Scottish American Andrew Carnegie is highly respected as one of the world’s greatest philanthropists having given millions to help the working class masses though setting up of college trust funds and public libraries to enable them to gain an education.
Alongside this good work there is a lot of forgotten evidence to suggest that this philanthropist knowingly hired gunmen to end strikes by attacking strike leaders.
Andrew Carnegie was born in Scotland into an active political family fighting for the vote to be given to the working class who would be able to use their new power to stand for election and make the world a far fairer environment.
The actions of Andrew Carnegies father and uncle led to the family losing their jobs and the rich factory owners seeing as potential troublemakers ensured they never worked again.
When Andrew Carnegie was only 13 years old the family decided to sell up everything they had left basically their furniture and borrowed money from other Chartist supporters and emigrated to the USA ending up in Pittsburgh.
Andrew Carnegie took a job working as a telegraph operator before being promoted to personal secretary to his boss and stayed with him when he took a senior position in national government. The skill and knowledge he acquired along with very good investments enabled Carnegie to invest in a steel works which under his leadership grew until he sold it for 400 million of which he personally earned 350 million dollars.
However his drive and ambition for new technology meant he was often in conflict with unions as he cut wages and introduced longer works to drive up profitability and win contracts eventually buying up most of his competitors.
Andrew Carnegie appointed Frick as business manager of his steel works was also known as a hard nosed business man when it came to fighting unions and they often brought in Pinkerton’s Detective Agency to defend their position. Pinkerton’s over the years had become the people to turn to when you wanted gunmen to fight strikes and had acquired a reputation for being violent in the way they handled themselves. The agency had even bombed a union HQ in Chicago and had been involved in a number of killings of strike leaders.
Although Carnegie was back in Scotland at the time of the Homestead steel works strikes we have published a number of cables from Andrew Carnegie to Frick as his General Manager supporting and encouraging him to do whatever was necessary to win the fight. On this occasion 10 men died in a day long gun battle and when the union finally caved in Carnegie cut wages even lower, increased the number of hours and blacklisted 500 union men who would never work again.
Blacklisted from employment after being branded a troublemaker by rich factory owners rings bells with how Carnegies own family was punished so he obviously learnt some lessons, didn’t he? You can read the full story on http://scottishjerk.com/09/andrew-carnegie-murderer/ and vote in our poll at the same time.