Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 March 1891 — Protection in Pennsylvania. [ARTICLE]

Protection in Pennsylvania.

A Pennsylva :ia paper has been commenting upon the census retur.s for that State. It finds .that “it is a melancholy fact, in contrast with the excessive • increase of mining population, that the farming population of the State is steadily declining. Where any agricultural counties show growth the increase is in the towuis at the expense of the country. ” Pennsylvania is usually considered the State wh'ch gets the lion's share of protection, and it is there that protection to American labor should produce good results, if it can be done anywhere. But hero is w r hat the Pennsylvania paper says on tho sub.ect: “Skilled miners, who once earned gbod wages, have been supplanted by Bohemian and Russ an peasants, who never saw the mouth oi a mine until brought to this country. With the frequent stoppages of labor, in order that tho corporations might maintain prices of coal against consumers, two miners do not earn much more in a year now than one earned in a former period. Industrial production, though increased, has not kept pace with the unhealthy growth of population: and as a consequence there is a geeat deal of distress among the working people of the mining regions. Pennsylvania lias, therefore, no reason for self-congratulation upon this portion of the State s increase of inhabitants. ” Protection is asked for in behalf of “American labor;” but in Pennsylvania it supplants American with “European pauper labor. ”