The Saint Paul globe., 1897-05-29


ering, numbering, irritating, scandalous
way of raising revenue is this method
copied from barbarous despots and
made sacrosanct by political party.
SAMPLE REPUBLICAN PROSPERITY.
On the propositions advanced repeat
edly by our Republican friends, we are
obliged to suppose that the threatened
strike in the coal mining districts Of
three states is a sample of Republican
prosperity. Every business reverse and
every Industrial disturbance that oc-
Cured after the Inauguration Of Mr..
Cleveland and up to the passage of the
tariff act Of 1894 was charged by the
Republicans, without a single excep-
ton, to Democratic free trade. We were
all told that this had convulsed the
mechanism and so involved the people
in ruinous losses. No bitterer indict-
ment of a Democratic administration
and of party policy was ever drawn
than that which Republicans framed
from the Homestead affair and the
great railroad strike, with it's attend
ant riots. at Chicago. All that is past
history. We have a Republican presi-
dent and congress Republican in both
it's branches. We have beautiful new
tariff bill, framed by Dingley and
aroan6a6 q hxy 11riah yuy1oi ic vt
ed to kill Or cure. With its passage
through the senate certainty, by rea-
son Of the hard and fast alliance con-
cluded between the Republicans and
the free silver men, prosperity ought
to be dropping upon us like the gentle
dew from heaven Its advance looks,
at this distance, more like cyclone.
That is the way, at any rate, that
the coal miners of Ohio, Pennsylvania
and West Virginia seem to regard it.
1t is proposed by the mine operators
to reduce the wage scale to the basis
Of 54 cents a ton, and they appear to
have secured complete control of the
market. This wage rate, the miners
contend, not without partial justice,
they believe that they would be better
off to die battling against it than to
succumb to inevitable destitution and
sink to the scale of virtual wage slav-
cry by accepting it.
But why should this fatal choice be
presented to them? Is not the Repub-
ican policy and it's idea of creating
prosperity in the ascendant? Is not the
Dingley bill safe, and is not Mr.. Nc
Kinley just waiting to sign the pros
perity-making act? Nay, ought not the
first to feel the benefits? We are to
have restoration of high duties on BIZ
luminous coal, and it has even been
proposed to place upon anthracite,
which has for many years been free
of tax, similar imposition, on the
principle of the protectionists this
means higher wages for the workers in
the coal mines. We all understand for
the Republican agents of the trusts
have told US so, that whenever a COM
bine is authorized by a tariff duty to
charge more for its product, it proceeds
Immediately to divide its largess among
it's employees in the shape of additional
wages. We have never seen this done,
but the McKinleyites tell us that it
works that way. Here is fair field
for the principle to operate.
On the line Of argument addressed to
the people Of this country for four
years past, these wretched miners, who
have had to strike again and again to
keep even the poor pittance that they
now get secure, should be in receipt of
a circular by the coal trust telling
them that, on and after the date Of the
passage Of the new tariff bill, their
wages will be advanced from 10 to rs
per cent. Instead Of that they are
grievous that they believe, at least,
that they have no choice but to resist
or die. This Is what Is meant by Re-
publican prosperity of the kind created
by high tariffs. It means that the wage
rate will be determined now, as always.
by competition in the labor market, and
that no man will pay his employees one
dollar more or one cent more than the
sum for which other men are willing to
do their work. The bonus secured by
the tariff goes into the employers
pocket.
These lessons are costly, and the
great misfortune is that they have to
be repeated so often before they are
learned. We have no doubt, however.
that they will be impressive enough
and disastrous enough before the end
of Mr.. McKinley's administration to
put an end for all time to come, except
among the little ring Of trust-makers
and trust-sharers to the argument that
tariffs make prosperity, and that any
share of their financial proceeds is as
signed to the workingman.
A monument erected in Mount Hope
cemetery. New York, in memory of
the Confederate dead buried there.