Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1882-02-08
What Ais the WOrkingmen ?

what Ais the WOrkingmen
From the Detroit Evening News
What is the matter with the Amer
lean workingman, whom the Hon. w
ID. Kelley describes as "the prince o
workingmen with his three-story din
ner pail" All over the country Tho
workingmen are striking for higher
wages. Railroad laborers' strike al
Omaha, coal miners in Pennsylvania
cotton workers in Massachusetts,, anG
so on throughout the country.
The laborers at the Joliet steel mill;
struck short time since against re-
duction of their wages to 12s cents per
hour How can the workingmen be SO
unreasonable? The Bessemer steel as.
ISOLATION have hard struggle in the
noble fight against the pauper labor Of
Europe. The only aid they receive
is protective duty of $2S per ton on
steel rails; and the manufacturers in
this country assure us that the princi-
pal reason why they ask for protection
is that they do not want to see the Ia
borers of this country reduced to the
condition of the pauper laborers of
Europe. They want protection, not
for themselves (perish the thought
but in order that they may pay higher
wages to their men, and workingmen
should take it for granted that these
patriotic champions of American labor
are paying them all they can afford
To be sure it is continually reported
that the thirteen steel rail mills made q
profit of $4,000, 900 last year, but the
organs of the monopolists assure us
it is free trade lie and that the poor
fellows made only little over $14,O00,-
600 or about 81, 100000 for each mill.
This should satisfy the men who get
s1.25 per day, that their employers
could not pay higher wages without GO
ing into bankruptcy. Besides, $1.25
per day, or $3.50 per month, should
support laboring man and his family
in royal style. House rent will cost
$40 to $12; flour 81 per bbl.; potatoes
$1.25 per bu.; butter 80 to 35 cents
beef IL to 10 cents, and other things
in proportion.
OF course clothing and many other
things are made higher by the tariff
but the laborer gets it all back and
more too in his princely wages.
Perhaps the most unreasonable strik-
ers are the factory girls at Lawrence,
Mass. They have struck against q re-
duction of their wages from 90 to ga
cents day, or 1884 per week. A girl
should be able to live like q princess
on 1884 per week, and save money for
a rainy day. Her board should not
cost over $3.50 per week, and that
would leave her "a cents per week, or
sl7.6S per year, for clothing and other
and luxuries of life.
Is it any wonder that working men
md women strike for higher wages
when they are offered such beggarly
pay? The government protects their
employers against foreign competition,
'ut the working men and women have
10 protection against cheap labor, for
ign or domestic, except such as is af-
orded by their labor unions.
The workingmen are beginning to
ee that the protected manufacturers
10 not increase wages in proportion to
heir profits, but the employers hire the
cheapest labor they can find, and if our
native workmen do not accept the
wages offered, the protected manufac-
urers do not hesitate to import the
'auper laborers of Europe or Canada
r Asia to compete with the American
nborer on his own soil. The Bessemer
'teel association made exceptionally
arge profits last year, but their labor
RS received only the average wages paid
Or similar work.
If any further proof of the down.
ight dishonesty of the protectionists
Tere necessary, it is furnished in the
act that the iron and the steel
of the United States i'm
orted 621 ,073 tons of iron ore from
Europe and Africa last year. This ore
the product of the so-called pauper