Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1909-07-24
The Tariff and the Strike.

The Tariff and the Strike.
The riots that recently occurred
following the strike of the 5000 men
of the Pressed Steel Car company, at
McKees Rocks, should have direct
bearing on the revision of the tariff
by congress.
The Pressed Steel Car works is a
branch of the steel trust. The steel
trust is one of the most highly pro-
tected Industries in the United States.
1t has made hundreds of millions OF
dollars in profits through having a
monopoly OIL American markets and
being able to 'extort unreasonably high
prices.
The tariff bill that will soon be
signed by the president perpetuates
the UNANIMOUSLY high rates OH the steel
trusts products, even though Andrew
Carnegie himself testified they were
unnecessary
Senator Aldrich's excuse for contin-
uing high protection was that he was
thinking of the American workingmen
in the great steel plants.
If Senator Aldrich would make a
personal investigation of the con1i-
lions of the men in the steel mills, he
would no longer use the term "AmeGi-
can workingmen,' as an American
workingman is practically extinct so
far as the steel mills are concerned
Rather than pay an American reason
lNI h. l,nr hnx- i'm,
ported lass of cheap pauper labot
from Euro ;e. This army of dull, dumb
driven bru es live in practical slavery
Pittsbur. newspapers refer to the
conditions 1T the Pressed Steel Car
cOmpany's works as the shame of the
city"
The lowest wages. the worst working
conditions, the most brutal treatment,
| looking TO the death of every human
impulse instinct. the swapping of hui
man souls for profits. have for years
marked the Pressed Steel Car works
as the most outrageous industrial in.
stitution in the United States.
In the great, gloomy mills a human
! life is worth less than bar of pig
; lion. Pig iron costs money. Human
lives cost nothing.
The majority of the workers are
Hungarians or Slavs, who are slow 20
absorb the English language and Amer
lean costumes. So they have been i'm
posed upon as brutal men impose Oh
dumb beasts. These workmen have
been as patient at their work as hor
ses. Every day sees one or more ol
them killed-slaughtered These We y
deaths are unknown save to the work
men, who see their bodies hacked ano
butchered In the pitiless machinery
and the death traps fill the big works
The steel company never reports
deaths or accidents. and the public i:
thus kept ignorant of the company:
violence" Even the coroner keeps
no record of men killed.
The truth about the strike of these
strangely patient people would touci
the heart of every American i'll iii,
land if the conditions were possibl,
lof description
The workers live in diDgy two stor,
frame houses, jammed close together
looking like long black rows of rougi
boxes. These houses have four stalls
leach. described as rooms" They ren
for II monthly. 1t has been charges
that while the workers are not forces
to live in these company houses. the
do not long remain at their jobs if the
rent elsewhere. Ii is the same wa
with the co.npany's store. No one i
; forced to buy there, but as the coz
lpany owns all the property around TIL
mills and merchants who have trie
TO establish business to run in oppC
sition to the company's stores, hav
never been able to get sites for stores
the men are practically forced to bu
of the company. Many of these slav
linen earn less than 81 a day, some les
than 81. Out of these wages they pa
their rent back to their employers an
the price of every mOuthful of foo
that they and their family eats come
Tout Of their envelopes.
There are some 10000 women all
children and old and crippled peOpl
dependent upon these 5000 striker!
No decent American farmer but woul
furnish better quarters for his hog
than those in which live these victim
of The highly protected steel trus
What wonder, then, that the Unite
States Seel corporation is aole to MAX
profit of S12.S4 on an investment ,
every s211C,
How the children survive the COZ
uieions they are reared in is a my
very. AS soon as the boys are oil
ehongh they are put to work. TIL
y tha;, marry as soon as they reac
Inc interior of a company bouse
S more hideous than the exter;or erh..
II Is the bare floor, one or two chairs
e soap box Or two for company or
cheap iron cots bought at the Gov
S pany's store. The tired workers sic.
e on straw and these hot nights the he