The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1883-06-20
STRIKES AND STRIKERS.


Workingmen know they and their fam
lilies are liable to fall sick. The doc
tor must be employed and medicine
must be provided. They know their children
must go to school; therefore books must be
purchased. Ii the family attends Church.
there is another demand upon the wages
Prudent men take all these things into con-
sideration. They are discussed at home and
among themselves. Thousands of working
men are ambitious to lay by something for a
rainy day, for old age for funerals. Death,
under the gaise of tickle fashion. has of late
years become expensive. A man can't die
any more for So or $40. Common poplar
boards are tranformed into rosewood, and a
coffin or a casket costs almos. as much as a
cottage. When workingmen find that their
wages will not support themselves and their
families, they ask Cor an advance. They say:
eve are making fortunes for others; we ought
to have enough of the gains to live like
men," If it is refused they bear it as long as
they can-ask again. If the advance is not
granted sometimes they work on; again.
they strike. When they are receiving just
enough to live comfortably, it often occurs
that propositions are made to reduce their
wages. To this reduction they frequently
consent, when convinced that the exigencies
demand it, and at the reduced wages they
can pull through. Sometimes they decline
to accept the reduction, and strike occurs.
In some establishments strikes are never
heard of. The relations between employer
and employe are so thoroughly understood
that strikes ara not resorted to. In other es-
adjustments strikes are common.
It is held by some that
strikes are never profitable to the
striker; that he is always the loser. These
propositions on their face are plausible and
arithmetic Is apparently against the striker
But the propositions, when analyzed, are
found to be defective since there is no stop
ping place. Take the proposition of reGuc-
ing wages A man Is receiving say ST per
day. The proposition is to reduce wages to
eighty cents. If he strikes ne gets nothing
at all while idle. He loses eighty cents a
day or 81 so week. II will hurt him if he
strikes. Any wages are better than none at all
says the philosopher-snd it appears like
common sense. But there is principle in
volved as serious as life or death. Below
a certain point life can not De sustained,
hence the employer can aot be permitted to
determine the question OF wages. The work
ingman must have voice in settling the
question. The workingman for time may be
the loser, but if in the end he secures wages
that will enable him to live and support his
family, he has been immensely the gamer.
Besides, a great principle of right has
triumphed for himself and for others. In
the matter of wages he has tight 10 be con-
suited, to have voice, and IN gaining such
a victory he dignifes labor, elevates the la
borer, and thereby confers blessing OF no
small proportions upon socity; for since la
boring people are in the majority, and are
clothed with all the high p-erogatives of
sovereignty, the public welfare demands
that labor shall not be impoverished nor
degraded. STRIKES" says the New York
Herald, "are becoming more frequent anu
wages are being slowly but relentlessly cut
down under a spell of industrial depression;
and this process must continue unless some
relief, other than such as will merely stave
off the evil hour without removing the cause,
from time to time recurring, only show
deep undercurrent OF discomfort on the part
OF the workmen with their condition" If
we are to believe reports wages are going
down, and the reason assigned is "over-pro-
duction." Over-production is the result OF a
| limited demand, want of markets, and this
want of markets is the direct result OF tariff
| policy which shuts the manufactures of the
United States out of the markets OF the
world. The tax on raw materials, as we have
shown in these columns, is a decree against
| competition OF the United States with
European workshops. Workingmen have
learned to their sorrow that
a high protective tariff does not protect
them. On the contrary, that it, in the long
run, is their deadlIest enemy. the remedy
| for strikes, efficient and certain, is in the
hands of the laborers of the United States
1t is to move in solid column against the pro-
tective tariff With untaxed raw materials
the workingmen of the United States can
command their share of the markets of the
world. The cry of over-production will be
hushed. Granting all that the advocates of
protection claim for ii in the past, "yet il is
an absolute certainty that it ia now nothing
but dead weight on the commerce and in
dustry of the country. Its defects are so
glazing as to completely shut out the good
that might be attributed to it, and these de-
fects act against the interests of the work
man." The time has come for workingmen
to 60 to the bottom OF the wrongs under
which they have labored, and to see If there
Is not a better way to improve their condI-
ton than to resort to strikes. The Herald
further says:
By restricting the foreign commerce of the Ma
ton 1t prevents free and full development of its
resources. which are as yet scarcely known. so
great are they. This restricts the employment OF
I labor
By increasing the cost OF manufactures Il pre-.
vents a free competition with the foreign pro-
Queer in foreign markets This not only restricts
the employment Of labor here, but 1t also renders
impossible the export of surplus products, and II
the high rate of domestic production which has