Part 41

A. No; there was a great many boys, but the most of them were men. I think the great majority of them were men. I stayed there until about twelve o'clock at night, about half past twelve or one, and the report came down about the firing on this side, and the burning of the round-house, and the soldiers having been burned up. We were all very much alarmed. I could do nothing but stay at home, seeing the crowd there, and not knowing what was coming, but in the morning I came to town--on Sunday morning. I stopped in Allegheny, and saw one or two gentlemen, and got them to go over with me. I went to Mr. Barr's office at the _Post_, but he was not there. He had been there, but had gone out to the outer depot of the Pennsylvania railroad. I went around and saw some other parties, and went down to the _Chronicle_ office. Mr. Sieblich was there, and, I think, the _Dispatch_ people. At the office there were posters out, one for a public meeting of the citizens at twelve o'clock--at half past twelve, at the old city hall, notices of which were then sent to the different churches, that there would be a citizens' meeting--to be read from the pulpits in that neighborhood. There was a large number of churches in the neighborhood There were no citizens but what were extremely anxious to do anything and everything they could do, but they appeared to be paralyzed, and did not know what to do. The reports came in that the military had gone, and that the mob had everything in their own hands, and no one appeared to know just how things stood. That meeting came together, and they adjourned to the mayor's office. I understood that there was a reason for that: that the city hall then was used as an armory, and they had adjourned, as they did not think it was prudent to open that. Some gentlemen I was talking to had made a suggestion that we should go and see Bishop Tuigg, and some other parties who would go out, and see what persuasion would do, and there was no man that was more extensively known than Bishop Tuigg. He said he would do so, and they proposed to get another minister that he would nominate himself to go along with him. At our meeting in the mayor's office, the minister of the First church, Mr. Scoville, was at the meeting, and Mr. Scoville accompanied Bishop Tuigg. Mr. Parke and some other gentlemen went up. At this time the fire had got down--it had burned all the way down to the old market-house--that is a few squares above the depot. We went up, and he addressed these people.

By Senator Yutzy.

Q. Who addressed them?

A. Bishop Tuigg. He did everything he could to get these people to desist. I saw a few there that I knew of our own people, and these I do say were not engaged in burning. After that, we went up to try and find the engineers of the railroad--locomotive engineers. We went up to see them. We got some of the citizens to go to their houses and tell them that we would meet them. We went up there, and were not able to meet any, but two or three of them at a time came in, and Mr. Slagle remained there. Bishop Tuigg and the Reverend Scoville and I went over there to Allegheny City to see the officials of the Pennsylvania Company and Pennsylvania railroad. Mr. Cassatt was there, Mr. Thaw, Mr. McCullough, and their solicitor, Senator Scott. We talked with them upon the subject, but previous to that I had gone down to the Monongahela house, and had met Mr. Cassatt there, and I think Mr. Quay, and a number of gentlemen that were there. I took him in my buggy and took him across to Allegheny City.

Q. Mr. Cassatt?

A. And left him there with the other gentlemen connected with the railroad.

Q. What is Mr. Thaw's first name?

A. William Thaw.

Q. What is his official position?

A. He is also connected with the Pennsylvania Company, in charge of the leased lines of the Pennsylvania railroad.

Q. In what capacity?

A. I think he is vice president.

Q. Mr. Cassatt is connected with what road?

A. Connected with the Pennsylvania Central.

Q. And Mr. Thaw with the Pennsylvania?

A. Mr. Thaw with the Pennsylvania. Mr. Cassatt was at the Monongahela house, and these gentlemen had connection with the two roads running together. He said he would like to go over. I said I would take him over, and took him in my open buggy, which he did not appear to relish very well just at that moment, but really there was no danger. I went down and crossed the lower bridge, and over into the street where Mr. Layng is living. I do not think we saw fifty people. The people had gone up to the fire. Allegheny City was at that time as quiet as it is on any Sabbath day, outside of the immediate neighborhood of the depot. I met no person on Sunday who was not just as anxious as they could be to do anything and everything they could to put down the rebellion, as I called it, for as I have said, I never could recognize it as a riot or anything else than an uprising of the people. On our own side of the river it was comparative quietness, but these men were settled on having their own way. If they had not commenced it before, it was not likely that they could organize as quickly and as thoroughly as they had done.

By Mr. Lindsey:

Q. What was the result of the interview with Cassatt and McCullough and Thaw?

A. I think Bishop Tuigg asked them to make some concessions to those parties, which they declined to make. I think the bishop's idea was to have some little concession made, and the difficulty might be adjusted as between the men and them. That was declined on their part.

By Senator Yutzy:

Q. What reason did they give?

A. The reason, so far as I understood it at the time it was given, was this: That they would not make any arrangement with men that were in open rebellion against law, and everything of that kind--could not recognize anything of that kind.

Q. What did your committee do then?

A. We came back to the city again, and there was a meeting in the afternoon, and I was at the mayor's office again in the afternoon. The mayor appeared to be entirely powerless. He had no police to do anything with, that amounted to anything. After that we then went to work and organized a citizens' meeting, which was perfected on the next Monday morning, and everything was done by those men that could be done. I do not think I ever saw men work more earnestly in trying to protect the city, and railroad, and everything else.

By Mr. Lindsey:

Q. At whose instance was the citizens' meeting organized--who were the movers in it?

A. The first I recollect of it was the bulletin boards that were put out on Sunday--that was as soon as the citizens could be got together.

Q. What bulletin boards?

A. The bulletin boards of the _Post_, and, I think, the _Dispatch_, the _Commercial_ and _Gazette_, and I think the _Chronicle_ and _Leader_. They are nearly all in that neighborhood. I think Mr. Barr was at the organization of the meeting. He was at the meeting they had on Sunday and Monday morning. The citizens were called together again and adjourned until Monday morning. There were a good many of our leading manufacturers that were out of the city, their families were out in the country, and they had gone out on Saturday.

Q. How long did that crowd you speak of in Allegheny City, that you ran into on Saturday nights--how long had that crowd remained in force there?

A. They were there I think nearly all that night. They were away the next morning. When I came up the next morning they were not there, that is, there was no crowd in comparison to what had been there--perhaps not more than usual there.

Q. There were some there?

A. There were some few that were there. They had possession then of the trains.

By Senator Yutzy:

Q. The strikers had?

A. The strikers had possession of the trains on Sunday morning. They were in possession there at that time.

By Mr. Lindsey:

Q. How many were engaged in actual riot and arson out at Twenty-eighth street, when you were there with the bishop?

A. I do not think it was so far as Twenty-eighth street--it was within a few squares of the depot. It would be impossible for any one to say how many were actually engaged in it, but the whole railway connection, so far as you could see, was filled with people on both sides of it--the street on both sides of the railway track. The number that was engaged in it appeared to be but few compared with the great crowd that was there--very few.

Q. What class was the crowd that was there composed of?

A. The citizens you speak of along the street?

Q. Yes?

A. There appeared to be a general outpouring from the entire city--every person. They were attracted there from every place.

Q. By curiosity?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. They were lookers-on?

A. They were lookers-on.

Q. Was there a crowd of sympathizers around, immediately around these parties that were engaged in actual riot and arson?

A. There were some that were sympathizers, but so far as my own knowledge went, men of any standing expressed no sympathy with them. A great many of the workingmen felt that the railroad was oppressing these men, and they were in sympathy with them--that is not taking any part in it. There were a great many of our laboring men that were there in their Sunday clothes that were taking no part, but walking around, and a great many of them absolutely appeared to me to be alarmed and frightened. That paralyzed them--not doing anything. I begged of the men, for their own sakes, to try and stop that, and they felt as though their lives were at stake in doing it. They were afraid to say a word; did not know who was their friend or enemy. The men appeared to be going on in a quiet way without saying much to anybody, except this crowd that was before us--we were right in the immediate neighborhood of the burning--as rough a looking set of characters as I ever saw. I have no desire to get amongst such a crowd again very soon.

Q. Were these men laborers or men that you had ever seen in and about Pittsburgh?

A. I could not say that any I saw in the burning were men I ever saw before--could not say that they were men I ever saw before.

Q. Could you tell from their dress what class of people they were?

A. It would be very hard to tell that. I saw a great many of our own men walking around looking on that were employed with us at our mills.

By Senator Yutzy:

Q. Have you an extensive acquaintance with the laboring men?

A. I know a great many of them by sight, and where they work. At the two mills were employed six or seven hundred men, one way or another; and back and forwards I have become quite familiar with them, without knowing their names. Indeed, all the laboring men about the mills, as a general rule they know me by sight, and I know a great many that have worked with us, that are not working with us now, among the better class of mill men and laboring men about the mills. I do not think they were engaged. We have some men engaged with us that are very bad men.

Q. What was it that alarmed you on Saturday and made you apprehensive of the future on Saturday afternoon?

A. What alarmed me first was this, when I began to make an inquiry--that our mills all stopped on Saturday from eleven to twelve o'clock, and the men about the mills had from one to two o'clock. They usually dressed, and generally we see them about in the city, and they are free from any employment. You can imagine the number of laboring men there are about the city; and that, as a rule, would apply to nearly all branches of manufacture.

Q. From your knowledge of the city and manufacturing establishments, give us an estimate of the number of laborers that would be out of employment and at leisure on Saturday afternoon.

A. I could not give you an estimate. I should say you could count it at thousands, though--thousands of men that would be unemployed at that time.

Q. Have you any idea of the number of thousands of laborers employed in and about Pittsburgh?

A. I could not give any correct estimate of that.

Q. Have you had experience before with strikers? Has there been strikes?

A. I have had a great deal to do with them at one time and another in our own business--men that we had employed ourselves.

Q. Is it a thing of very frequent occurrence--strikes among laboring men?

A. It is a common thing, but not so very frequent, these large strikes--what we would call large strikes, where the mill hands in all the mills strike. We frequently have difficulties of that kind in our own mill when it does not occur in any others--upon a particular branch of the business; something of that kind. We have had a number of very large strikes here in the city where all the rolling mills were stopped at one time.

Q. And it was your experience with the strikes, and knowing the number of men that would be idle Saturday afternoon, that made you apprehensive of the result?

A. That made me apprehensive; because these men were idle. They were all idle, and a great many of them are men. For instance, to explain more fully to you: A man comes along and he wants labor. We have our labor bosses. We do not inquire into his character, or anything else. If we need a man badly we put him in. He may be one of the worst men possible, and we may have quite a number of these men about our mills without knowing it. Tramps may come into our town, and if it is a time that labor is a little scarce, we might have fifty of them about us without knowing it--if they behave themselves just whilst they are employed. Bad men may come in and settle down upon us in that way.

Q. Had you been up at the scene of the riot before Sunday?

A. No, sir; I had not been there before that.

Q. Did you at any time during the riot have any talk with the rioters themselves, or the railroad employés, to ascertain their grievances, or the causes of the strike?

A. Not on the Pennsylvania railroad; but I did on the other side of the river, with them over there.

Q. Go on and give us the facts.

A. I had on the Fort Wayne and Chicago. I was among these men at the shops. I went over there one night or two in the shops with those men, talking to them, and they claimed that the railroad company had ground them down; that their wages were such that they could not live. That was their real grievance, and they wanted their wages restored. And they complained of a large portion of the men unnecessarily being thrown out of employment by doubling up the trains. That was the complaint. They had their unions--there are unions existing among the laboring men in our mills. Puddlers have their unions, and we have what is called "The Amalgamated Iron Works Union," which embraces nearly all. The railroad employés had their unions. These unions are all in sympathy with each other, and as a rule, will aid each other. There would be a sympathy existing among these men of all classes, for they felt that they were oppressed by the railroad company; and, as I say, they had the sympathy of the other workingmen of nearly every class--there can be no question of that.

By Senator Yutzy:

Q. Are these unions secret organizations?

A. Yes, sir; I think they are all secret organizations. I have never known any that were not secret organizations. I was there with them, and after some time Mr. McCullough--I don't recollect what day it was--I was with Mr. McCullough, at his office, to get information. Telegraphs were coming there, and I went there to get the news--to see what was going on along the road. Mr. McCullough had not seen any of the men of his own road. I got a gentleman to go and see them and tell them that I thought there should be an interview between them and Mr. McCullough, and I arranged that interview. I think there was one engineer, a fireman, a brakeman, and a conductor--there were four, and they agreed to meet Mr. McCullough, and I went with them and made the arrangement to meet at B. F. Jones' house in Allegheny City. Mr. McCullough came there and met them, and Mr. Layng also. They had a conversation there.

Q. Give us the summary of that conversation?

A. They stated to Mr. McCullough what the grievances were with regard to what the hands wanted. A portion of them denied that they had anything to do with the strike.

Q. That was after the Sunday?

A. This was after the Sunday of the burning. Mr. McCullough talked with them, and the interview was a very pleasant one. Mr. McCullough said he would do all that he could to have everything made right and satisfactory to them whenever the property was once placed in their hands, but whilst they stood out and kept them from their property he could not do anything at all. I told these men--I said to them afterwards that Mr. McCullough was right in his position; that they were in violation of law, and they claimed they were there, and they were not interfering with anybody nor anything, nor had they purposed to interfere with anybody. I told them that their simple presence was enough to show that they were in sympathy with these people. They might almost as well be guilty as to be doing what they were doing. I went down and talked to a number of the engineers with regard to the matter. As a rule, they were vary reticent and very careful about giving any expression at all.

Q. Did they claim a right to stop trains--interfere with trains?

A. Of course, they didn't to me. They were men of too good sense. They denied having anything to do with it. It was always somebody else. As I said, they were there giving countenance.

Q. How did these people define a strike?

A. They said this was not a strike of the engineers. This was a strike of the firemen--the firemen and brakemen, I believe. They threw it on them. I thought things were settled, and they were going to work. I came up and said, "Boys, how is it, I thought you were going to work" They said they were going to have a meeting, and asked me to go with them. I said I would go. They said they were going to have it then. I went down to the meeting in the Odd Fellows' Hall, and went in with them, and was there, and they denied that it was them solely. They said the engineers had as much to do with it as they had--just the same--and that they were encouraging them. I stated to them, then, that I would do all I could to have their pay made right, but there was only one way to do it, that I could see, and that was to report themselves ready for work, and take their positions, and after the road was once running, and in order, then the citizens would see to it that their case was properly represented, and that they would be more likely to get their rights in that way than in any other.

By Senator Yutzy:

Q. At this time they had possession of the railroad property?

A. They disclaimed having possession of the property. They would not admit that fact. They appeared to understand that that was in violation of the law.

Q. Was that the fact?

A. This was the fact--there was no doubt of that. You could not get any of them to admit it, though.

Q. Did they understand that they had no right to interfere with the running of trains, or with any other employé who desired to work?

A. They denied interfering with any employé. There never was a man yet that said he interfered with any one--never got an admission of that kind from any one. They said if a man wanted to go to work, there was his engine. At the same time, Mr. Layng, superintendent of the road, whilst he was but a few squares from the depot, I think he didn't care about going over to the railroad at that time, I met them the same day, and they went and reported themselves to the officers at the outer depot, and went to work.

Q. From the interviews that you had with the railroad employés, what did you gather as being the cause--the real cause of the strike?

A. From all I could gather from the employés in one way or another, my impression is that it was an organization. That perhaps the strike was a little sooner than was intended. It was a regular organization, intending to make a general strike throughout the whole country at the same time, and it was not the intention to be commenced at Pittsburgh. I think it was all over our country. We might call it an insurrection of these people to take possession and enforce their demands on the people. They then knew that the other labor organizations were in sympathy with them.

Q. What led you to that conclusion?

A. From the fact that these uprisings at Fort Wayne and Chicago and St. Louis, and on the line of the Baltimore and Ohio and Altoona and Harrisburg and Philadelphia. If it had been of an ordinary character, it would have had no influence, except where it originated.

Q. Did you ascertain from the men that there was any communication between the rioters here and the rioters at the other places you have mentioned?

A. I think one told me that they were in possession of the telegraph lines, and knew all that was going on, and one stated to me at one time something like this: He says, "We knew what was going on, because one of the men with us is an operator, who stood outside of the window, and he could hear the instrument and could tell us what was going over the line." I think they had possession of the telegraph line, and a good many were operators.

Q. He told you they knew what was going on--that was between the authorities, &c., in reference to the matter; but did he say that they had any communication through the rioters themselves by telegraph?

A. No; I do not know that any one admitted anything of the kind. They were very careful in making any admissions. These men you will find, so far as the law was concerned, they really understood that as well as any other class of men, where they are liable and where they are not.

Q. The strikes at Fort Wayne and Chicago and Altoona and Philadelphia that you have mentioned, were not until after the strike here--were they?

A. I think it was almost simultaneous--it was very nearly the same time--on the Sunday following right along--immediately on the heels of it, and I should think it was all during two or three days.

Q. Do you know what days the strike was at its height in Chicago?

A. No.

Q. Nor Fort Wayne?

A. I have no recollection now of just when this was, for I took no note of that.

Q. Nor in Philadelphia?

A. Nor in Philadelphia. I think it was unfortunate that they attempted to start these trains out--these double-headers here on Saturday.

By Mr. Yutzy:

Q. Why?

A. Because there were so many men loose--the laboring men of our town--you may say that certainly four fifths of the laboring men were unemployed after twelve or one o'clock, and that is the best reason I could give you for it. If I was going to do anything to a crowd, I should have postponed it until these men were at work. I think it was unfortunate, because, as I stated before, we all knew of the existence of these organizations, and we knew that these men that were in these organizations were all in sympathy, the one with the other.

By Mr. Lindsey:

Q. Was the fact that there would be so large a number of unemployed men on Saturday afternoon, known to the railroad officers?

A. I do not know that of my own knowledge. Mr. James Park, I think, told me that he had remonstrated with some of the railroad officials--I think he had spoken to Mr. Cassatt on the subject.

Q. Did you have any conversation?