Rensselaer Republican, Volume 24, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 August 1892 — THE PERJURY AT HOMESTEAD [ARTICLE]

THE PERJURY AT HOMESTEAD

Some malignant anarchist, writ ing in the People’s Pilot, last week, declares that Frick and the others who swore to the high wages made by the skilled workmen at the Homestead mills, are guilty of perjury, that they are “perjured villians, that they lie like Satan &c &cf The only basis for these charges is a portion of a report made in 1890, by Carrol D. W right, U. S. labor commissioner, in which he states the well known fact that in certain cases in Steel mills the

custom is followed of paying to each leader of a “turn” the roller for instance, for all the work, and from the sum paid him he has to pay his three or four helpers. Now does any one believe that if such a system had prevailed at Homestead the fact would not have been brought out by that hostile democratic investigating com-

mittee, which went 'there only too anxious to find facts unfavorable to Carnegie and Frick? Moreover, lif Frick committed perjury in swearing that his skilled workmen earned such large wages, the men themselves, and especially the

leaders, of the strike, committed the same crime, for they swore to the same facts. Hugh O’ Donne), the very leader of the strike, testified that his wages were about $144 per month, and he was not at all among the best paid. John McLuckie,another strikeleader and burgess, or mayor, of the town of I Homestead, also testified to the same high wages, and committed perjury in so doing "-if Frick and the other owners committed perjury. - “ .

But what makes the case still j worse, for the Pilot writer, is the fact that this very matter of the method of paying the men Was considered by the investigating committee, above referred to, and the fact whs clearly and indisputably established that the method of . paying men described by Mr. Wright does not

prevail at Homestead. Every man there was paid his own wages, directly, and none but his qwii.