The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1888-08-15
A STUNNING -exAMPLE.
How the war TariG Protects the Coal
Miner


Miner.
If we can find any state in the Union
whose every product is and always has
been the beneficiary of protection. then,
in that state, If the protection theory be
sound wages should be ample and this
condition of the workingnan prosperous.
And, happily, we find just such state in
Pennsylvania.
For three-quarters of century Penn
>sylvania has been the home and cradle
and creature of protection. It has varied
in other things. 1t has been Wing and it
has been Democratic; it has been Repub-
hcan and it has been Democrat q: it has
been pro-railroad and anti railroad; it has
been pro-slavery and anti-slavery; it
has changed its religion and its
habits; but one thing it has never
changed. and that is its belief that
the Industries OF Pennsylvania must be
protected Fifty years ago the newspa-
pers of Pittsburg declared that the
foundries would all shut down if tho ad-
vocates of revenue tariff triumphed;
forty two years ago. Psnnsylyanians
burned in effigy their fayorite son, Dallas,
for voting for the tariff of 1916; twenty
eight years ago. Pennsylvania made the
insertion of a protection plank in the Chi
cago platform the price of her vote for
Lincoln, -ltlltf eVeI.ss since tlieIl PeaBsgl-
vania has insisted on her representatives,
whether Democratic or Republican. re-
sisting every attempt to reduce customs
duties and demanding at all times and
under all circumstances that they be in
creased. Here, then. is an example of the
complete working of protection; here is
state where the protectionist policy has
had full and free scope for nearly two
generations of men, and where it must
have produced its fruits. If protection
protects wages it ought to have protected
them there.
The two great industries of Pennsyl-
vania are coal mining and iron making
In the latter an attempt to reduce wages
has just caused general strike. In some
cases the mills, having heavy contracts
on hand, have been forced to yield, but
most of them hold out, and the men are
offered the choice of partial starvation at
low wages or absolute starvation at no
wages at all. Their condition is thus de-
scribed by an eye witness, who has just
Travelled through the state:
"There is no human existence more
purely animal than that which moves on
from the cradle to the grave in the coal
villages of Pennsylvania. From days
end to days end, year in and year out,
the miners families plod along in their
hard. toilsome, brutalizing, grimy path to
the grave, joyless and hopeless, their
wretcled homes in keeping with their
more swresched lives.
Most of the miners are paid by the piece
and earn from eighty five cents to $1.40
per day. But hardly any of them are SO
well paid that they can afford to let their
children remain at school after 10 or IA
at that age they must begin to do their
share towards earning the family's bread.
The iron workers get better pay, but
owing to the fluctuations in the trade,
which are mainly due to the interference
of the tariff, they rarely manage to put in
over 100 days i'll a year. Thus their
wages, which are nominally higher than
those of English workmen, arc in reality
lower, for the latter generally have
steady job How nliserably they live may
be inferred from the cluster of crazy
the villages they inhabit. Tho benefit
they derive fror, protection is not visible
to the naked eye.
1t has always been thus under the pro-
tective tariff. In 1877, eleven years ago,
there was o general strike of workmen in
protected Pennsylvania. 1t was leds by
the railroad hands. The latter declared
in calm, temperate statement of their
grievances:
''Wo complain that our wages are too
small to enabie us to maintain comfort
able life. We are not profound or subtle
thinkers, but we keep both eyes open, and
we cannot but see that the managers of
the roads are pairing down our wages, and
at the same time squandering the earn
ings of the roads in senseless PivalFies and
personal extravaganza"
The case of the worlSmen in the iron
mills and the mines was worse. Some of
the miners could not earn over $40 a
month, few of them over $25. In some
places GO cents or 90 cents a day was the
average for able bodied men. The miners
said in their renonstrance:
''We have for q year done mems work
on two meals of mush day, and bit of
dry bread for our dinners, and we have
learned to endure great deal. But we
will eat the grass in the field before we
will go to work again for less than we de-
nland."
On the property of the Philadelphia and
Reading railroad are u number of coal
mines, ON the proceeds of which the COM
Pany lives. Inquiry proved that the
highest wages for fifteen days work was
$12, while many of the men only made
SO. In the Lehigh Valley $15 to $50
month was the most that miner could
make, and $15 the highest pay for labor
ers. Many miners testified that no meat
had been eaten in their families for
year or more, and that boiled Indian meal
was the only kind of food that was
familiar to them. This was not in free
trade England, but IN protected Pennsyl-
Eania.
What occurred in 1877 is now occurring
In 1883. Now, as then, protection is not
protecting wages, but is starving the
poor and making millionaires of the rich
Yet the Republicans tell worlxmen they
should vote for the tariff for fear that
wnges viii faIl to the European level If
there is any level lower than the level to
which wages have fallen in protected
Pennsy ylyania, God help those who have
TO i've under iti-San Francisco Exam
iner