Los Angeles herald., 1891-05-16
THE BEAUTIES OF PROTECTION IN PRO-
TECTED PENNSYLVANIA.


And still the New York Press prints
and the Los Angeles Times republishes
wearisome tables showing what great
things the Republican party is doing for
the American workingman. OF course
these tables are wretchedly partial, and
in most cases unreliable. They afford
no earthly excuse for the extortions Of
the Mckinley bill, because the figures
are predicated upon wage returns fur
nished before that bill became law.
So that, even if they were accurate,
they in no manner tend to mitigate the
natural indignation of an outraged peo-
pie at the gross imposition upon the
masses practiced by Republican con-
gress in increasing the war tariff.
But against fallacious tables, OF doubt
full reliability-tables which take no ac-
count of the difference in the expenses
OF living here and in Europe
the people are confronted with facts.
There can be no denial of the fact that
the most highly protected region in the
United States is the coke region in
Pennsylvania, where the late massa-
cres have occurred. Here is the very
center OF the domain of the coal and
iron barons. Coke is protected by a
duty of 20 per cent. against the foreign
staple. The already high duties on
iron and steel were increased in all
lines by the Mckinley tariff. In Penn
sylvania, if anywhere, the beauties of
protection ought to be exemplified.
There, if anywhere, the American work
ingman ought to reap the benefits of a
tariff made specially for his benefit.
What are the facts?
In the first place, the wages of the
coke men have been reduced to an aver
age of SO cents day. We should much
like to see the New York journal from
which the Times quotes so literally ex-
plain how it is that, under a system of
protection which has steadily increased
since the war, the wages of the coke
men have decreased more than one
half.
These journals, we may safely assume,
will never tackle that phase of the sub
ject. Yet the HERALD Will give the
explanation in a nutshell. The wages
of the coke workers have been reduced
to SO cents day because the operators
want the earth, and included in that
expansive proposition, they want every
cent which can be fried out of their en-
employees, as we'll as the exorbitant
profits of an extortionate tariff. To
scoop in every thing in sight they have
imported hordes of Italian and Hun.
garian laborers to take the places of the
American, Irish, English and Scotch
workingmen, who could not readily con.
vert themselves into slaves, and who
objected to working for starvation
wages. The war tariff must be main.
tanned, but the American laborer, who
was to be its principal beneficiary, must
be ground into atoms.
Having got the italian and Hungarian
slaves here, the highly protected operat-
ors, true to their avarcious instincts,
must proceed to grind their faces. These
poor people could not speak a word oi
English. They were expected to sub
NIT to any kind of exaction and to any
sort of treatment. Contracts expressed
and implied were to be ignored when il
came to them. When, quite naturally
they rebelled against such usage, gangs
of Pinkerton assassins were imported tc
shoot them down like dogs. How well
the contract has been carried out the
readers of the daily papers know. The
displaced American workingman-who
may starve if he chooses-has looked on
in dumb surprise at the tragedies which
have been enacted before his eyes. Such
is protection in the most highly pro-
tected region of the United States 81,
Our Republican contemporaries will
carefully ignore these facts. They will,
instead, give the old, unreliable tables
comparing European and American
standards for remunerating labor. They
will publish comparative statistics, fo1
instance, of the price of steel rails now
and at an earlier date. They will care
fully ignore the fact that the discovery
of the Bessemer process of making steel
has cheapened steel rails fully sixty-six
and two-thirds per cent. They will
ascribe it all to protection, and to the
Mckinley bill at that, although that
precious measure could not possibly
have had any influence on the price of
steel rails at the time these figures were
prepared.
Verify, the age of humbug has not
passed
IT is hard for us to believe that the
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