"Were you in the crowd?", asked the Alderman of John Marsal. "Yes, outside the mill." "Were you there when they were throwing stones?" "I did not know whether they were throwing any stones." Then the Alderman questioned Hudak: "Were you in the crowd?" "Some like somebody" was the unusual, unintelligent answer. "Did you throw any stones?" "I know see." "Were you at the police station?" "Yes." "Did you follow the crowd down Fourth Street?" "Yes."

     Frechalk, when asked if he had been with the crowd, at first said, "I was no down there.  I was home.  My wife sick."  Later, he admitted, "Yes, I was in that bunch; I heard that bunch hollering".
     Goyak said, "I was with the crowd, but did not throw any stones."
     Marsal implicated a dairyman, a Russian, living on Jerome Street, asserting, "He was very active in the crowd."
     After hearing all the testimony Alderman Markus decided it was a case for a higher court, and held the defendants for action of the Grand Jury.
     By September 18th, the State Constabulary sent here for patrol duty, was re-inforced by ten more members, making a total of fifteen patrolling districts within a few miles of McKeesport.  They were distributed; five at Clairton, five at Dravosburg, and five at Lincoln Place.  It was likely, in lieu of any direct reason, that the authorities were getting ready for an emergency.  At this time the general strike was called for Monday, September 22nd, at 6:00 A.M.  The Mayor of McKeesport and Burgess of Port Vue started swearing in citizens as special officers, and made the statement that every effort would be made to preserve order.  On September 22nd, the strike broke and many conflicting stories were current as to its effectiveness.  Several shots were fired at Clairton, where much rioting took place.  State Troopers arrested forty as a result of the disorder.  National Tube Works, W.D. Woods plant, and Christy Park Works were working full.  From bulletins, the strike was claimed to be very effective at Cary, Joliet, Wheeling, Pueblo, Buffalo, Sharon, Youngstown, Martins Ferry, Monesson, Johnstown, Massillon, South Chicago, and Fairfield, Alabama.  Locations reported partially affected were Pittsburgh, Clairton, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Chicago, Mercer, and not affected, Elyria, Lorain, McKeesport, Duquesne, Canton, Lancaster, Vandergrift, Alliance, Coatesville, Braddock, Homestead, Sheffield and Anistan, Alabama.  Conflicting reports as to the above statements were current, coming from both the ranks of the strikers, and the employers.  By this time, the seriousness of the strike had been recognized by the National Government at Washington, and hearings were started by the Senate Labor committee.  At a hearing today, September 25th, John Fitzpatrick, Chairman of the Striker's Committee, told the Senators that the steel industry's "oppression" of labor is the "rotten apple" of the industrial situation.  Long hours and small wages drag conditions in other industry backward and downward.  Senators listened to his recital of attempts to prevent union meetings at McKeesport, and elsewhere.  Mayor Lysle at this time issued a proclamation stating the position of the City and authorities toward the strike, and calling on everyone to keep the peace and be orderly.  There were several arrests and fines for youths who jeered the troopers and who refused to move when ordered.  The most serious trouble up to this time resulting from the strike took place at Otto, where a huge mass meeting was scheduled to take place.  One foreigner shot at a State Trooper, and another pointed a gun at Police Chief Reddington.  Thirty-six arrests were made.  There were over 1,000 men in the crowd assembled, though all were careful not to stop on the McKeesport side of the line, but several were searched before crossing the line and arrested for "gun toting".
     Shortly before 3 o'clock the troopers hove in sight.  At the same time a freight train slowly moved towards McKeesport.  Sergeant Murphy of the State Troopers headed his men and all jogged along until they were a few yards from the crowd that was on the sidewalk.  Sergeant Murphy gave the command to charge, and like a streak the horses shot along the sidewalk.  Many of the foreigners had previously stationed themselves on the P&LE Railroad track and they climbed one side of the cars, as those driven from the sidewalk climbed the other side.  Foreigners, who were on the south side of Monongahela Avenue raced for the woods with troopers and officers in hot pursuit.  Sergeant Murphy said it was lucky for the men that the freight train happened along when it did, for he would have run them into the river.  In two minutes there was not a person on the streets but officers and reporters.  The foreigners yelled as they raced for the woods.  A few stopped to hid in the bushes, others were running by the officers ten minutes later.  Most of those who secreted themselves in the bushes were rounded up and arrested, and several others were captured by officers.  This was the first meeting in this section, where shots were fired and clubs used, but it was announced that since the officers have been fired on, they will use their entire effectiveness of armament in the future to protect themselves.  September 26th reports show National Tube Company and Carnegie Steel Company, at Duquesne, operating 100%.
     At Washington, the Senate investigating committee is continuing hearings, and has listened to Gompers, Fitzpatrik, and others, stating the labor side of the case.  This testimony evoked an editorial in the McKeesport Daily News descrying testimony given before the committee.  It declared that Gompers was a piker with Ananias, and called on the business men of McKeesport to rally to the City's support, and refute the slanderous chargers.
     On October 1st, Judge Gary flatly refused before the Senate Committee, to deal with labor unions.  He specifically told the committee he would not meet Gompers or any other union leader as a representative of his employees.  He said, "Every employee of the Corporation has the right to singly, or in groups, appeal even to the President of the Corporation, but we cannot deal with outsiders."
     The Allegheny County courts upheld the Mayor's ban on meetings, and fines imposed on Foster and Beaghen, stating in their decision that public safety was at issue.  During these days men were being arrested and fined for bothering workmen trying to return to work.  Hundreds of striking foreigners are leaving for Europe, depleting the striker's ranks.
     W.Z. Foster, when confronted before the Senate Committee with his book, wherein he advocate revolutionary socialism, declared under a  grueling fire of questions, that his view had changed since publication of the book.  To what extent they had changed he refused to say, unless newspaper correspondents were excluded from the room.  This was denied to him.
     Probably the worst condition in the strike occurred during the first week of October in the Calumet steel district, surrounding Gary, Indiana, where riots, disorder, and gun-play, caused the Governor to send four thousand regular troops into the district, and declare martial law.
     Senator Kenyon and his investigating committee visited Homestead, Duquesne, Clairton, and McKeesport on October 10th.  They talked with strikers, non-union workers, and wives and children, in an effort to learn how the other half lived.  The visit to McKeesport, where they were greeted by a committee composed of Mr. W.A. Cornelius, J.W. Wilson, H.N. Pendleton, T.H. Fox, W.T. Snyder, and T.M. Hopke, took place in the afternoon.  The committee was barely an hour in the mill and expressed astonishment and admiration for the manner in which the machinery was guarded with respect to safety, and the fact that practically everything was done by machinery.  Senator Kenyon asked Sergeant Murphy of the State Police about dispersing the meeting in Otto and said, "Did you hurt anybody?"  "No, Senator", said the Sergeant, "I would not say I hurt any of them, I just clubbed a few of them."
     Americanism, in the opinion of Senator Kenyon, is the sole remedy for the industrial ills of the United States.  "Did you see that crowd of 150 strikers at Clairton", asked the Senator, "Did you notice that when I asked how many of them were citizens, only three raised their hands?"  The Senator, on his return to Washington from Pittsburgh, made a statement in which he advocated strenuous changes in naturalization and Americanization, believing that if a foreigner did not learn to speak and read English, after being five years in the United States, he should be deported.
     At a meeting of the National Industrial Congress in Washington, on the 17th of October, 1914, the recognition of the right of collective bargaining seemed likely to be endorsed as the basic principle of the nation's future code of industrial relations.  Chairman Wheeler of the employer's group offered the following resolutions: