The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1888-08-28
Do They Love the Laborer7
WHAT CLASS DO THE REPUBLICANS SYM
PATuIZE WITH?
From the Philadelphia Record.

From the Philadelphia Record.
As If wholly conscious and half
ashamed of his position ss the advocate
and the apologist of legalized spolia-
ton and robbery Blaine exclaimed to
the crowd 10 Boston:
This is fight Cor the strong arms
and the sturdy hearts of the American
laborers.
Who are these laborers concerning
whose arms and hearts Mr.. Blaine is
so solicitous?
Not the carpenters, blacksmi'hs, ma
sons, plasterers, butchers and bakers
These workingmen know the tariff only
in its extortions
Not the telegraph operators, the
railroad engineers, firemen and switch
tenders : The tariff cannot add cent
TO their earnings.
Not the lumbermen of the west nor
the fishermen of New England For
these laborers are alike in the grasp of
tariff fed trusts.
Who, then, are the laborers whom
He does not mean the S5-a-week Hun
garians in the Paasaic wooden mills of
that eminent pi otectionist, Mr.. Z. II.
Ammidown ?
Nor can he mean the French work
ingmen imported Ivy Claude Chaffangon
the millionaire silk manufacturer of
Hudson, New Jersey, who deducts each
week one-tenth Of their pay until the
cost OF passage shall have been recov-
cred
Nor can Mr.. Blaine refer to ''the
strong arms and the sturdy hearts" of
the Poles and Bohemians over whom
Pinkerton's troops stood guard while
their cheap labor was driving Ameri-
can workingmen out of the steel mills
of Andrew Carnegie?
Nor TO the fresh loads of contract
Italian labor just landed at Castle Gar
den and on their way to the anthracite
mines of Pennsylvania? =? This impor-
tation of american labor" is altogeth-
er loo recent to have elicitod Mr..
Blaine's tender concern.
Mr.. Blaine cannot frighten any of
these laborers by telling them that the
factories aud mines would be run at
half wages if the Mills bill should be
passed. The protected monopolists
who own the mills and mines, and who
pay not farthing more than the Cas-
tie Garden market rate for the raw
material of human muscle, have got the
wage rate down to the starvation
standard now, and cannot mark it down
any lower.
Since Mr. Blame does not mean all
nor any of these laborers, for whom is
he making this tariff eight :" Let him
stand up in his next speech and hon
estly confess that he is making this
fight for the lumber and salt trusts,
for the Bessemer steel ring, for the
tin plate association, for the Carnegics,
for the Ammidows, the
Chaffangons and the rest of the bene-
ficiaries of tariff spoliation Let him
make clean breast of it and admit
that, from the day in which be entered
public life down to this hour, he has
never been on any side but that of
monopoly
The professions of sympathy for
American workingmen of which he
and the rest of the tariff mountebanks
are so profuse are only the blind be-
hind which they may more effectually
do the bidding of their monopolistic
masters. When they talk of making
fight for "the strong arms and sturdy
hearts of American laborers they are
adding cheap cajolery aud insult to the
injury which the tariff lnficts upon
every workingman in the land. These
strong arms and sturdy hearts need no
such champions and no protection ex-
cept from tariff greed and rapacity.
The intelligent workingmen Of this
country are quite able to penetrate the
disguises of the bowling dervishes of
protection, and to understand what in
spires their sham frenzy of zeal in be-
half of honest labor. When they un-
dertook to make war upon so moder-
ate and so just measure as the Mills
bill they betrayed their survility to
monopoly and the utter hollowness of
their pretenses in behalf of working,
men. For this and for all the rest of
all their tariff frauds and humbugs
they are about to receive 80 tremendous
kick in the rear from the American
people as will knock the talk out of
them for manv wears to come.