The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1892-07-12

The demagogichl attitude Of the
Democratic free.trade papers Of the
country is In . great measure respon.
sihle for the unfortunate position Of
affairs at Homestead. For some time
before the strike, or rather lockout.
occurred. these papers tried to make
political capital out of the impending
conflict. They held the Carnegies up
TO the public rs incarnate monsters,
riding over their helpless workingmen
and fattening themselves from the
sweat Of their brows. The inference
was that the poor wcrkmen were
beaten and cowed down to starvation
wages, that Carnegie was getting rich
or and richer. and his workmen were
getting poorer and poorer. To clinch
this wlllful Misrepresentation they
blamed 1t all on the Mckinley tariff.
The workmen. OF course, read these
assertions, which they know were
false. but still they knew by them that
they would have at least the sympa.
thy OF the Democratic papers, oven
though that sympathy was instigated
by falsehood. So persistent have
been these papers In their assertions
that when the lockout came the work.
men were held up before the public as
half-starved mon, asking for bread. but
instead of bread got bullets.
Now what are the real facts in the
case? Instead OF being starved work
men, the facts come out now tLat there
was no body OF laborers on the face
of the globe better paid. The Car
negIes had $500 men employed In the
Homestead works and to these men
they paid every two weeks 95.00),
which would be Just S25 apiece to
every man in the works from the COM
mon laborer up to the rollerman. This
was an average of sl2.5O weekly. OF
course many got less than this weekly
hut others got three times this much.
and the latter were the men who
struck and dragged all the other small
pay men with them. II this is what
these free-trade Democratic papers call
starvation wages, what would they
call living wages. Let them produce
free trade country that pays half that
average OF wages in a plant similar to
Homestead.
1t seems that there are two kinds OF
mills used in the Carnegie works, 81
and ll9-inch mills. In the 3einch mill
the wages per day when tue scale of
1889 commenced averaged SO 90 and
when the term ended the 30th of June
last the wages were si,S5 per day, ow-
ing to improved machinery which the
firm was ut the expense OF putting in
and causing a larger output, which
was to the advantage OF the workmen.
! The wages proposed by the firm for
new scale for the same work amount
ed to 1925 per day, which was twenty
cents more than those wages were
three years before and 80 cents less
than those when the three years ex-
plred. In the ll9.inch MIL the greater
wages were made. When the scale
commenced in 1850 the men made
$3.50 per day. The great improvement
in, machinery enabled them to make
$685. when the three years ended. The
newly proposed scale allowed the
workmen s5.57 per day. which was
s2,25 more than the workmen got
three years ago, and sl.3s less than
they were getting at the end of the
three years. Let any unbiased man
read these figures and thea see where
the cry of starved workman comes in
ut, and how the bullets Tor bread
argument sounds. oh, the demagogu-
cry of the Democrats papers! Why
will people permit themselves to he
misled by itl