Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 July 1888 — Workingmen, How Is This? [ARTICLE]

Workingmen, How Is This?

- A brief-paragraph in yesterday’s Associated Press 'fiL patches is eminently calculated to arrest the attention.of workingmen just now. Lest it may have been overlooked by some readers we reproduce it: “Prrrsr.n'.s, June 20.—General Manager J. M. Flagler, o? tho National Tube —works, McKeesport, Team, is here from Now York city to make arrangements to shut down tho immense plant, wliich employs about 4,00) hands. Recently there was a: general reduction of wages in the hope of tiding over the period of depression, but this has failed. Mr. Flagler - says the flat markat caused by the Mills bill agitation has already resulted in ruln- . ocs competition from abroad, and the mills must close Not only tho McKeesport works, but half a dozen other plants, representing $3,000,G00 invested capital and employing 13,000 hands, will, have to phut down. Personally Mr. Flagler ia a Democrat, and tho courso of his company cannot therefore be ascribed to politics.” Four thousand employes ia a single establishment condemned to idleness because of an attempt to carry President Cleveland’s policy into cnccti And tho prospect is that I’d,ooo more, engaged in the came industry, will sailer in a similar . inr.nner from the snan cause!* H each things are donSda the gnsTi tre3, what" shall be done in the dryt—supposing the Democratic free trade programme outlined in President’s message, the Mills tariff bill end tho Democratic platform to • be realized. In what condition will American WOTkingmen and operative? find themselves when the products of their labor shall be supplanted in. our homo marketeer goods of foreign production? That la the question presented in this presidential canvass , and each individual must answer it according to the degree of his intelligence _ Qua sensible, intelligent workingmen : Ttaw*