c periods in the history of labor
disputes in America. At Homestead in 1892, in the railway strikes of
1894, and in Colorado during the labor wars of 1903-1904 detectives
were employed on a large scale. For reasons of space I shall limit
myself largely to these cases, which, without exaggeration, are typical
of conditions which constantly arise in the United States. Within the
last year West Virginia has been added to the list. Incredible outrages
have been committed there by the mine guards. They have deliberately
murdered men in some cases, and, on one dark night in February last,
they sent an armored train into Holly Grove and opened fire with machine
guns upon a sleeping village of miners. They have beaten, clubbed, and
stabbed men and women in the effort either to infuriate them into open
war, or to reduce them to abject slavery. Unfortunately, at this time
the complete report of the Senate investigation has not been issued, and
it seems better to confine these pages to those facts only that careful
inquiry has proved unquestionable. We are fortunate in having the
reports of public officials--certainly unbiased on the side of labor--to
rely upon for the facts concerning the use of thugs and hirelings in
Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Colorado during three terrible battles
between capital and labor.

The story of the shooting of Henry C. Frick by Alexander Berkman is
briefly referred to in the first chapter, but the events which led up to
that shooting have well-nigh been forgotten. Certainly, nothing could
have created more bitterness among the working classes than the act of
the Carnegie Steel Company when it ordered a detective agency to send to
Homestead three hundred men armed with Winchester rifles. There was the
prospect of a strike, and it appears that the management was in no mood
to parley with its employees, and that nineteen days before any trouble
occurred the Carnegie Steel Company opened negotiations for the
employment of a private army. It had been the custom of the Carnegie
Company to meet the representatives of the Amalgamated Association of
Iron and Steel Workers from time to time and at these conferences to
agree upon wages. On June 30, 1892, the agreement expired, and previous
to that date the Company announced a reduction of wages, declaring that
the new scale would terminate in January instead of June. The employees
rejected the proposed terms, principally on the ground that they could
not afford