Blame Frick for labor's love of party

“Meet You in Hell,” makes it clear why most American steelworkers have chosen the Democratic party over the GOP.

The author of the book about the bloody Homestead lockout of 1892 spells it out early: labor felt it had been snookered by management into voting for Benjamin Harrison for president in 1888, a Republican who defeated an incumbent for the office. Going into the election, Harrison promised tariffs on steel that would boost steel production and increase wages for steelworkers.

But once Harrison took command of the White House, Pittsburgh industrialists Henry Clay “King of Coke” Frick and his partner in steel, Andrew Carnegie, set out to bust a union at their Homestead works and reduce wages to increase their incredible profits. The deception set the stage for the infamous 1892 battle of Homestead.

While the relationship of Frick and Carnegie may sound like a boring read, author Les Standiford delivers their rag-to-riches stories as if these men were stars of a soap opera.

It begins with Carnegie, near death, sending a messenger to deliver a note to Frick, his neighbor on New York’s Fifth Avenue. Frick, still angry because Carnegie had thrown him under the bus at Homestead, agreed to the meet request before crumpling the note and throwing it at the messenger. “Tell him I’ll see him in Hell, where we both are going,” Frick quipped.

The line can be interpreted as an admission by Frick that he and his archrival deserved to be punished for their love of money and distaste of the working class. This was a man who chose greed over common sense when he hired Pinkerton guards to seize the Homestead plant during a strike orchestrated by the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers. The drama unfolded while Carnegie vacationed in his Scottish castle and shopped for something akin to a nickelodeon.

The 300 Pinkerton men who arrived by barge on the Monongahela River to secure order at the mill were not expecting much trouble. However, they were met by a mob of angry workers and their wives, who threw sticks and rocks at them. Another boat was lit afire and steered toward the guards, but it burned to the water before causing any injuries. Gunfire was exchanged over the course of a dozen hours, claiming the lives of three workers and seven guards. In the end, labor came out no further ahead, while Frick and Carnegie would forever become the poster children for ruthless capitalists.

Even a local minister condemned Frick, calling him a toad and the least-respected man among the nation’s labor force.

Labor’s love for the Democratic party became a tradition set in stone after Harrison competed just one term in office. He was defeated on the heels of that heated summer of 1892 in Homestead by Grover Cleveland, his Democratic challenger for the office of president. The city of Detroit later refused a gift of a library from Carnegie while he built hundreds of them across America.

And for generations to follow, steelworkers cursed Frick at the polls after pulling levers to vote straight Democrat at local, state and federal elections. The United Steelworkers of America in 2006 gave $2.4 million to the party that reclaimed control of both the House and Senate in the November election that year.

So it should come as no surprise that steelworkers endorsed Barack Obama in the November presidential election over John McCain, issuing this statement:

“He is clearly the candidate who can best lead our nation out of the dark period of economic decline created by the Bush administration’s allegiance to Wall Street profiteering at the expense of worker prosperity.”

Labor has a strong memory.

One freaky calf and a Frick

Well sufferin' catfish, will you look at the heads on that.
They're what remain of Jasper, a two-headed calf that was born in 1922 on the Oscar Keener farm in Lamber, Fayette County, Pa.
“It’s not a joke. It’s an anomaly,” said Sally D’Alessandro, a guide at West Overton Village in nearby Scottdale, where the stuffed animal is among the prized possessions of an eclectic museum.
If you go, ask to see a basket made entirely from the carcass of an armadillo that they keep hidden in a closet because it freaks out the staff.
There are many other cool things to see here that speak to the early farming and industrial revolution eras in the United States, such as fancy pianos, antique furniture, sewing machines, quilts and tramp art.
Tucked among the rolling green hills of Southwestern Pennsylvania, West Overton is the only surviving pre-Civil War site of its kind. Dating to 1800, it has 18 original buildings, including several worker houses, a six-story whiskey distillery, a stately mansion and the largest brick barn in this neck of the woods.

The estate is most famous, however, for being the Dec. 19, 1849, birthplace of Henry Clay Frick, who would establish himself as a ruthless steel and coke baron by 1889. He made his debut in a modest stone cottage over the spring house, a son of John W. and Elizabeth Overholt Frick.
By all indications, the couple had been banished from the big house by Elizabeth’s father, Abraham, because she was three months pregnant with her oldest daughter at the time of her scandalous marriage.


But, Henry Clay Frick would polish his business skills after the Overholts, wealthy Mennonites whose influence Frick used to borrow the money to get into the business of baking coal into coke to forge steel.


The office furniture where he managed his fortune at the Frick Building in Pittsburgh is on display at this museum, including the black horsehair chair where he was sitting when an anarchist tried to assassinate him. The ill-fated plot was carried out in revenge for seven steelworkers who were killed during an historic strike in Homestead.

The West Overton property has survived, largely due to the generosity of the Frick family.
It’s an Overholt, though, who still looks over the place. They say the grounds are haunted by the ghost of Clyde Overholt, who killed himself with a shotgun in 1919 in a bedroom in the mansion. He was the last Overholt to live in the house, and he took his life after an older brother claimed all of the family possessions upon the death of their mother. The body was not discovered for a month.
“I’m sure Clyde had other problems, too,” said Mary Ann Mogus, president of the museum board. “We blame all the strange happenings on Clyde.”
Everything, of course, except for the calf and armadillo.