Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1882-03-31


the State, was defeated.
The election of Hastings Judge for
Staunton comes up to-day, friday and
was not up yesterday. =
HOW TIE FARMER rs
PROTECTED"
Taking up Congressional Record last
week We found printed there land our CO.
temporary, the Virqimiam, would do well to
make note of it, the we'll prepared speech
of Democratic member in favor OF re-
storing high protective tariff on Hayti
The speaker was the Hon. r. L. Gibson
of Louisiana, and his locality accounts for
his views Louisiana raises about one
tenth only of the entire amount of sugar
used by the people Of the United States,
and Mr.. Gibson argued to abolish the ex-
listing reciprocity treaty with Hayti, SO
as to stop the only leak that could possibly
give cheaper sugar to the American poo
pie. It is with Mr.. Gibson we presu me,
as we contend it is with all advocates of a
protective tariff; they represent almost
exclusively their local interest.
But Mr.. Gibson represents one of the
only two products of the pillow that receive
any protection, while there are very nearly
three Thousand articles not produced by
the pillow on which the man who holds the
handles of the plow is taxed. Lot US see
how this man at the pillow handle is treat
ed. He raises besides what is needed for
home consumption not far from $500, 000,-
600 worth of products which he ships
in direct competition with the pauper la
Dor OF Europe of which he has heard pro-
tecti0nists talk 80 much. Pauper labor in
Russia and along the Mediterranean raises
the same wheat and sends it to the same
market to compete with the American.
Pauper labor in India and Egypt raises
cotton and sends it to the same ports to
compete with his. Well he gets what he
can for his crop. Now he would like to
buy there, where it is cheap, some of the
machinery with which to prepare the soil
for his next crop-the machinery to which
on his farm. He can load a ship with
machinery for which he pays SEC, 900, but
when he gets it across the ocean at bis
home harbor the custom house officer steps
on board and informs him that he must
pay $4,000 in addition, to the U. S. gov
sent to his farm. By industry he has made
bis crop; by the world he has been forced
to put it into market in competition with
crops raised by pauper labor, and by his
own government at home he is forced to
pay tax of forty per cent. additional to
no; that already has two or three hundred
millions of income that it does uot need,
and is looking around to make some re-
duction-in direct taxation, not in tariff
The American laborer? No; for some
thousands of them are on strike when
his ship arrives. because they are not pro-
tected-from the monopolists. Then it is
to support the monopolist, and so it
is. How do you protect the monopolist
and not the man who works for
him? This way, for instance. The
capital of the Bessmer Steel Companies
Of America-we quote from the U. S. Gen.
sus and we may add that the figures were
furnished the government by their own
man, Mr.. James W. Swank, Secretary of
the American Steel and Iron Association
was for the year 1880, $40. 975 300; the
cost of the material was $50. 1925 92S and
the cost of labor was s4,93o, $40. The val
ne of the product when sold was $55 ,S05. 21O
being net profit latter dedacting labor
and materially of $14.047 1888 or 66.9 per
cent. profit on the capital. All that labor
got out of it was eight per cent. against
the nearly 70 percent gotten by the capt.
talist. This enormous profit to the capt
taIist is the result of the 1923 per ton pro-
lection which goes into their pockets. II
this protection was imposed for the benefit
of the American laborer. is it surprising
when so little of it falls to his share that
he spends some of his surplus time in
strikes. Here is fact to the point of the
mechanics share in protection which WAS
stated some weeks ago by Mr.. Beck in the
Senate, and which we see by the Congress
sional Record was last week examined in
Messrs. Sherman, of Ohio, and Hale of
Maine. but by neither c0ntroverted; it is
that in Detroit, an American city where
protection PREVAILS mechanics perform
their daily labor, but live over in Windsor,
Canada, where free trade rules, though
they have to pay dollar month ferriage.
Their reason for the residence is that in
free trade Windsor the workman pays So a
month rent, in protection Detroit he pays
sl2; in Windsor be buys blanket for So
for which in Detroit he pays 81, and for his
and his fam1ly's clothing be pays fifty per
cent. more in Detroit. Mr.. Sherman's an
swer to this was that he supposed the
blankets were s'shoddy."
Our contemporary draws strong contrast
between the condition OF the American
laborer and that of the European laborer.
Aiasl it is a picture drawn by hope rather
than from life. The mechanics cottage
in this country is not his own in the vast
majority of cases. his little plat of ground
is rented. he is free to go it is true where
wages are best but he is not free to buy
where the needs of life are cheapest. He
has work and sometimes he has none, tbs
crowded busy season is followed by the
slack, but slack or busy, low or high wa
ges the ever present tax of protection eats
into his earnings and the dreaded overpro-
duc5ion is ever ready to deprive his hands
of labor and bis family OF his wages.
There are many curious phases in the
economy of the world but none that has
ever struck us SO forcibly as to see far
mer in favor of protective tariff. If a
man had the boldness to propose to the
people of Augusta county that they should