Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-07-14
PITTsBURG. THURSDAY. JULY Il. 1872.
TWELVE PAGES
AN EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE.

The Congressional Committee which is
sitting on the Homestead matter is living
up to the promises made by Chairman
Oates through THE DISPATCH before the
Committee came on. He said that the
questions between capital and labor had
assumed certain phases for which neither
political party had provided prescrip-
tion; and, to do justice to himself and his
colleagues, their spirit so far seems
broadly humanitarian rather than mar
rowly partisan. They appear to want the
full light upon things. The most captious
observer could not classify the members as
Democrats or as Republicans from any
questions they have so far asked at the
Committees sessions, or any remarks
they have dropped
This is very encouraging 1t means
that however the two great parties
differ there are men in both parties who
are willing to address themselves to
search for the facts whatever they may be,
and no matter how much these facts run
against their preconceptions. A COM
mittee which has the disposition to do
this is also very likely to have the courage
to state the conclusions fairly, no matter
whether such conclusions run counter to
party prejudice or not. 1t is out of this
spirit of original research and fidelity to
the truth, despite traditions or party
exigencies, that real craftsmanship arises
Nothing could have been more unfor-
tunate than the occurrence which sud-
denly brought this Committee to Pittsburg
Nothing may be more fortunate than that
the Committee has come. While its
function is to inquire about the difficulty
between labor and capital, the Committee
incidentally gets at first hands volume
of facts to contradict the wild and foolish
cry of unintelligent partisans that the
economic policy of protection was respon-
sible for these disturbances They have
discovered that the Mckinley bill-which
Mr.. Watterson, Mr.. Carlisle, Mr.. Mills
and countless other Democratic speakers
and writers have, ever since its passage,
been denouncing as the last straw which
the f'robber barons" set upon the tax
paying camel's back-in cold letter and
fact reduced in place OF increased the
duty upon each and every item of manu-
facture involved in the Carnegie scale.
They have found further, this-which
must interest their farmer constituents
that the policy of protection, in
place of establishing monopolies in
the iron and steel business, has
done, as understanding economists know
it must do, to wit, reduced prices in the
long run to the consumer. They have
had, under oath, evidence of the reduction
in the prices of steel since 1889, with the
market quotations on each item. They
have, under oath, that this result has come
from what Chairman Frick, of the
Carnegie Company, designates as ''over-
production" an evident result of competi-
tion-for if there were monopolies they
would never "overproduce" merely to cut
down the selling price of their own prod
ucts. And the Committee well understand
that the competition has come about by
American capital going into steel manu-
factures heavily at divers eligible points,
when, under the protection policy, the
profits of the steel business were demon
strated.
These facts, if they have any meaning,
mean what the protectionists contend and
which has been demonstrated in glass, in
silk, in carpet and in many other lines of
protected industries, as well as in steel,
to wit: that the protection which enables
new American industries to start and to
be conducted at a time for a profit
quickly multiplies these industries through
the desire of other capitalists to share that
profit, and eventually, by American COM
petition, reduces the cost of the products
to the American consumer much below
the prices which prevailed when the for
eign manufacturers had control of our
markets.
Meanwhile the committee must note
that, whatever the disputes which arise
over wages and trade organizations, or be-
tween employer and employed, American
wages, even the lowest paid anywhere
in the country, are far better than the
highest ever reached in free trade coun-
tries.
Is not this matter of the great industries
of all sorts in the United States-this aues-
ton of the economic system under which
they best prosper and eventually lessen
the cost to the consumer matter in
which Democrats and Republicans are
alike and equally interested? Should
not plain facts count for more than the
fne-spun theories of doctrinaires?
Would things be better if from the first
our new industries had been shut out by
free trade-deprived of the favorable con-
ditions of the protective policy which en-
couraged them to start? How many of the
people who are shouting free trade as a
party shibboleth in the hunt for office have
as much light upon the actual facts of the
ease as this Committee has been able to
secure in even a couple of days session?
Can the members of this Committee,
when they go to Washington, afford to
say, in any interest whatsoever, that either
the American workingmen, the American
or the American consumer,
would be as well off to-day if free trade
had been substituted for protection during
the past twenty years?
FAILURE OF INDUSTRIAL WARFARE.
With tho aycitement that natura llv q h