The western sentinel. [volume] (Winston-Salem, N.C.) 1887-1926, 1891-04-30
RESULT OF THE MCKINLEY
BILL.

been serious trouble among Cne
coke burners, OF Pennsylvania,
especially those situated near
Scottsdale.
The trouble came when the
coke barOns reduced the wages
of their labOrers to a point
which almost meant starvation,
and very naturally the coke bur-
ners refused to acceed to such a
reduction and went out on a
strike. Idle men congregated to-
gether in large bodies with moth
ing to do but reflect about their
injuries, very naturally drift into
contemplating, and eventually
doing some desperate deed TO
the injury of the person or prop
erty of those whom they hold
as the authors of their misfort-
une and suffering. 1t was after
being fired with such spirit
that the cole burners destroyed
some of the property of their
employers. For this some were
shot down like dogs and others
were driven from their homes.
It's a hard state of affairs but
there is no help for it. Honest
and Industrious American labor
ers were displaced that cheap
foreigners-the offscourings of
Europe-may be substituted in
their places; these forced by low
wages into a condition that they
could not endure, struck with a
hope of lettering their condition.
And now their places are to be
filed with another set of cheap
Italians and negroes. Thus to
remedy the trouble another lot
of foreigners will be imported to
fill the places of those displaced,
which will after awhile bring
more bloodshed and more trou-
BILE.
To some this matter may not
seem to have anything to do
with the Mckinley tariff bill or
the extortionate taxes wrung
from the American people, but 1t
calls to mind very forcibly the
reasons that were given as an
excuse for it's passage, that of
protecting American Industries
and American workingmen. Is
it doing it, is the question the
over-burdened taxed oppressed
people of this country ask? Is
it doing it, asks the American
laborer who is driven from his
legitimate place to make room
for a foreigner who feels no inter-
est in common with this coun-
try nor sympathy for it's people
Or it's institutions?
The Mckinley tariff bill, one
of the most Infamous measures
of its kind ever perpetrated upon
people, and far more outra-
geous than the tea tariff which
led to the American revolution,
exist without a single excuse,
save that which would tend to
make the few monopolists richer
and the great toiling masses
poorer. The American laborer,
the object it ostensibly sought to
to protect, is driven out of the
mines, the mills and the found
ries to wander as a pauper.
while his place is.filled with a for
.eigner. The goods that are made
on American soil and in Ameri-
can factories is sold for one hun
dred per cent more to American
people than what is charged for
the same class of goods sold to
foreigners. The coal miner and
coke burner, of Pennsylvania,
are foreigners. There is nothing
that prohibits them from coming
here and filling the places of
American born citizens. Compe-
tition is all right when it comes
to labor, America opens her
doors and invites the whole
world to come in, but when it
comes to the product of that la
Dor after it passes into the hands
of the money kings and monop-
olist then American citizens must
pay an extortionate price for it,
while the same goods are taken
over to Europe and sold there at
a hundred per cent less than our
people are required to pay for
them.
This is what is making million
aires SO rapidly in America. This
is what is tending to concentrate SO
much wealth in the hands of the
few, making it dangerous power