Word: pinkertons
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LOCKOUT, by Leon Wolff. The bitter story of the Homestead Strike in 1892, in which workers struck against the lethal working conditions at Andrew Carnegie's steel mill. Henry Clay Frick, Carnegie's second-in-command at the time, retaliated with a hired army of Pinkerton men; in four months of hostilities 35 were killed, 400 injured. When the strike was finally broken, men who were not fired went back to worse conditions and slashed...
...putting up Early Bird, Comsat performed one of the greatest feats in communications history. Last week it performed another feat that sent sighs of envy welling through corporate officers everywhere. One of the most persistent corporate hecklers was bodily expelled from Comsat's annual meeting by husky Pinkerton guards...
...notice of the meeting had been mailed. Welch ruled the question out of order, and a shouting match began. Finally, Welch did what many a corporate chairman has long felt like doing: he ordered Gilbert and Mrs. Soss to leave the meeting. Gilbert left with a push, but a Pinkerton guard had to carry Wilma out. Having a grand time in the limelight, where all could see her two-piece "Early Bird outfit" of an off-white tunic and matching knee breeches, she kicked her high boots in the air, waved her straw "space hat" at the crowd. Screaming...
...July morning in 1892, a tug chugged up the Monongahela, towing two barges with a deadly cargo: 300 pistols, 250 Winchester rifles and a hired army of 316 Pinkerton men. Where Andrew Carnegie's Homestead mill sprawled along the south bank of the river, the barges beached. That was enemy territory, defended by a cannon, spiked clubs, small arms, and a force of strikers 10,000 strong. Hostilities began at once. One fusillade from the barges dropped 30 defenders, but not one Pinkerton got ashore. Homestead's striking mill hands had won the opening skirmish of a labor...
...Wolff's balanced but pedestrian account ranks the Homestead strike as one of the most disgraceful chapters in the history of U.S. labor-management relations. Neither side produced a real hero, but both sides produced plenty of villains. The strikers turned ugly, on one occasion beat seven injured Pinkerton men to death. Andrew Carnegie, a public friend and private enemy of union labor, scuttied off to Europe before the strike began. Henry Clay Frick, his partner, was left to do all the dirty work-and he did it willingly. Prick's strategy was to break the strongest union...