The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-07-05
WHEREFORE THIS SILENCE.

Our Republican contemporaries are
maintaining a strict silence in their
editorial columns about a condition
which occupies a large space in their
news columns. 1t is a matter of rather
more Importance to this country that
some 900 artisans in the steel, coal
and tinplate Industries are either on
strike or on the verge of it, than that
the queen of England has witnessed
the jubilee Of her people over the COM
pletion of her siXtieth year of reign;
but the latter event has received more
or less comment while 1.-The deeps are
dumb" about the former. And, really
we are not surprised Consider the past
few years, those since the panic; recall
the fierce assaults upon the Democratic
party and the tariff act German faster-
ed responsibility for upon It; bring up
again those arrangements of the LIMO
Gratis for closing the mills reducing
wages, making paupers and trainps Of
honest workingmen; then read over
again the remedy offered, the restora-
ton of the Great Apostle and his pol
icy, how the mills were to open, pros
perity smile again, and everybody be
rich and happy. Prosperity, hand in
hand with confidence, did not appear
on the scene when the Apostle was
known to be elected; they looked over
the fence but Immediately lodged back
again. Then these prophets bade us
,if
the last ditch is reached. The Apostle
is calmly awaiting the completion of
the nearly completed remedy. He
stands with hand on cord to ring up
the curtain for the opening act in the
great show of prosperity Of which he
was the advance agent. The remedy
has been duly concocted according to
the original Mckinley formula. Tin
plate tax has been put back nearly
where he put it, and the tax on coal
raised to 81 cents a ton, with anthra-
cite included for the first time in our
tariff history. The steel and iron rates
Of the German act have been touched
only to increase them, while wool and
cotton, cutlery and fax, chicory and
eggs have been raised to the prosperity
notch again. Everything is in readi-
ness for the grand climacteric; a week,
at farthest, Is to witness It's develop
ment.
And right now, when the word is to
go out to open the mills, start the
wheels of industry, give idle men work,
increase wages to the old standard
when the country stands with bated
breath waiting for the release from
Democratic misery, here we have all
these hundreds of thousands of men.
for whose especial benefit all these
pains have been endured, all this labor
done, actually striking, quitting work
because their employers have notified
them that the wage scale must be re-
duced. The Amalgamated Association
of Steel Workers celebrated the first 6ay
of July by shutting down all the steel
and iron plants about Pittsburg. and
$4,000 men are voorhees, and wageless
The Cleveland rolling mill owners shut
down because their men refuse to sign
the diminished scale, and 5000 men go
out. From the tinplate belt about An
derson, Ind, comes word that every
tinplate mill is closed for the same rea-
son. In the window glass factories in
the same region the readjusted scale is
rejected by the men and they are out.
From Youngstown, o., we hear that
the rolled plate mills have shut down
for the same reason, the refusal of the
men to make certain concessions" ask
ed by their employers. At Milwaukee
the thousand men in the Bay View steel
mills have quit work because they
want the promises made last fall of
higher wages if Mckinley was elected
redeemed. At Chicago strikers assault
men who had taken their places in II e
Iroquois furnace.
From the entire coal belt came word
that general strike would be ordered
unless the mine operators granted the
scale demanded, and 100000 men would
be involved. In the New England mills
and shops there have been reductions,
sometimes accepted, sometimes resist
ed, during June. All these items were