Tacoma Labor Rallies for Homestead Strikers
Hundreds of workers gather to denounce Pinkerton agents and call for protective labor legislation in Washington State.
The story, cleaned up
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An anti-Pinkerton mass-meeting was held in Tacoma this afternoon, presided over by Samuel De Nedrey, president of the Trades Council. Three or four hundred people, mostly of the laboring class, were present, and the general trend of the speeches was that the Homestead men had a right to resist the oppression of Carnegie. Alexander Parker, the defeated candidate for mayor, asserted that if the Carnegie company had a right to send Pinkertons to Homestead, then the workers at Homestead had a right to resist them. He likened the strikers to the heroes of the Revolutionary War. Will L. Visscher spoke in favor of electing legislators who would do away with Pinkertonism. Henry H. Hart of the Tacoma Sun and a spokesman for the People's party held that the children should be educated to the point where they would in coming generations do away with such evils. A resolution was adopted condemning the action of the Carnegie Company at Homestead and pledging moral and financial support to the strikers. A second resolution declared that the deplorable system of Pinkertonism introduced into Washington was a violation of the state constitution and urged citizens to only support candidates who would pledge to enact a full anti-Pinkerton law.
“If the Carnegie company had a right to send Pinkertons to Homestead then the workmen at Homestead had a right to resist them.”
This 1892 protest highlights the early intensity of organized labor in Washington and a deep public distrust of private police forces. The debate over who should provide security and the limits of corporate power remains a central, unresolved friction in Washington's civic life today.
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