STAN BUSBY: The People's Party chose James Weaver as its candidate in the presidential election of eighteen ninety-two. Weaver had been an officer in the Union Army during America's Civil War. He had served in the House of Representatives. And he had been the candidate of a minor party in the presidential election of eighteen eighty.

The Republican Party re-nominated President Benjamin Harrison. And the Democratic Party nominated former President Grover Cleveland.

MAURICE JOYCE: The campaign began quietly. But a few months before the election, a labor dispute exploded into an important campaign issue. Several thousand steelworkers went on strike at a factory owned by the Carnegie Steel Company in Homestead, Pennsylvania. The steelworkers union called the strike after failing to reach a wage agreement with company officials.

After months of growing tension, the head of the company sent three hundred private security officers to break up the strike and protect non-union workers. The security officers and many of the strikers carried guns. Shots were fired. Ten men were killed.

The governor of Pennsylvania immediately sent state soldiers to the steel factory. After a few more attempts to continue the strike, the union admitted defeat. Its power was crushed. It would be more than forty years before America's steelworkers were organized again.

STAN BUSBY: A short time later, state soldiers were used to break up a strike by railroad workers in New York. And federal soldiers were used against striking silver miners in Idaho.