Was Andrew Carnegie a Murderer?

Andrew Carnegie is known world wide as a great Scottish American and Philanthropist giving away billions in today’s money values to help the working class in particular their education and promoting world peace.

Although a respected giver there is evidence he was also involved in the murder of strikers in a bid to end a series of strikes in his factories and coal mines.

Born and brought up in Dunfermline Scotland Andrew Carnegie’s father and uncle were being constantly attacked for their radical political attitudes and actions. As leaders in the Chartist movement they were fighting for the right of the working class to vote and stand for election in the belief that this would bring about a fairer future for the world. At this time only the richer people were allowed to do these things. Only property owners were able to have their name on the electoral register to vote so only they would be able to represent the people and of course were able to maintain power and influence.

However the only way to gain political power was to take it away from the rich and they were the people who controlled the factories upon which the Carnegie family were dependant for employment and their survival. Their reputation as “trouble-makers” (certainly in the eyes of factory owners they were) meant they were blacklisted everywhere.

At age 13 Andrew Carnegie saw these struggles of the poor against the rich and moved to Pittsburgh USA with his family to start a new life. Even after selling all they had they still needed to borrow money from fellow Chartists and neighbours to pay for their passage.

Andrew took a job as a bobbin boy in a weaving factory but later moved to become a telegraph boy where he caught the eye of his employer who promoted him to personal secretary. In this position he was able to acquire an inside knowledge of how business worked and with hard work and very shrewd investments was able to start his own steel works. This grew to become one of the countries largest and when he later sold it he was able to pocket over 350 million dollars.

Carnegie cut wages and pushed workers for longer hours along with investing in new technology to enable him to win enough contracts to buy up less efficient steel works. He continually ran into conflict after conflict with the new unions.

Andrew Carnegie’s general manager had earned a reputation as a union fighter having worked with Pinkerton’s Detective Agency on a number of occasion to protect factories and coal mine investments. Pinkerton’s were not really a detective agency by then but hired gunmen each armed with Winchester rifles and always ready to use them if trouble broke out with strikers. They were lead suspects for the bombing of a union headquarters in Chicago during one prolonged strike battle.

Andrew Carnegie at this time went back to Scotland for half a year at a time so he was present during the Homestead Steel Works dispute but we have come across cables sent between him and Frick the General Manager where he clearly supported “doing whatever was necessary to win the fight”. 10 men died on this occasion during a long gun battle but it led to the union collapse and a return to work. Andrew Carnegie immediately cut the wages again introduced a longer working week and ensured 500 men who were involved in the strike leadership would never again work in the steel mill.

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.