"I Will Kill Frick"
Emma Goldman Recounts the Attempt to Assassinate the Chairman of the Carnegie Steel
Company During the
Homestead Strike in 1892
Henry Clay Frick, chairman of the Carnegie Steel Company, was demonized by labor for
his role in the violent Homestead strike in 1892 in which a pitched battle was fought
between strikers and company-hired Pinkerton detectives. Known for his
uncompromising and cruel tactics, Frick became an obvious target for labor activists
looking to make a statement during the protracted strike. In this excerpt from her
autobiography, Living my Life, radical Emma Goldman describes how fellow radical
Alexander Berkman decided to murder Frick during the Homestead strike.
It was May 1892. News from Pittsburgh announced that trouble had broken out between the
Carnegie Steel Company and its employees organized in the Amalgamated Association of Iron and
Steel Workers. It was one of the biggest and most efficient labour bodies of the country,
consisting mostly of Americans, men of decision and grit, who would assert their rights. The
Carnegie Company, on the other hand, was a powerful corporation, known as a hard master. It
was particularly significant that Andrew Carnegie, its president, had temporarily turned over the
entire management to the company's chairman, Henry Clay Frick, a man known for his enmity to
labour. Frick was also the owner of extensive coke-fields, where unions were prohibited and the
workers were ruled with an iron hand.
The high tariff on imported steel had greatly boomed the American steel industry. The Carnegie
Company had practically a monopoly of it and enjoyed unprecedented prosperity. Its largest mills
were in Homestead, near Pittsburgh, where thousands of workers were employed, their tasks
requiring long training and high skill. Wages were arranged between the company and the union,
according to a sliding scale based on the prevailing market price of steel products. The current
agreement was about to expire, and the workers presented a new wage schedule, calling for an
increase because of the higher market prices and enlarged output of the mills.
The philanthropic Andrew Carnegie conveniently retired to his castle in Scotland, and Frick took
full charge of the situation. He declared that henceforth the sliding scale would be abolished. The
company would make no more agreements with the Amalgamated Association; it would itself
determine the wages to be paid. In fact, he would not recognize the union at all. He would not
treat with the employees collectively, as before. He would close the mills, and the men might
consider themselves discharged. Thereafter they would have to apply for work individually, and
the pay would be arranged with every worker separately. Frick curtly refused the peace advances
of the workers' organization, declaring that there was "nothing to arbitrate." Presently the mills
were closed. "Not a strike, but a lockout," Frick announced. It was an open declaration of war.
Feeling ran high in Homestead and vicinity. The sympathy of the entire country was with the men.
Even the most conservative part of the press condemned Frick for his arbitrary and drastic
methods. They charged him with deliberately provoking a crisis that might assume national
proportions, in view of the great numbers of men locked out by Frick's action, and the probable
effect upon affiliated unions and on related industries.
Labour throughout the country was aroused. The steel-workers declared that they were ready to
take up the challenge of Frick: they would insist on their right to organize and to deal collectively
with their employers. Their tone was manly, ringing with the spirit of their rebellious forebears of
the Revolutionary War.
Far away from the scene of the impending struggle, in our little ice-cream parlour in the city of
Worcester, we eagerly followed developments. To us it sounded the awakening of the American
worker, the long-awaited day of his resurrection. The native toiler had risen, he was beginning to
feel his mighty strength, he was determined to break the chains that had held him in bondage so
long, we thought. Our hearts were fired with admiration for the men of Homestead.
We continued our daily work, waiting on customers, frying pancakes, serving tea and ice-cream;
but our thoughts were in Homestead, with the brave steel-workers. We became so absorbed in the
news that we would not permit ourselves enough time even for sleep. At daybreak one of the
boys would be off to get the first editions of the papers. We saturated ourselves with the events in
Homestead to the exclusion of everything else. Entire nights we would sit up discussing the
various phases of the situation, almost engulfed by the possibilities of the gigantic struggle.
One afternoon a customer came in for an ice-cream, while I was alone in the store. As I set the
dish down before him, I caught the large headlines of his paper: "LATEST DEVELOPMENTS IN
HOMESTEAD -- FAMILIES OF STRIKERS EVICTED FROM THE COMPANY HOUSES --
WOMAN IN CONFINEMENT CARRIED OUT INTO STREET BY SHERIFFS." I read over the
man's shoulder Frick's dictum to the workers: he would rather see them dead than concede to
their demands, and he threatened to import Pinkerton detectives. The brutal bluntness of the
account, the inhumanity of Frick towards the evicted mother, inflamed my mind. Indignation
swept my whole being. I heard the man at the table ask: "Are you sick, young lady? Can I do
anything for you?" "Yes, you can let me have your paper," I blurted out. "You won't have to pay
me for the ice-cream. But I must ask you to leave. I must close the store." The man looked at me
as if I had gone crazy.
I locked up the store and ran full speed the three blocks to our little flat. It was Homestead, not
Russia; I knew it now. We belonged in Homestead. The boys, resting for the evening shift, sat up
as I rushed into the room, newspaper clutched in my hand. "What has happened, Emma? You
look terrible!" I could not speak. I handed them the paper.
Sasha was the first on his feet. "Homestead!" he exclaimed. "I must go to Homestead!" I flung my
arms around him, crying out his name. I, too, would go. "We must go tonight," he said; " the great
moment has come at last!" Being internationalists, he added, it mattered not to us where the blow
was struck by the workers; we must be with them. We must bring them our great message and
help them see that it was not only for the moment that they must strike, but for all time, for a free
life, for anarchism. Russia had many heroic men and women, but who was there in America?
Yes, we must go to Homestead, tonight!
I had never heard Sasha so eloquent. He seemed to have grown in stature. He looked strong and
defiant, an inner light on his face making him beautiful, as he had never appeared to me before.
We immediately went to our landlord and informed him of our decision to leave. He replied that
we were mad; we were doing so well, we were on the way to fortune. If we would hold out to the
end of the summer, we would be able to clear at least a thousand dollars. But he argued in vain --
we were not to be moved. We invented the story that a very dear relative was in a dying
condition, and that therefore we must depart. We would turn the store over to him; all we wanted
was the evening's receipts. We would remain until closing-hours, leave everything in order, and
give him the keys.
That evening we were especially busy. We had never before had so many customers. By one
o'clock we had sold out everything. Our receipts were seventy-five dollars. We left on an early
morning train.
On the way we discussed our immediate plans. First of all, we would print a manifesto to the
steel-workers. We would have to find somebody to translate it into English, as we were still
unable to express our thoughts correctly in that tongue. We would have the German and English
texts printed in New York and take them with us to Pittsburgh. With the help of the German
comrades there, meetings could be organized for me to address. Fedya was to remain in New
York till further developments.
From the station we went straight to the flat of Mollock, an Austrian comrade we had met in the
Autonomie group. He was a baker who worked at night; but Peppie, his wife, with her two
children was at home. We were sure she could put us up.
She was surprised to see the three of us march in, bag and baggage, but she made us welcome,
fed us, and suggested that we go to bed. But we had other things to do.
Sasha and I went in search of Claus Timmermann, an ardent German anarchist we knew. He had
considerable poetic talent and wrote forceful propaganda. In fact, he had been the editor of an
anarchist paper in St. Louis before coming to New York. He was a likable fellow and entirely
trustworthy, though a considerable drinker. We felt that Claus was the only person we could
safely draw into our plan. He caught our spirit at once. The manifesto was written that afternoon.
It was a flaming call to the men of Homestead to throw off the yoke of capitalism, to use their
present struggle as a stepping-stone to the destruction of the wage system, and to continue
towards social revolution and anarchism.
A few days after our return to New York the news was flashed across the country of the slaughter
of steel-workers by Pinkertons. Frick had fortified the Homestead mills, built a high fence around
them. Then, in the dead of night, a barge packed with strike-breakers, under protection of heavily
armed Pinkerton thugs, quietly stole up the Monongahela River. The steel-men had learned of
Frick's move. They stationed themselves along the shore, determined to drive back Frick's
hirelings. When the barge got within range, the Pinkertons had opened fire, without warning,
killing a number of Homestead men on the shore, among them a little boy, and wounding scores
of others.
The wanton murders aroused even the daily papers. Several came out in strong editorials, severely
criticizing Frick. He had gone too , far; he had added fuel to the fire in the labour ranks and would
have himself to blame for any desperate acts that might come.
We were stunned. We saw at once that the time for our manifesto had passed. Words had lost
their meaning in the face of the innocent blood spilled on the banks of the Monongahela.
Intuitively each felt what was surging in the heart of the others. Sasha broke the silence. "Frick is
the responsible factor in this crime," he said; "he must be made to stand the consequences." It was
the psychological moment for an Attentat; the whole country was aroused, everybody was
considering Frick the perpetrator of a cold-blooded murder. A blow aimed at Frick would re-echo
in the poorest hovel, would call the attention of the whole world to the real cause behind the
Homestead struggle. It would also strike terror in the enemy's ranks and make them realize that the
proletariat of America had its avengers.
Sasha had never made bombs before, but Most's Science of Revolutionary Warfare was a good
text-book. He would procure dynamite from a comrade he knew on Staten Island. He had waited
for this sublime moment to serve the Cause, to give his life for the people. He would go to
Pittsburgh.
"We will go with you!" Fedya and I cried together. But Sasha would not listen to it. He insisted
that it was unnecessary and criminal to waste three lives on one man.
We sat down, Sasha between us, holding our hands. In a quiet and even tone he began to unfold
to us his plan. He would perfect a time regulator for the bomb that would enable him to kill Frick,
yet save himself. Not because he wanted to escape. No; he wanted to live long enough to justify
his act in court, so that the American people might know that he was not a criminal, but an
idealist.
"I will kill Frick," Sasha said, "and of course I shall be condemned to death. I will die proudly in
the assurance that I gave my life for the people. But I will die by my own hand, like Lingg. Never
will I permit our enemies to kill me."
"Woman's development, her freedom, her independence, must come from and through
herself." -Emma Goldman
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