The daily gazette., 1880-10-22
Damn tho Working Man.


From the first the Republicans
have been in favor of the indiscrimi-
nate importation of Chinese cheap
labor.n
So said Truth yesterday.
And to-day Truth more than veri.
lies its assertion. The facts are worse
than we conceived.
General Garfeld's letter, now in
our possession, a copy of which ap-
pears on our first page to-day, is a
damnable document.
The question Of employees is only
aquestion of private and corporate
economy" is the principle enuncia-
ted, only last winter from his desk in
the Federal House of Representa-
tives, by the Republican candidate
for the Presidency.
individuals or companies have
the right to buy labor where thew
can get it cheapest" explains this
knight-errant in the cause of pro-
lection to American industries. lest
his correspondent may not wholly
understand the more ambiguous
phrase which precedes.
The wealthy iron manufacturer of
New Jersey and Pennsylvania, the
mill owners and shop owners of New
England, the factories of the West,
are all to be protected in their pro-
ductions by high tariff upon for
eign manufactures with which they
are brought into competition; but
the mechanic who sweats in the fur
mace and tolls IN the mill is to be
placed in open competition with
hordes Of half-civilized laborers i'm
ported free, who work for nothing
and live upon less.
China, with its overwhelming pop-
ulation-famine-breeding China
supplies cheaper labor than any 9TH
er nation upon the globe, There
fore let our grasping corporations
send to China for workmen to manu-
facture their tariff protected wares.
For, says Garfield, the Republican
candidate for President-the candi-
date of the protective party-"In-
dividuals or companies have the
right to buy labor where they can
get it cheapest"
Patriotic men of all parties will
agree that the treaty with China
SHOULD be religiously kept until its
provisions are abrogated by the &C
tion of the General Governments"
but General Garfield does not stop
with a patriotic acquiescence in the
operation of the supreme law of the
land. He is not prepared to say
that the treaty should be abrogated
at all until our great manuiactur-
ing aud corporate interests are con
served in the matter of labor"
Let the hordes of barbarian work.
men overrnn the country. Keep the
ports open to their free immigration.
Fill the land with cheap foreign labor
wherever commercial products are
made. Starve the American working
man, and reduce him to state equal
to that of his cheap competitor from
the dregs of China. But let the treaty
stand until capital has reduced labor
to abject slavery and American labor
ers to the verge Of starvation, and
made itself absolute master.
Let the treaty stand until vampire
corporations have sucked the life blood
from American artisanship.
Let the treaty stand until every
AmeTIcad mechanic has been supplant-
ed in the factories of his own country
by laborers imported free, who live
like animals.
Let the treaty stand until monopoly
and capital shall have fasteued their
deadly grasp irrevocably upon indie
pendent native labor.
In phrase, in the language of Gar
field, the Republican candidate for
President, let the treaty stand until
our great manufacturing and corporate
interests are conserved in the matter of
labor"
This letter, the original of which is
now in the Truths possession, was
written to a member of the Employers
Union of MassachusetIs-to member
of that union which we yesterday truly
characterized as "An Employers
Lea 6ue that is bending all itsenergies
to make strike Of workingmen ielo-
ny in the sight of the law"
We also charged that that "League
is directly fostered by Republican lead
ers and controlled by Repub lean EN-.
plvyers." What better proof of the
fact, and not of that fact alone, but
that the Republican leaders secretly
foster this union, could be desired
than a letter from General Garfield,
the Republican candidate himself,
written but few months ago, ad- |
dressed to an active member of that |
very Employers League or Union,
carefully marked personal and conf
iential," and asserting with all the
freedom that is born of confidence in
,he discretion and caution of him for
whose eye it was intended, that the
question of employing labor is one of
private and corporate economy !"
hat employers "have the right TO buy
abor where they can get it cheapest !"
nd hat the Chinese treaty which has
pened our workshops to swarms of
he human dregs of an Overpopulated
alton and is rapidly closing them even
ar east of the Pacific Slope against
american workmen, should not be alb
ogated "until our great manufacture
lg and corporate 'intersests are con-
erved in the matter of labor"
We repeat what better proof could be
squired?
Working men are told by the Repuh-
can party that free trade will bring the
l.paid labor of Europe into competition Z
ith Them,