For a
short time, the strikers were in complete possession of the town
and of the company's property. They preserved order fairly well
but kept a strict watch that no strike breakers should approach
or attempt to resume work. The government of Pennsylvania was,
for a time, completely superseded in that region by the power of
the Amalgamated Association, until a large force of troops
entered Homestead on the 12th of July and remained in possession
of the place for several months. The contest between the strikers
and the company caused great excitement throughout the country,
and a foreign anarchist from New York attempted to assassinate
Mr. Frick, the managing director of the company. Though this
strike was caused by narrow differences concerning only the most
highly paid classes of workers, it continued for some months and
then ended in the complete defeat of the union.
On the same day that the militia arrived at Homestead, a more
bloody and destructive conflict occurred in the Coeur d'Alene
district of Idaho, where the workers in the silver mines were on
strike. Nonunion men were imported and put into some of the
mines. The strikers, armed with rifles and dynamite, thereupon
attacked the nonunion men and drove them off, but many lives were
lost in the struggle and much property was destroyed. The
strikers proved too strong for any force which state authority
could muster, but upon the call of the Governor, President
Harrison ordered federal troops to the scene and under martial
law order was soon restored.
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