Homestead

Numerous other witnesses gave testimony similar to the foregoing, nearly a week being occupied in listening to the stories of those who had been poisoned and to the diagnoses learnedly set forth by medical men.

On the fifth day of the trial, Gallagher, the informer, was placed on the witness stand and repeated the narrative embodied in his previously published confession, with some new embellishments. In describing his first interview with Dempsey, Gallagher said:

"When we entered Dempsey's office a lady who was present retired; the door was then locked; we sat down; Beatty said to Dempsey: 'These are the two men;' we talked about the weather for a few minutes after which Dempsey said to me and Mr. Davidson: 'I suppose you know what we want?' We said we knew a little about it. Dempsey then said: 'Well, we want to get the men in the Homestead mill on the trot.' Beatty then spoke about using croton oil. Davidson and I said we wouldn't use it. Dempsey then spoke about breaking a street car strike in Chicago – the State street strike. He said powders had been used; that if we would use these powders in the Homestead mill it would make the men sick and that we could break the strike in about ten days."

Gallagher also swore that Beatty's trip to Cincinnati was for the purpose of getting two more cooks to finish the poisoning job. Dempsey had subsequently shown him a dispatch from Cincinnati, which read, "Two good agents on the road." When witness went to work in the mill the second time two cooks came from Cincinnati. They were Tony Gilfoil and William Coleman. Witness took them to a hotel and paid their bills; but was warned by Dempsey not to let the new comers know of his (Dempsey's) connection with the plot.

Gallagher further deposed that, after leaving the mill finally, he had, in the presence of Davidson, presented a bill to Dempsey, which the latter O.K'd. He had also signed a receipt for $25, which Dempsey gave him in the dispatcher's office of the Citizens' Traction Line. The bill marked "O.K." was identified and offered in evidence.

Attorney Marshall subjected Gallagher to a trying cross-examination but without impairing his testimony.

J. M. Davidson repeated in court the evidence given by him at the Beatty hearing.

George W. Crail, dispatcher of the Citizens' Traction Line, corroborated Gallagher's statement as to the receipt of $25 from Dempsey. Dempsey, the witness claimed, came into his office and said: "Crail, if a man comes in here and asks if I left anything for him, give him this money."

The death of L. B. Hebron from sickness contracted in the mill was attested by the mother and brother of the deceased, and Captain A. E. Hunt, of the Pittsburgh Testing Laboratory, then stated the result of an analysis of sick bed accumulations furnished him by Mrs. Hebron. The analysis showed the presence of croton oil and arsenic.

J. D. Flynn, manager of the Western Union Telegraph Company in Pittsburgh, produced a copy of a telegram sent to Dempsey from Cincinnati, on September 26. It read: "Send me $20; in a pinch; two good agents on the road. – Beatty." It was shown by a messenger boy that the telegram was delivered to a man in Dempsey's office, who signed for it.

Thomas M. Marshall, Esq., made the opening speech for the defense, the principal points set forth in which were, (1) That the sickness in the Homestead mill was merely incident to an epidemic from which soldiers and others outside the mill were suffering, and (2) That the men sent into the mill by Dempsey and paid for their services were detailed by Dempsey as scouts.

Dr. George T. McCord, being sworn, stated that the conditions of life among the non-union men in the Homestead mill were very favorable to the development of diarrhœa, dysentery and kindred complaints. He had treated one man who was taken sick with diarrhœa in the mill and cured him.

Dr. John Purman, of Homestead, told of the filthy condition of City Farm lane, and said he had under treatment numerous cases of diarrhœa and dysentery not incurred in the mill.

Nine members of Battery B, Eighteenth regiment, N. G. P., swore that they were afflicted with precisely the same complaint that attacked the non-union workmen.

Other witnesses testified as to the impurity of the water supply in the mill and the invariable prevalence of diarrhœa and kindred diseases among the millworkers during the hot season.

E. W. Robertson, who occupied the cell next to Gallagher's in the county jail, said that Gallagher had told him that Dempsey was an innocent man.

Hugh F. Dempsey, being sworn in his own defense, stated that he had employed Gallagher and Davidson, on Beatty's recommendation, to get work in the Homestead mill and report to him how things were running. Nothing had ever been said about putting poison in food, and witness knew nothing of a poison plot. The $25 paid by him to Gallagher was a loan.

On cross-examination, Dempsey stated that it was through the Knights of Labor in New York, who were striving to procure a settlement of the Homestead trouble, that he became interested in the affair. He gave a synopsis of one of Davidson's reports to him on the number of men employed and the output, and said that Gallagher made reports of like tenor.

While Dempsey was giving his testimony, resolutions affirming implicit faith in his honesty and innocence of wrong-doing were being adopted by District Assembly No. 3, and on the evening of the same day he was reelected to the position of master workman by acclamation. This strong expression of confidence on the part of his fellow workmen might, it was thought, have some influence for good on the determination of Dempsey's case.

With the exception of Prof. George Hay, a chemist, who swore that Captain Hunt could not possibly have discovered traces of croton oil in nine drops of oleaginous liquid, all the remaining witnesses for the defense were called to prove Dempsey's good character.

Attorney L. K. Porter made the opening argument for the defense. He charged the prosecution with unfairness in having a chemical examination made without permitting the attendance of an expert on the part of the defense and dilated upon the reasons for presuming that an epidemic of stomach troubles would naturally occur in an establishment where 2,678 men were lodged and fed in close quarters and practically without outdoor exercise. The doctors disagreed and most of them had never treated poison cases. How could a man be convicted on such testimony? The men who claimed to have been poisoned had, for the most part, admitted that they had suffered from diarrhœa and vomiting before and why should it be surmised that the attacks which beset them in the mill arose from other than natural causes? The majority of the non-union men came from distant points and were liable to be affected by change of climate.

Gallagher, Mr. Porter said, being a self-confessed accomplice, was unworthy of credit. He was a spy, procured by Pinkerton Detective Ford, and the fact that he was left at large for five weeks after his confession indicated in what a questionable relation he stood to the prime movers in the prosecution of Dempsey. Dempsey, the speaker said, was the honored choice of 600,000 men for the chieftanship of the K. of L. in the Pittsburgh district. He was a frank and generous man, to whose kind heart no one ever appealed in vain. Was it humanly probable that this man would have bribed Gallagher to poison men? Would he, if such had been his purpose, have conferred with Gallagher and have given him money in broad daylight? The issue was between Gallagher, the hired informer, and Dempsey, the honorable citizen, whom it was proposed to take away from his wife and home on the testimony of strangers without title to belief.

Attorney Marshall followed his colleague with a telling analysis of the evidence for the commonwealth. He read from the report of the mill physician, Dr. Weible, figures showing that there was actually more sickness in the mill, in proportion to the number of men employed, before Gallagher went there than at any time afterwards. He also showed by Gallagher's testimony that on the day of the Wolfe family's supper, the coffee which Gallagher claimed to have dosed was all used up at dinner time and, as there was none left over, where, Mr. Marshall asked, did the poison come from by which the Wolfes' claimed to have been sickened. After commenting on the improbability of Dempsey's employing strangers to aid him in a poisoning plot, Mr. Marshall said in conclusion: "We ask you to put the stamp of your disapproval on these corruptionists and send Hugh Dempsey home to those who love him, a free man, with a character as spotless as it was before these two worthless, degraded creatures tried to ruin it."

Mr. Robb closed for the prosecution. His strongest point consisted in ridiculing the idea that if Dempsey wanted reports on the operations of the mill he would have sent cooks instead of steelworkers to secure them.

Judge Stowe charged the jury in a perfectly dispassionate and unbiased manner. This was on the morning of Friday, January 20, the seventh day of the trial. The jury remained out less than three hours and brought in a verdict of "Guilty as indicted." A demand for a new trial was promptly made and, pending the hearing of the application, Dempsey was liberated on $2,500 bail.

On January 24, Robert W. Beatty was placed on trial, charged with "felonious assault in administering, or employing persons to administer, poison" to the non-union men in the Carnegie steel plant. The same counsel appeared on both sides that figured in the Dempsey case, with the exception of District Attorney Burleigh, whose place was taken by his assistant, Harry Goehring. William M. Erwin, the "Western Cyclone" also appeared in court and joined the attorneys for the defense.

Captain Breck opened the case for the commonwealth by reading the testimony brought out on his side in the Dempsey case. There were 67,000 words of this matter and, before the reading was concluded, most of the Captain's auditors sank into a gentle slumber. The array of medical men and diarrhœa victims previously examined was then marshaled into court and re-examined and cross-examined for the benefit of the jury which was supposed not to be cognizant of the evidence submitted when Dempsey was on trial. Not until Charles McKinnie was put on the stand was an element of interest infused into the proceedings. McKinnie said that he was a riverman, knew Beatty well, and had been approached by the prisoner with a proposition to go to Homestead and dose the men with croton oil. He had refused to have anything to do with such contemptible work. The witness testified in a straightforward manner and made a visible impression on the jury.

Gallagher and Davidson repeated their former testimony with some variations, Davidson in his efforts to shield himself managing to contradict Gallagher in many points.

Charles C. Comstock swore that he had met Beatty in the mill and been advised by the latter to get out or the powders would fix him.

Many other witnesses were called to bear testimony to having seen Beatty in the mill at various times.

Attorney Brennen opened the case for the defense and at one point in his address amazed his auditory by stating his ability to prove, with reference to the supper at Wolfe's house, that "the tea that was drank at this banquet was all consumed at the dinner the day before." Mr. Brennen's slip of the tongue was much enjoyed. Undismayed by the effect of his inadvertent Hibernicism, the doughty little attorney proceeded to set forth the strong points of the case for the defendant, laying special emphasis on the declaration that there was nothing suspicious in the employment of cooks as detectives, inasmuch as the cookhouses were the most convenient headquarters for the kind of espionage which Dempsey had instituted.

Many witnesses were called to testify to the occurrence among the soldiers of a similar epidemic to that which beset the non-union steelworkers, and to prove the bad character of Gallagher and Davidson. Borough officials from Homestead swore that City Farm lane, which is close to the Carnegie works, was in a filthy, disease-breeding condition and physicians corroborated this evidence and showed that much sickness resulted from this cause.

Hugh F. Dempsey was summoned to the stand and told his story in about the same terms as were used by him when he testified on his own trial. He explained that nobody had authorized or requested him to send spies to Homestead. He had acted simply "in the interest of labor organizations."

Professor Hay again rebutted Captain Hunt's claim of having detected traces of croton oil in material furnished him by the mother of L. B. Hebron, and Dr. C. C. Wiley, surgeon of the Eighteenth regiment, stated that the conditions at Homestead conduced strongly to the spread of diarrhoea, cholera morbus and kindred complaints.

Robert J. Beatty, being sworn in his own defense, said that he had worked in the water house and pump house at the Carnegie mills for nearly a year prior to the lock-out. He was a member of Boxmakers' Lodge No. 52, K. of L. Witness denied all parts of the testimony of Gallagher and Davidson which tended to incriminate him. His telegram concerning "two good agents on the road," referred, he said, to two men supplied by a labor organization in Cincinnati, of whom he knew no more than this. He had received for expenses $33 from Dempsey and some money from David Lynch, Thomas Crawford and other Homestead men.

The closing speeches on both sides and the judge's charge, being substantially identical with those delivered in the Dempsey case, need not be outlined here.

The jury evidently had its mind made up before withdrawing. After only nine minutes' consideration, a verdict of "guilty as indicted" was agreed upon.

A strong fight was made to secure a new trial for Dempsey, but without success, and on February 21, the convicted men were called up for sentence. Dempsey and Beatty were each sentenced to seven years' imprisonment in the penitentiary, and Gallagher and Davidson, who had pleaded guilty, were sentenced respectively to five and three years' imprisonment.

Dempsey's attorneys took an appeal to the supreme court, which was negatived, and later applied for a pardon for their client on the strength of a recantation made by Gallagher, but subsequently repudiated by him. Gallagher made affidavit that the story told by him in court was false and that he had been suborned to commit perjury by detectives and others in the service of the Carnegie Company. Hardly was the ink on the affidavit dry, however, until this paragon of mendacity made a third "confession," reaffirming his original testimony. The pardon board denied the application on Dempsey's behalf, and the ex-master workman was thus deprived of his last hope and doomed to serve his full term in prison.

CHAPTER XX.

The Denouement

Clifford Tried For His Life – Alibi Testimony – Attorneys Erwin and Anderson Win New Laurels – "Not Guilty" – Hugh O'Donnell at the Bar – The Homestead Leader as a Reporter and Peacemaker – Weak Testimony for the Prosecution – Major Montooth Ridicules the District Attorney's Substitute – O'Donnell Acquitted – The Carnegie Lawyers Abandon the Field – Berkman's Accomplices Disposed Of

ON February 2, 1893, Jack Clifford was put on trial before Judge Stowe, on an indictment charging him, jointly with Hugh Ross, Hugh O'Donnell, Burgess McLuckie and others, with the murder of Detective T. J. Connors. The counsel on both sides were the same that appeared in the Critchlow case, with the exception that W. S. Anderson, an eminent criminal lawyer of Youngstown, Ohio, was added to the side of the defense. The jury selected was as follows: John Erichson, J. L. Hammitt, Andrew Hepp, Jr., W. G. Bigham, Henry Lloyd, H. A. Price, John Stauffer, D. C. Mayer, Andrew Donnelly, T. C. Rafferty, John M. Hamilton and Patrick Kearney.

Early in the proceedings, Judge Stowe served notice on the defense that he would not permit any line of argument or cross-examination tending to justify the killing of the Pinkertons. No matter who the invaders were or what their purpose, the court held, the killing was not justified. Mr. Erwin engaged in a tilt with the court over this ruling, citing the mode of procedure in the Critchlow case as precedent, but was summarily silenced.

The testimony offered by the prosecution differed little from that given against Critchlow. Pinkerton detectives identified Clifford and swore to having seen him in the forefront of the crowd that gathered to prevent the landing of the Pinkerton forces in the mill yard. Clifford was armed with a pistol, they said, and was active in building barricades and later in arranging the surrender. It was he that waved the white flag from the river bank and, in company with O'Donnell and others, guaranteed protection to the Pinkertons, if they would lay down their arms and come on shore. He had also aided in caring for the wounded and getting them off the barges.

George L. Johnson, a mill-worker, testified to having seen Clifford carry what appeared to him to be a powder canister in the direction of the brass cannon which was mounted in the gas house. Witness admitted that he had been employed by the Carnegie Company and had gone out on strike, but returned to work at his old job on July 5. He took no part in the fight with the Pinkertons, but was merely a spectator. This colloquy followed:

Mr. Brennen. – "You made no effort to stop it?"

"No, sir."

"You were there considerable time and did not attempt to spike the cannon?

"No, sir; I did not."