The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-06-20
SPIRIT OF TEE PRnss.
Editorial Opinions of the Leading Journals
upon Current Topics-Compiled Every
Day for the Evening Telegraph.

STRIKES AND THE ASIATIC ELEMENT.
From the N. y. Herald.
The cor iwainers in Massachusetts, have put
their foot in it. They have struck for higher
wages; and what is the result The shoe
manufacturers telegraph to China or San
Francisco for workmen, and, presto as If by
magic, up pops gang of Oriental pigtails,
cooked and primed, and, with their unrivalled
initiative powers, within forty-eight hours
they commence smaking shoes as handily as
the most expert waxend in the Common
wealth. OF course this Introduction of a
foreign and servile class of workmen into
trade that had become, as ID were native and
to the manor born in New England, created
considerable indignation among the Crispin
societies, and it was with no little dificultythst
the intruders were enabled to commence and
proceed with their labors.
But it is not only in New England that this
excitement prevails. 1t has already spread to
other places In Troy, in this State, a mass
meeting of workingmen has been held and a
protest entered against the importation of
coolie laborers. Statistics were shown where
the Chinese had already seriously reduced
the wages of certain kinds of labor in Califor-
MIA, and predictions were made that if the
coolies obtained foothold in the manufac-
turing towns of the East and West an meal
the native working classes. This damage
would not be confined to the workingmen
alone, but the working women, especially in
the shoemaking districts, would feel its
effects more seriously than the men. There
are many thousands of females employed in
the shoemaking business in Massachusetts,
and throughout New England. The delicate
work they do can be readily initiated by the
dainty fingered Chinese, who can live and
1aa,. A ,ar,
can girl in shoestrings. Hence, if these
Asiatic cordwainers once obtain foothold in
the shoe manufactures of the East the in
stincts of grasping capitalists will lead them
to dispense with native-born labor altogether
and engage that of the foreign element.
In their strikes, then, the workingmen
should take full view of the situation and
weigh we'll the consequences. The market
for skilled labor is not now what it was only
two or three years ago. The Pacific Railroad
and steam communication with Asia have
opened channels through which myriads OF
the unemployed people of that region can
find access to these remote lands-even, as we
have seen, to the heart of -abhorring
New England itself. Coolieism is but another
name for African slave labor, and as in old
times Massachusetts, was the first to reap
benefits from the latter, her mSneyed men
will not hesitate to jump at the opportunity
and realize the most they can from the new
system of servile employment Just intro
duced Workingmens strikes, therefore,
however justifiable they may be under the
pressure of extraordinary circumstances,
are fraught with new dangers and vicissitudes.
A new class of beings has sprung up to take
the place of the honest artisan or mechanic
who expects, nay, demands, fair remunera-
tion for his toll. This new class are entirely
different in their habits, religion, mode of
living, education, and ideas of free govern
ment from our workingmen. They have nc
family ties, no patriotic love of this land, nc
associations, no likes or dislikes, no senti
ments whatever akin to our people. They
are ready TO work for nothing, and accus.
toned to live on less. These points, we sug.
gest, ought to be taken into consideration
before a workingmen's strike for trivial
causes is concluded upon; for in the hordes
of Asiatics ready to swarm into our manufac
turing villages, and into our city shops, stores
feundries, Offices and elsewhere where cheap
labor can be proftably employed, we see both
an element of apprehension covering the in
terests of our laboring classes and of future
turbulence, if not of danger and disaster,
more general and widespread.