re working under a three years' contract,
part of the last year being with the new machinery. Thus their
earnings had increased almost sixty per cent before the end of the
contract.

The firm offered to divide this sixty per cent with them in the new
scale to be made thereafter. That is to say, the earnings of the men
would have been thirty per cent greater than under the old scale and
the other thirty per cent would have gone to the firm to recompense it
for its outlay. The work of the men would not have been much harder
than it had been hitherto, as the improved machinery did the work.
This was not only fair and liberal, it was generous, and under
ordinary circumstances would have been accepted by the men with
thanks. But the firm was then engaged in making armor for the United
States Government, which we had declined twice to manufacture and
which was urgently needed. It had also the contract to furnish
material for the Chicago Exhibition. Some of the leaders of the men,
knowing these conditions, insisted upon demanding the whole sixty per
cent, thinking the firm would be compelled to give it. The firm could
not agree, nor should it have agreed to such an attempt as this to
take it by the throat and say, "Stand and deliver." It very rightly
declined. Had I been at home nothing would have induced me to yield to
this unfair attempt to extort.

Up to this point all had been right enough. The policy I had pursued
in cases of difference with our men was that of patiently waiting,
reasoning with them, and showing them that their demands were unfair;
but never attempting to employ new men in their places--never. The
superintendent of Homestead, however, was assured by the three
thousand men who were not concerned in the dispute that they could run
the works, and were anxious to rid themselves of the two hundred and
eighteen men who had banded themselves into a union and into which
they had hitherto refused to admit those in other departments--only
the "heaters" and "rollers" of steel being eligible.

My partners were misled by this superintendent, who was himself
misled. He had not had great experience in such affairs, having
recently been promoted from a subordinate position. The unjust demands
of the few union men, and the opinion of the three thousand non-union
men that they were unjust, very naturally led him into thinking there
would be no trouble and that the workmen would do as they had
promised. There were many