46 ChaPter^1
tion seven workers and three Pinkertons died. After four days the governor
of Pennsylvania sent a militia of 8000 to reopen the factory along manage-
ment’s terms, demonstrating that the state government, again, sided with the
bosses rather than labor. The workers refused to follow the governor’s
demands and the strike continued until November 1892. The AA gained
national and international support, yet the U.S. government chose to support
Carnegie and Frick. The steelworkers’ union was losing influence quickly.
The large corporation maintained power as the AA collapsed under the
weight of Capitalism. A local court issued an injunction against the strikers,
and those who did not return to work were fired and many were put on a list
for other mill owners so they would not be hired for jobs in the future.
A less famous strike in Idaho that happened just five days after violence
broke out in Homestead also revealed how the federal government provided
support to owners rather than workers. Workers seized two hard-rock mines
in the Coeur d’ Alenes in the northern panhandle area of Idaho. Discontent
in Idaho intensified when mine owners got a court injunction to prohibit
union members from trespassing on company property, so a workers’ group,
called a “mob” by the bosses, seized the mines on July 11th, 1892, and they
killed two men and wounded six. Although violence quickly stopped, mine
owners exaggerated tales of union violence so that they could convince
President William Henry Harrison to send federal troops to intimidate union
members. The attorney general of Idaho supported the mine owners and
wanted to crush the union. He told Idaho senators, “The mob must be
crushed by overwhelming force.” President Harrison, for no reason other than
to eliminate the union, sent the troops. Military authorities arrested 600 men,
held 350 of them in custody for a week, and arrested all union officers and
held them for trial on criminal and civil charges. Miners went back to work
and the union had been destroyed.
Similar to Homestead and the Coeur d’ Alenes strikes was the Pullman
Boycott of 1894, in which the government intervened on behalf of the capital-
ists and owners over workers and unions. Pullman was a company town locat-
ed outside of Chicago and owned by the George Pullman Palace Car
Company, which made luxury railroad cars to accommodate wealthy train
passengers. As a company town, the city was owned by Pullman and the
workers lived in Pullman-owned lodgings, paid rent for that housing to
Pullman, purchased goods on credit at Pullman stores, and were paid in