the workhouse, hoping that that would equal a death penalty,
only with a slow, refined execution. To achieve the feat of sending a
man to a gradual death, the authorities of Pittsburg at the command of
Mammon trampled upon their much-beloved laws and the legality of court
proceedings. These laws in Pennsylvania called for seven years
imprisonment for the attempt to kill, but that did not satisfy the
law-abiding citizen H. C. Frick. He saw to it that one indictment was
multiplied into six. He knew full well that he would meet with no
opposition from petrified injustice and the servile stupidity of the
judge and jury before whom Alexander Berkman was tried.

In looking over the events of 1892 and the causes that led up to the act
of Alexander Berkman, one beholds Mammon seated upon a throne built of
human bodies, without a trace of sympathy on its Gorgon brow for the
creatures it controls. These victims, bent and worn, with the reflex of
the glow of the steel and iron furnaces in their haggard faces, carry
their sacrificial offerings to the ever-insatiable monster, capitalism.
In its greed, however, it reaches out for more; it neither sees the
gleam of hate in the sunken eyes of its slaves, nor can it hear the
murmurs of discontent and rebellion coming forth from their heaving
breasts. Yet, discontent continues until one day it raises its mighty
voice and demands to be heard:

Human conditions! higher pay! fewer hours in the inferno at Homestead,
the stronghold of the "philanthropist" Carnegie!

He was far away, however, enjoying a much needed rest from hard labor,
in Scotland, his native country. Besides he knew he had left a worthy
representative in H. C. Frick, who could take care that the voice of
discontent was strangled in a fitting manner,--and Mr. Carnegie had
judged rightly.

Frick, who was quite experienced in the art of disposing of rebellious
spirits (he had had a number of them shot in the coke regions in 1890),
immediately issued an order for Pinkerton men, the vilest creatures in
the human family, who are engaged in the trade of murder for $2 per day.

The strikers declared that they would not permit these men to land, but
money and power walk shrewd and cunning paths. The Pinkerton
blood-hounds were packed into a boat and were to be smuggled into
Homestead by way of water in the stillness of night. The amalgamated
steel workers learned of this contemptible trick and prepared to meet
the foe. They gat