When  I  reached  there  in  April,  1894,  the  battle  was  already
fifteen  months  past,  but  the  feeling  was  still  alive.    I  did  not

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A  BOOK  ABOUT  MYSELF  391

then  know  what  it  was  about  this  town  of  Homestead  that
was  so  depressrag,  but  in  the  six  months  of  my  stay  here  I
found  that  it  was  a  compound  of  a  sense  of  defeat  and  sullen
despair.  The  men  had  not  forgotten.  Even  then  the  company
was  busy,  and  had  been  for  months,  importing  Poles,  Hun-
garians, Lithuanians,  to  take  the  places  of  the  ousted  strikers.
Whole  colonies  were  already  here,  housed  under  the  most
unsatisfactory  conditions,  and  more  were  coming.  Hence  the
despair  of  those  who  had  been  defeated.
Along  the  river  sprawled  for  a  quarter  of  a  mile  or  more
the  huge  low  length  of  the  furnaces,  great  black  bottle-like
affairs  with  rows  of  stacks  and  long  low  sheds  or  buildings
paralleling  them,  sheds  from  which  came  a  continuous  ham-
mering and  sputtering  and  the  glow  of  red  fire.  The  whole
was  shrouded  by  a  pall  of  gray  smoke,  even  in  the  bright  sun-
shine. Above  the  plant,  on  a  slope  which  rose  steeply  behind
it,  were  a  few  moderately  attractive  dwellings  grouped  about
two  small  parks,  the  trees  of  which  were  languishing  for  want
of  air.  Behind  and  to  the  sides  of  these  were  the  spires  of
several  churches,  those  soporifics  against  failure  and  despair.
