Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1882-10-09
SCORING GoFF-s SPEECH.
A workingman's Structures on the
Little Generals Address.

~ l.
The speech of Gen. Golf at the Capitol last
Tuesday evening, which is so much extoll.
ed by capitalists and monopolists, did not
come up to the expectation OF working
men, at least the great mass of them whose
employments are not protected by the
broad Shield of American law" General
Golf ante-dstes the revolution. He goes
back TO the wear I'LL TO show that in that
wear the British Parliament casting o
Jealous eve across the Atlantic, and seeing
that the Industries of the colonies were
making them prosperous and great de-
clared that the factories and furnaces
that had been erected in the American
colonies were detrimental to British COM
mercial supremacy, and should not De
encouraged" There you haye it. The
colonies were growing SO rapidly under a
free trade system, that the English Govern
nient being jealous OF their progress levied
taxes upCn them in order to check the
great strides they were making in COM
mercial and manufacturing industries In
other words free trade was building up the
colonies so rapidly that taxes were levied
so as TO keep them within the bounds OF
British progress. This Is protection. This
is what Gen. COTS argument leads
to. Does IT not rebound? His theory s
damaged by his logic. 1t strikes back and
knocks his whole argument into splinters;
When the Pilgrims reached the new world
thew commenced trading with Newfound-
land with fish, with the West Indies for
the fruits of the topics. and with other
places for other things, paying for them
with the fruits Of their own soil and get
ting along so nicely under this system that
the British government interfered with
them in order to keep them back and IL is
to this system that Gen. GOT would re-
turn and ''set back the hands on the dial
OF progress more than century and a halt.
The young colonies finally resisted this en-
croachment upon their rights and liberties,
which eliminated in separation by
dumping the tariff and tea in Boston har.
Dor. rsF s.g t.r
General Goff now very kindly asks us to
tax ourselves, as retaliatory measure
against British progress. But working
men are getting their eyes open. The mist
that obscured their vision in yonder horizon
is passing away. Prejudice and pas.
sion must fall before the wisdom
of practical experience. General
COTS reasoning is altogether based upon
the hypothesis that one nation can become
rich only at the expense Of another. This
is the old argument. Adam Smith knocked
the bottom out of this logic more than
hundred years ago. The free trader has
is the enrichment of one who will purchase
tie products of another, and by that means
benefit both.
Workingmen were also disappointed that
Gen. Golf was as dumb as an oyster upon
the subject of monopolies, these vast cor
Dol ate institutions which have sprung up
under the Generals favorite eystem of pro-
lection, and around which he would throw
the "broad shield of American law"
Land monopolies, railroad monopolies,
money monopoly, and even the Standard
Oil monopoly escaped his notice; and to
the troubles Of the trades he has not paid
even the cold respect of passing glance.
But the General saw contentment in the
faces of those around him. No doubt he
did. for he had an iron man on one side OF
other, which was so transparent,
and so stimulating to home indus
try that the most inveterate high tariff
man might well feel proud. Had the GEN..
eral carried his thoughts TO the Cumber-
lend district of Maryland, he would have
found anything but contentment on the
faces of the miners, where three thousand
of them had to return TO work the other
day after an unsuccessful strike against a
reduction of wages, highly protected arti-
Gle, because the owners sought fit to i'm
dulge in little free trade labor, by i'm
porting lot of hungry Hungarians to do
the work of the protected" strikers.
It is an old aud familiar say
ing that it is a bad rule
that won't work both ways, but in this case
it don't, therefore it must be bad. II the
protectiGnists are sincere in their PROBES
sions in behalf Of labor, why don't they
show it by their acts. They tax foreign
goods and not men, and so reduce wages.
Why not tax immigrants, not imports, and
so keep wages up. Yours, &C.,
A WoRXIYGMAs.