Another Pennsylvania Strike

Again the Bohemianized province of Pennsylvania is in the throes of a great strike. On Wednesday the spirit of riot broke out and sweeping like fire in a train of povvder throughout the coke región about Connellsville soon resulted in brutal and unprovoked murder. Men who wanted to work were not allowed to do so, but were forced on pain of death to quit and oin forces with the strikers. The jrirne movers in this awful happening are foreigners, the very dregs of the worst population of Europe, than whom there is no more savage, Drutalized and dangerous element n our population. The most of these men are from the decaying nations of eastern Europe, chiefly rlungarians of the lowest type, peo)le who have made no advancement n civili.ation for centuries. They represent one of the phases of protectionism. They are not ïere of their own free wiil and accord for the purpose of availing hemselves of the advantages of our nstitutions in an honest effort to 2levate themselves in the scale of ïxistence. They have no compreïension of the duties and obligaions of citizenship and are utterly anable to appreciate its advantages. hey were not brought here with ny thought or care as to the influnce they would exert on the future well being of our institntions, but solely to satisfy the selfish greed of the protected subsidists who wished to wring from their labor a higher rate of profïts than could be realized from the labor of the more intelligent and higher priced American workingmen. They were bröught here under the inamous system of contract labor and to displace American laborers. "We are saysthe Chicago Herold, "to the interesting system of protection for these importations of the remnants of European savagery. The Fricks of Peunsylvania and West Virginia, the captains of protected industries who ask people to believe that tariffs are made for the benent of labor, reducíng the wages of the Americana in the coke pits until the men struck in self-defense. Tlien to defeat the men they imported European barbarians under contract to take the places of the strikers. Ilaving thus denionstrated their love for the Americau laborer they very soon found that their iniported hordes were as fond of high wages as Americans aud very much less particular in the choice of. means for the enforcement of their demanda. They found that the imported men eould strike as well as Americans, and strike with a vengeance. "In 1891 they thought they had these j dangerous men thoroughly and finally subjugated. Now they suddenly iiiul that they were mistaken. The men have not forgotten how to strike and they are no more civilized or less formidable and dangerous than they were three years ago. There is more trouble in store for the Fricks and more retribution for their greed and their heartless treatment of American laboréis, for whose welfare they profess such boundless zeal whenever a tariff bill is pending."' A larger portion of the industries of Pennsylvania than of any other state, probably, are beneficiarles of the protective tariff, and the condition of things we there witness may properly be regarded,therefore, as the legitímate fruitage of the system. It ought not to be expected that such hypocrisy and selfishness and injustice could go on forever without retrebutive consequences. Verily Pennsylvania is receiving her reward.