The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1892-08-12
The HOMESTEAD TRAGEDY.


It Has Furnished an Opportunity for the
Time-Server and the Demagogue-u
Workingmen VIII Let Their Reason De-
eide for Them They VIII Soon See the
Falsity of Free Trade Assertions.
! 1t is passing strange that anyone can
be found who does not grieve over the
bloody work at Homestead. Pennsyl-
vania. Here were a score of human
lives destroyed. several scores of our
fellow-men dangerously wounded, and
hundreds of others so badly injured
that they will not recover for many
days. Yet there is no denying that the
politicians interested in the election of
Mr.. Cleveland positively rejoice in this
blood letting. They see in it a hope
that the aroused passions of labor may
lead it 20 do that which reason would
never allow it to do-to tear down the
temple on its own head in the blind en-
deavor to crush its employer. For while
it might seriously injure capitalists en-
gagged in American manufacturing, to
vote free trade into power next Novem-
Der, it would usher in an era of blank
despair for American working people
and their families
For weeks the free trade papers have
been gloGting over the prospect of
trouble between employer and en-
ployed in the iron and steel industry,
and have persistentlv attributed what
ever reductions may have occurred in
wages TO the new tariff The Home
stead carnage has inspired them with re-
newed zeal and the cartoOnist has been
pressed into service to supplement their
demagogic editorials by picturing the
Mckinley law as the monstrous cause
of the bloody battle on the banks of
the Monongahelia. Not single man
of them believed what he wrote. For
no one with sufficient intelligence to
write ten words of the English Ian
guage correctly can believe such ram
pant nonsense.
Unfortunately, the tariff cannot pre-
vent strikes and lockouts. No one ever
contended that it could or would. No
matter how high wages may be in this
country, differences between worlzmen
and their employers will occur so long
as human nature remains what it Is
In many instances-as Il rule, we might
almost say-StriheS are a result of
high standard of wages, which tend
toward Il higher plane of intelligence
among wOrkmen and promote organi-
zation and discipline. The result is
lively sense of their rights and an ag-
gressive prOneness to maintain them.
Slaves never strike. Labor troubles are
unknown in Russia, where the laborcr
stands next door to slavery. In coun-
tries like Austria and Spain, where the
working classes enjoy only little more
freedom, protests from labor against
the eXactiOns of capital are few and
feeble. As we ascend the scale to coun-
tries whose labor enjoys more and more
liberty, protests against ca pitalistic OPP
preston grow in frequency and vigor,
and finally, in countries of the best paid
and most intelligent workmen, take
take the form of demand and even
coercion of employers. 1t is a country
like the United States, whose working
people enjoy the greatest liberty and
the highest wages in the world, and
have advanced in intelligence and ac-
quired the genius for organization, that
worlingmcn are most aggressive; not
merely clinging to every advantage al
ready gained, but pushing vigorously
forward for other concessions in the
way of higher wages or shorter hours.
1t Is as natural for our American work !
ingman TO strike as to refuse to take off |
l&,' hat to his employer on the street.
SO let worllingmcn hold passion and |
prejudice in abeyancc. and allow their
calm reason to decide for them the |
questions growing out of the Home |
stead carnage. Let them not forget |
that while the existing disagreement
between the Amalgamatcd association
and the manager of the Homestead |
works is most unfortunate, it is pretty
good thing that there is steel plant at
Homestead to occasion such contro-
Fersy. 1t is perfectly true that the
lockout would not have occurred under
free trade. There would be no steel
plant at Homestead to be locked out Of
Free trade would get rid of labor trou-
Dles just as the amputation of the leg
would rid one of corns.
If making possible the existence OF
he Homestead works is to incur re-
for the recent slaughter
here, then is protection responsible fol
t, but on no other possible theory.
These are the plain facts of this
homestead business, as any honest man
n his right senses must acllno wledge,
md they should not be obscured by
passion or prejudice.
I,