Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1892-10-06
"Nothing to do with it,

Colonel Mcclure, in his recent speech
In the Philadelphia Academy of Music
In pursuance of the challenge, which
Governor Mckinley did not accept, to
discuss the tariff in joint debate before q
Philadelphia audience-said:
The complaint of the Homestead strikers,
as set forth in their address to the public.
was that the government had given to their
employers liberal taxes levied upon con-
sumers, to be applied to the wages of labor,
and that they have been robbed of them.
The serious feature of this complaint is in
the fact that in this age of free schools and
universal newspapers, the workingman
learns why and for whom tariff taxes are
levied when designed to protect labor; and
1t is from the more intelligent ranks of
labor that those hoarse murmurs are now
coming. They mean to demand what
their right, for when he tells them
that he increased tariff taxes to
increase wages OF labor, he tells them
that these taxes belong to them
and when they are Knocked by reduced
wages they are ready to battle for what
they are told on every side belongs to
them. 1t Is this fraud upon labor, and
this robbery of both labor and consumers,
that has given us the greatest number of
labor strikes and the greatest In magnitude
in our history. 1t was Mr.. Carncgie's
cable message from his baronial castle
abroad ordering reduction of wages at
Homestead that did more than any other
one cause to intiame the workingmen; and
it requires no more than an average COM
prehension to understand that protected
industry that can build up private fortunes
OF millions in decade must rob labor, or
rob consumers, or rob both.
The arraignment of the Homestead
Advisory Committee" for treason, by
whomever inspired, cannot avail to
break down the force of the great lesson
taught there in blood, that the Nc.
kinley tariff was not enacted and is no,
enforced for the protection of American
workingmen. AS Mr.. Bayard told the
thousands of Wilmington workingmen
who braved the cold night air and bore
in patience the Eruption of the police
patrol weEon which, with dozen un.
occupied streets to choose from, was
designedly driven through the crowd that
packed this square, the Republican
spokesman and press were prompt tc
declare, when the news came of the
outbreak at Homestead, that 1.-THE tariff
had nothing to do with it," In tina
moment of fear, in their anxiety tc
divert the attention of the work
ingmen of the United States from
too searching inquiry into
this humbug of taxing.95 per cent OF
them for the alleged protection of thu
remaining five per cent, they "got w
on their hind legs" and screamed that
the tariff had nothing to dc with thu
troubles at the highly protected Car
negie mills. What follows? BY Re
publican admission the tariff has nothing
to do with the raising or the lowering o
wages, even in the so-called protected
industries; that, without any tariff pro
lection, these wages would be regulated
by the demand and the supply for labc
In the United States, just as the wage
of the entirely unprotected carpenter
bricklayer and hod carrier are, and that
therefore, the Republican protectiv
system stands confessed, in the languag
of the Democratic national platform a
"a fraud on the labor of the great ma
jority of the American people for tn
benefit of the few"