Virginia free press. (Charlestown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1832-1916, 1892-08-17
PROTECTION IN Pennsylvania.
The Constant Labor Troubles In That
STATE Easily Explained.


State Easily Explained.
Yet. all protectionist state as it is, it
can hardly have escaped observation
that Pennsylvania is also the state in
which there have been the most serious
disturbances as regards labor. There
are almost always labor troubles in
Pennsylvania. The excuse for high tar
ifs of late years is chiefly that high
tariffs are in the interest of labor. Yet
here is a state in which high tariff has
been longer relied upon and is applied
TO more industries than in any other,
and vet labor in ii is more dissatisfied.
more unhappy, more aggrieved and
more turbulent than anywhere else in
the country.
There is lesson to be learned from
this as regards which there is no excuse
for mistaking. 1t is that high protec-
ton, when the most fully applied, is a
failure in its effect upon labor. High
protection does enable those who are
assumed to benefit by it to make great
fortunes. No one will doubt that who
knows of the millions accumulated by
the SCOTS, the Carnegies and the Besse-
mer steel magnates; but while these
princely returns are being realized the
workmen are in condition which re-
suits in chronic discomfort, too often
finding vent in bloody outbreaks Ike
that now appalling the people.
But why do you attribute this to the
tariff" we may be asked. We reply,
first, because in Pennsylvania the tariff
is supposed to dots most complete work.
Here is the test of it, if there is to be
test anywhere. Pennsylvania is q state
of such resources in her soil, in her min
eral products and in the character Of her
people that industry, if left alone, would
win success there if it will win success
anywhtee. If industry left alone had
failed there, we would have been willing
to admit that the failure was the failure
of the American people engaged in in
dustry when unshackled by government,
and to have looked for the cause Of it in
some mistaken action on the part of
themselves.
But when government steps in, and
against the protest of large portion of
the intelligent citizens of the republic
including among them nearly all those
who have studied the principles which
apply to the productive labor Of men
and have taken pains to observe their
operation III our own and other cour
tries-when government, we say, in the
face of this remonstrance undertakes to
establish another system, under which
enormous fortunes are built up, while
labor is constantly dissatisfied and often
in open outbreak, as in the case in Penn
sylvania, it seems to us that we are JUS
tified in holding the action of govern
ment as largely responsible for the
trouble
The advocates of protection in Penn
sylvania, as everywhere else, insist upon
attributing every symptom Of prosperity
to the tariff. Do they seriously expect
that they are to be allowed to claim all
the credit OF everything that is good in
its results to the tariff, and to be freed
from the responsibility for all that is
not good at the same time? They have
vaunted of the effects Of legislation that
have made Carnegie rich enough TO
build baronial castle and live in Eu-
rope. Are they to shirk the response
bility for that same legislation when the
effect of it is seen in the turning Of
thousands Of men out of employment
and the driving them to desperation and
bloodshed? If the tariff did the one, we
respectfully ask why it has not done the
other? The American people are too in
telligent to be bamboozled in the an
swer to this question.-Boston Herald.