Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1882-11-05


in salt making, and this coarse salt is not |
produced in the United States. But the |
packers are of the West, and Western men
follow their party. But look at the East. |
The Yankee fishermen are allowed to have |
their coarse salt free! Why, they won't let |
you have grlndstone here without paying |
a tax for the benefit of a few Eastern |
grindstone quarrymen. Yet when our po-
litical opponents have been year after
year told of such things |
and their injustice, they only |
proceed to glorify the old flag and large |
appropriations.
On every pound of sugar you use you
pay taxes for benefit of the refiners of |
Philadelphia and the planters of Louisi- |
ana. So of cotton and wooden goods. On
all these yoa have to pay taxes for benefit |
of Eastern manufacturers, and on the |
coarse wooden goods, which laboring men |
wear, as high as 80 per cent. You are
building up by this system not baronial
lords, but cotton and WOODEN lords and
money lords. And while it might not be
pleasant to have lords by blood over US, it
would be infinitely preferable to having
these lords of shoddy over US.
But they say this tariff is for the benefit
of American labor, and 1 have seen them
lead their men to the polls, wearing
badges reading s'Vote for tariff to pro-
tect honest American labor" and the men
were really made to believe they were
voting to protect honest labor. Yet, let us
see. Under the Walker revenue tariff the
average earnings of each head of fami-
~ in the United States was annually more
than now. Instead of going up under the
protective tariff, they have gone down.
The average of wages in wooden factories
is only ninety three cents, and in cotton
factories only seventy-seven cents, but lit
tie more than the average wages
OF such operatives in power
ty-stricken Ireland. But the profits
of the manufacturer are greatly increased.
Mr.. Hill, of the treasury departm ent,
was given leave of absence to prepare
table showing the growth of manufacturing
industries under the protective tariff. 1t
was published and heralded as a protection
argument. But that depends on how it is
read. 1t shows that the operative or ar til
san in 1860 was paid little more than in
1880, while his employer receives for what
he made in 1880 twice as much as he did
in 1860. And there is, as the
Frenchman said, where the milk in the
cocoanut is. And that is why these men of
the East can make more money than you
do, though they cultivate fields where. a
gopher could not live.
What protection do we of the West
want? None. We want cheap Transport
tation to the seashore and across the
ocean. About here the speaker. with
reference to the capital of railroads and
its bearning upon the cost of transporta-
ton, introduced remark about watering
railroad stock, which the audience seemed
to apply to somebody in Minneapolis
probably Mr.. Washburn. Continuing. he
spoke of the heavy duty tax upon
Bessemer steel and told that the American
manufacturers last year were enabled by the
tariff to charge the railroad companies S25
per ton more than they would have
charged without the protective tariff. The
steel makers on $2O,OOO,OOO capital last
year, according to their own authority the
Iron Age," divided $14, 100, 500 of profits.
But their laborers did not receive greater
wages. No, they were held down to the
lowest poin-to the point of strikes and
verge of starvation. The railroads.&c. said.
which are taxed for these steel manufact
urers S28 a ton, hire 100000 men
to their 10000 and pay higher wages. He
spoke of master workman whose conclu-
sion after years of observation was that
the protective tariff made the employers
immensely wealthy, but had placed him so
that he could not decently support his
family. And that, said the speaker is the
result of protection.
England, under almost purely free trade
has advanced the price of its labor to three
times as much as it was under protection.
When they tell of flooding the country with
pauper labor under a revenue tariff
they forget that England is not
Hooded with pauper made goods, though
there are millions of pauperized laborers
just across the narrow seas. The true
measure OF labor is its products, their
quality and amount. Do we wish to
acknowledge ourselves nation eminent
for stupidity. Have we not claimed that
American artizans are most skillful and
rapid of any in the world? But, let us
look further at this question of pauper
labor. You sell your grain in Europe in
competition with the labor of Russia
Egypt, ETC., the most stupid and pauper-
lied of all the world. But, you can
compete with them, Though their farm
labor is only 25 cents day., because
you have intelligence and skill-machinery
and men who can run the machinero.
What we ask is a cheapening of the tar
III so that we can buy our machinery and
home supplies for less than now; and so
that we may produce our wheat still cheap
er; and so also, that when we send it to Eu-
rope it will buy them the things they have
to sell, at their price. American COM
merce has almost disappeared from the
sea. We want to see it revived as it will
be under a revenue tariff
In conclusion, Gen. Bragg asked each
nearer to run down the list of those in