The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1892-07-16
Legree and Frick.


lection has its Fricks. The Fricks
gain prominence in the monopoly
tariff system for exactly the same
reasons that the Legrees gained
prominence in the slavery system.
They are brutes. They do the
british work of british masters
whose hands are soft but whose
hearts are hard.
No ordinary American industry
finds it necessary to rake the earth
for the meanest man to place in
charge of its employees. That quest
is made only by the protected in
dustries. The meaner the man,
the more cruel and heartless, the
better he serves the purpose. If
he be wretch so inhuman and so
destitute of mercy that in the ave-
rage American town where the
tariff is unknown, except as it
picks the pocket of the honest toll
er, he would not be tolerated, the
moro he is worth to the tariff lord.
In protected camp he lives in the
finest house, fares sumptuously
every day, and by grinding the
faces of the poor amasses wealth
for absentee landlords and gains
cash and infamy for himself.
Every great tariff protected in
dustry has its Frick. The benevo-
lent scheme of protection must
have it's Fricks. The Frick who
manages the Carnegie mills at
Homestead is only one of many
such savages. No protected in
dustry can be run except with
Frick in charge. The Fricks are
the men who look after the blood
money. There are other and more
humane men who look after the
money that is stolen by CONNER
cial methods from the people who
buy the protected product. If there
is blood on one portion of this
money there is dirt on the other
portion. Mixed together, it is the
cash that buys foreign castles, pur-
chases foreign titles, swells Repub-
lican campaign funds and, in the
hands of the hungry, the base and
the wretched, corrupts the ballot.
The Fricks in the monopoly tar
iff system, like the Legrees in the
slavery system, are of value to
their masters because they meet
the requirements of heartless
and swindling institution. The
Carnegies are willing to pay liber-
ally for such service as they rend-
er. The Carnegies are far too nice
in their tastes to kill either by
bludgeon or bullet or by famine or
plague, but they do not scorn the
dirty dollars wrung by thse meth
ods from honest toll.
1t is to the Fricks that they sur
render when particularly devil
ish policy of oppression is to be
entered upon.
General Manager Frick, of the
Carnegie company, and Republi-
can newspapers like the witless
Inter Ocean and the convicted 1ri-
6,ne are now in thorough accord.
The bloodshed at Homestead
shocked them into silence for a
time, but they are chatty enough
now. In interviews and in labored
articles they are showing that the
Pennsylvania strikers had no
grievance; that their wages were
large; that many of them own
their own homes; the law is law
and that a man may do what he
will with his own.
So said the lords on the planta-
tions in 1858. An occasional man
killing or child stealing startled
the country then as these protec-
tive tariff strikes and murders
startle the country now, but the
defender Of slavery was ready with
Figures" and Statistics" to comfort
the man who knew he was a
wrongdoer and to strengthen the
weakened and irresolute. He
could show that the "niggers" ate
so many pounds or tons of bacon
and flour; that so many Of them
belong to church; that so many of
them loved their masters and were
happy in their service and that
even the rawhides and blood
hounds were as small as blades of
grass and as harmless as humming
birds. These explanations quieted
consciences and smothered indig-
nation for II season, but all the time
the great wrong remained untouch-
ed, the great crime unpunished.
Slavery kept its degrees in the
background. Slavery wore good