The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-07-22
CLEVELAND AND THE HOMESTEAD
RIOT.

CLEVELAND AND THE HOMESTEAD
| RIOT.
Cleveland and Stevenson were both
weak enough to charge the Homestead
riot TO the Republican policy of protec-
ton. Cleveland SAID:
Our workingmen are still told the tale eft re-
peated in spi;e of Its demonstratei fal,ity thai
the existing protective tariff is q boon 10 them,
and that under its beneicent operation their
wages must increase, while scenes are enacted
in the very aoidi place o. high protection that
mock tue hopes OF toll aud attest the tender
mercy the workingman receives from those
mace sc fish and sordid By IN just governmental
favoritism.
Here We have distinct statement that
the protective tariff is not boon TO Ameri-
can labor; that the Homestead riot was
the insurection of oppressed labor against
an unjust and severe reduction of wages;
in other words, Mr.. Cleveland is dishonest
enough to pretend that the protective
tariff was directly responsible for the
Homestead riot.
This is position so utterly absurd and
ignorant that the ablest Democratic papers
of the East treat this view with contempt
The New York EUening Post that
supported Cleveland in 1854, in
1Sss and supports him today,
quotes the prices of American steel biIlets
and imported steel billets to prove that
the slight reduction of the tariff had
nothing TO do with the reduction of the
market price of the billets and the slight
reduction of wages to the steel workers at
Homestead. The New York Sun and
other able Democratic papers take the
same view. that domestic. internal compe-
tition and overproduction reduced the
price of the billets.
The truth is that the manufacture has
been so enormously developed by protec-
ton that it can supply without foreign aid
greater consumption of iron than has
ever been known in this country. The
number of men employed directly and in
directly in this great industry has more
than doubled within ten years, the pro-
duct of pig iron being IL, 800, 600 net tons
in 1890, against 4.S0o, 900 in 1850.
The excess of production over consump-
ton has caused the lowest price ever
known in this country, and it forced some
manufacturers to choose between stoppage
of works ana reduction of wages until con-
sumption should overtake production.
This overproduction occurs in every great
industry whether protected or not.
Grover Cleveland did not dwell upon the
true explanation, because it would have
exposed the stupidity of his old cry that
'the tariff is a tax" 4 Democratic jour
nal, the Chicago Herald, which supports
Cleveland. confessed the other day that
the tariff was not tax al the present price
OF steel billets. The tariff on the steel
billets that have caused all the trouble at
the Carnegie works is $685. or enough TO
make the price Of an imported billet, if
this tariff were really a tax" as Grover
Cleveland considers it 70 be. almost $50.
But the domestic competition in the iron
trade is so great and extended that it has
lowered the price of the billets to So, on
the strength of which fact the Carnegie
Company made its reduction in wages.
The Carnegie works produce but - per
cent. of the iron and steel manufactures of
the country; the protective tariff only
protects its labor against foreign COMPETE
ton. not against domestic, internal com.
petition.
If the protective tariff policy is RESPONSE
bic for the occurrences At Homestead il
surely is not responsible for the far more
strocious acts Of labor 81 Gear d'Alene,
for Idaho silver mining is not protected
by the tariff; the protective tariff was
surely not responsible for the conflict of
1857 between the Reading railroad and It's
labor. for anthracite coal is on the free list
The protective tariff WAS surely not re-
| sponsible for the pittsburg railroad riot OF
| 1877; for the Central and Hudson; the
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy. and other
grea, railroad labor strikes.
There are more labor strikes IN free
trade England than in the United States :;
the great Durham coal strike lasted six
months and cost labor SaO0.Oo0. Does
demagogic Mr.. Cleveland think that free
| trade IS responsible for ERglanG's labor
! disputes and costly str;kes2 The rea!
/ trouble az Homestead and 81 Cear a AIeae
/ was owing to the employment Or threat
( ened employment OF nou-union men 10
I tdAt f4lc IE3ISS ~ SsAtNssAS 41ANfts aLl4
! Cleveland knows that such troubles occur
( IN every labor employing country in the
I world and have nothing 20 Go with pro.sc-
! ton or free trade.
The Democratic cause must Ne desperate
I when 81 ex-president. seeking another
. ;erm, Is 50 hard pushed for argument that
he explains an industrial riot by the
presence Of q protective tariff. This Kind
! Of logic Is Ike that of the crank that
argued that volcanic eruptions We're the
| cause % cholera because the eruption Of
! Mauna Loa IN The Sandwich islands was
/ contemporaries with cholera Mr.
l Cleveland Is The most recent illustration