all countries for prizes offered by the Carnegie Inst.i.tute. Mr. John W. Beatty, Director of Fine Arts, has made the building up of this department his ripest and best work. The Museum embraces sections of paleontology, mineralogy, vertebrate and invertebrate zoology, entomology, botany, comparative anatomy, archaeology, numismatics, ceramics, textiles, transportation, carvings in wood and ivory, historical collections, the useful arts, and biological sciences. Its work in the department of paleontology is particularly noteworthy as it has extended the boundaries of knowledge through its many explorations in the western fossil fields. The success of the Museum is largely due to the energy and erudition of Dr.

W. J. Holland, its amiable director. In the music-hall, a symphony orchestra is maintained, and free recitals are given on the great organ twice every week by a capable performer. When the orchestra began its work thirteen years ago, it is doubtful if there were very many persons in Pittsburgh, other than musical students, who knew the difference between a symphony, a suite, a concerto, and a fugue. To-day there are thousands of people in this city who can intelligently describe the shading differences in the Ninth Symphony and give good reasons for their preference as between the two movements of the "Unfinished." The first conductor of the orchestra was Frederic Archer, for three years, who was followed by Victor Herbert, for three years, and then came Emil Paur, who is now in charge. The Technical Schools embrace a School of Applied Science, a School for Apprentices and Journeymen, a School of Applied Design, and a School for Women, and already possess a capable faculty of one hundred and fifteen members, and a student body numbering 1,916. Dr. Arthur A. Hamerschlag is an enthusiastic and capable director of this educational scheme. The Inst.i.tute is governed by a Board of Trustees, of which William N. Frew is President, Robert Pitcairn, Vice President, Samuel Harden Church, Secretary, and James H. Reed, Treasurer. Charles C. Mellor is chairman of the Museum committee, John Caldwell, of the Fine Arts committee, George A. Macbeth, of the Library committee, and William McConway, of the Technical Schools committee.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Panther Hollow Bridge, Schenley Park]

The annual celebration of Founder's Day at the Carnegie Inst.i.tute has become one of the most notable platform occasions in America, made so by the ill.u.s.trious men who partic.i.p.ate in the exercises. Some of these distinguished orators are William McKinley and Grover Cleveland, former Presidents of the United States; John Morley and James Bryce, foremost among British statesmen and authors; Joseph Jefferson, a beloved actor; Richard Watson Gilder, editor and poet; Wu Ting Fang, Chinese diplomat, and Whitelaw Reid, editor and amba.s.sador. At the great dedication of the new building, in April, 1907, the celebration of Founder's Day surpa.s.sed all previous efforts, being marked by the a.s.sembling of an ill.u.s.trious group of men, and the delivery of a series of addresses, which made the festival altogether beyond precedent. On that occasion there came to Pittsburgh, as the guests of the Inst.i.tute, from France, Dr. Leonce Benedite, Director Musee du Luxembourg; Baron d'Estournelles de Constant, Member of the French Senate and of the Hague Court of Arbitration; Dr. Paul Doumer, late Governor-General of Cochin China, and Dr. Camille Enlart, Director of the Trocadero Museum; from Germany, upon the personal suggestion of his Majesty, Emperor William II, His Excellency Lieutenant-General Alfred von Loewenfeld, Adjutant-General to his Majesty the Emperor; Colonel Gustav d.i.c.khuth, Lecturer on Military Science to the Royal Household; Dr. Ernst von Ihne, Hof-Architekt Sr.

Maj. d. Kaisers; Dr. Reinhold Koser, Princ.i.p.al Director of the Prussian State Archives, and Prof. Dr. Fritz Schaper, sculptor; from Great Britain, Mr. William Archer, author and critic; Sir Robert S. Ball, Director of Cambridge Observatory; Dr. C. F. Moberly Bell, manager London "Times"; Sir Robert Cranston, late Lord Provost of Edinburgh; Sir Edward Elgar, composer; Mr. James Currie Macbeth, Provost of Dunfermline; Dr. P. Chalmers Mitch.e.l.l, Secretary Zoological Society of London; Sir William Henry Preece, Consulting Engineer to the G. P. O.