Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 May 1891 — Still Humbugging Labor. [ARTICLE]

Still Humbugging Labor.

At the recent protectionist banquet in New York one Mr. George Gunton. who plumes himself upon being a political economist, made a speech in which he said: “Are wage laborers benefited by protection, then is the question. If they are not, there is no economic, social or political defense for a protective policy. I for one am willing that tho merits of the protective policy shall stand or fall by this test. ” In answer to this challenge may be quoted the following list, giving but a few cases of wage reductions in protected industries made within about a month before these words were spoken. The twelve manufacturers of briqk in Trenton, N. J., gave notice on Apfil 5 that the wages of their employes would be i educed per cent, on the following day. On April 6 the workmen, 1,200 in number, went on strike against the reduction. A reduction of 20 cents per thousand in the cigarette factory ot David B|llor, in this city, caused a strike on March 26. In Lehigh, lowa, 100 miners went on strike April 3 because of a reduction from SI to 86 cents per ton. The wages of engravers and chasers at the Middletown (Conn.) Plate Company’s establishment have been reduced 15 per cent. The men employed in Requardi’s cigar factory, Baltimore, were on strike April 9 against a reduction of from SI to S 2 per thousand. Twenty-seven finishers employed at Solomon’s leather factory in Newark ’ struck, on April 10, against a threatened reduction of 14 per cent. Forty ribbon weavers at Frank & Dugan’s silk mill in Paterson, N. J., went on strike, April 20, against a reduction of 75 cents per cut. This was the third reduct’on in two weeks. Tho employes of the New Haven Rolling Mill Company, in New Haven, Conn., wont on strike, April 6, owing to a reduction of 10 per cent. On March 31, the weavers at the gingham mills of the Fitchburg Manufacturing Company, at West Fitchburg, struck because tho firm refused to pay them a uniform rate of three cents per yard on all grades of goods. When is protection going to make labor contented and happy?