St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1892-07-09
1.-THE PITTsBUHG BUTCHERS"

The temper of the editorial in the
Pioneer Press of yesterday, in which it
meets the fair and truthful assertions
of the Democratic papers that the battle
at Homestead is but the ripe fruit of the
policy of protective tariff. betrays
very much more the realization of that
paper of the damaging effect of the
contest OH the party which it supports
SO ably-during campaigns-thani it does
any real belief that the criticisms are
unwarranted. The very able manner
in which that paper has, in the interim
Of campaigns, shown the pernicious
tendency of the policy to which it. par ty
is committed. warrants the confluence
that, were no campaign pending, it
would readily admit that the wOrkmen
at the Homestead works are but carrying
to its logical conclusion the principle on
which the policy of protection is based.
They are simply saying: 1.-The law
of the United States was enacted for the
expressed purpose of ,insuring to us
those higher wages which are the boast
and the pride. as we'll as the comfort. Of
the American wOrkingman. We know
that our employers have utilized that
law, and have in their hands the money
with which to effect the purpose of the
law. 1t is our money; they are but
trustees. In demanding it we are but
asking our own. In saying that if we
cannot have it no one else shall, we are
simply defending our property rights.
1t is our employers who are defying the
law, not we."
But the imminence of campaign has
its influence even OH our eminent con-
temporary, and it falls fiercely afoul OF
those papers who say what it would say
but for the campaign, and rakeS up that
brutal word OF hate -copperhead-and
applies it to them, and calls them cow
ards and traitors. Waxing hotter in its
agony of apprehension, it consigns all
who think that the MCKINLEY bill did
its own talking at Homestead ito
deeper depth of infamy than that which
awaits the PIttsburg butchers" There
is luridness about this language which
recalls the famous KINDRED campaign.
But it is perfectly true, as our con-
temporary says, that in fact ''the tariff
does not affect wages in the slightest
degree" We have not only the assur-
ance of free traders that this is so, but
long ago Pig-lron KELLEY boosted that
the manufacturers in his state had free
trade in men; and only last fall, at
Akron. Mai. NICK INLEY was forced to
admit that protection cannot fix the
price of wages any more than it can fix
the price of commodity" But this
economic truth cuts no figure in this
controversy. In it the vital point is
that Republican papers and speakers
have, i'll and out OF season, assured these
Homestead and other workers that pro-
tective tariff was the only thing that pre-
vented their wages from sinking to the
pauper wage level of Europe. And
these men have believed it. They
know that tariff has excluded all out
side competition; that the Iron and
Steel association fixes the home prices
unchecked by competition; that their
employers can pay them the usual
wages; that the men have a right to
them. and, in lowering them, that their
employers are depriving them of what
is their own 10y virtue of the laws of the
country. And because they insist Oh it
ana fight for what they believe are their
rights, the Pioneer Press has no other
term for them but the "Pittsburg
butchers" and consigns them incon-
tinentiy to the ''depths Of infamy."