Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1888-08-17


ingmen are really an evidence OF their
welfare. 1t says:
The fact that organized labor is in a eondi-
ton to assert its rights and defend its interests,
is efficient to demonstrate that it is not pros
trated. 1t has surplus from its accumula-
lions to support its members in emergencies,
when protests against the exactions of capital
| are deemed expedient. 1t is simply organized
labor confronting organized capital and 0tce
0e1S0-the one determined that the other shall
not take advantage of it. It is one of the re-
suits of industrial development, growing out
of the protective policy, that labor is in a con-
dition to organize-that it is strong within it.
self and will not tolerate unjust impositions.
The workingmen of the United States
with a surplus! The workingmen Of the
United States with Accommodations enough
to support them in an emergency | Does
our contemporary really believe these
| things? Strikes lone Of the results of in
dustrial development growing out OF the
| protective policy 2" Does our neighbor
, really mean that state of open antagonism
! between workingmen and capital is a desir-
| able outcome Of policy Does it think
the immense strike involving 100000 men,
not yet ended, in Pennsylvania, against a
reduction of ten per cent. of their wages
by highly protected employers, is a good
outcome of protective policy Does our
! neighbor believe that a strike means the
! obtaining Of the rights Of the American
worklngmen? Only last week a young
girl told before the Congressional In
vestigating Committee what strike
meant in shirt-making. The girls
were getting 81 a week, they struck,
ard their employer filled their places with
Poles and Russians, at 81 week. The
Knights of Labor Of the Pennsylvania
coal region are arranging to spend SIG, 900
in trying to stem the tide of foreign cheap
labor into that region, where the Hunga-
rians and Poles have crowded in so, that
| in some quarters an English speaking fam
lily is scarce. What can strike do when
the country has no "Protective TARIFF
against the cheap Russians, Poles, Bohe-
mans, and other Europeans that are pour
| ing in? A strike mean no work and
starving family, or return to work at
wages as low as the imported Europeans
will work for. A strike against the gigan-
tic monopoles that have been formed un-
der High Tariff means loss of place, loss
Of money, and suffering of the family.
Since 1881, out of 8 ,247 strikes in the State
of New York, costing the strikers IS $751;
! 7S4, in wages, $3.50 utterly failed. Ii
these things be the sort Of results our
neighbor credits to the protective policy
be never said worse thing for the policy.
But the real fact is that these things are
the result Of the poverty and want of the
Workingmen that is the natural out
come of a High Tariff and not
the result of Just protective policy
! The supreme triumph of an economic poll
J cy is not the development of strikes by
| labor, nor lock-outs by capital; but the
creation of such demand for both prod
ucts and workmen that both employer and
employee will be busy and prosperous. It
is this state Of things which the Domocra-
tic Low Tariff, now offered to the country
| in the Mills bill-it is believed by its
framers--will bring about. 1t is an expert
ment worth trying by the country. and an
experiment when On trial for fourteen
years preceding 1860 accomplished this, as
described by James G. Blaine:
''Moreover, the tariff of 1916 was yielding
abundant revenue and the business of the
/ country was in fourishing condition at the
I time his administration was organized. Money
became very abundant after the year 1875
large enterprises were undertaken, specula-
ton was prevalent, and for a considerable
period the prosperity of the country was gen
eral and apparently genuine. After 1852 the
Democrats had almost undisputed control of
the Government and had gradually become
free-trade party. The principle embodied in
the tariff of 1916 seemed for the time to be SO
entirely indicated and approved, that resis
lance to it ceased, not only among the people
but among the protective economists. and
even among the manufacturers to large ex
tent. So general was this acquiescence, that
in 1856 protective tariff was not suggested
| Or even limited by any of the three parties
which presented Presidential candidates"