The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1885-01-21
THE REAL BENEFICIARIEs OF PRO-
TECTION.


The period covering the last twenty years
marks the full operation of the high tariff
laws in the United States. This period has
also witnessed the accumulation of a greater
number OF larger individual fortunes than
any other Of equal length in the history of
the Nation. OF these fortunes the majority
have been rolled up in the New England and
Middle States-the manufacturing section.
Chief among the industries that have yielded
prodigious wealth Is cotton manufacturing,
and We here mention them alone in illus
trating point. The mills OF Lowell, Fall
River, Manchester, Lawrence, Nashua,
Newburyport, Pawtucket, and scores OF
other towns, have enriched their
owners, many of them to an extent which
policy forbade being made public.
There are mills started with few thousand
spindels, now operating hundreds of thou
sands, the increase of which both in build
ings aud machinery has been made solely
from Ithe earnings the owners In the mean
time drawing handsome dividends yearly.
The clear profits from some of them are
known, at times, to have exceeded 90 per
cent. per annum on the capital invested.
The public would hear Of, perhaps. 10 per
cent. of this being declared and paid, the
remainder being quietly reserved and used
for further increasing the capacity of the
gold mines.
In these New England cotton mills are
about 100000 operatives. male and female
the latter outnumbering. The owners Of the
mills are Professionalism the interests OF
their operatives, mind you, they fsver high
tariff on all cotton fabrics of European
manufacture. We have their own word and
that of Mr.. Randall for this and Mr.. Rsn-
dali is, as ye all do know, in the words of
Marc Antony ian honorable man"
And yet-craving pardon of MIR. RARda
and his Republican, protectiouist mill
owners-we have an observation to make:
The average duty on cotton goods has been
~ per cent; the average per cent. of cost of
manufacturing New England cotton goods
paid to operatives has been less than IA per
cent. That margin of more than S per cent,
between the duty and the wages of labor has
gone into the purses, not of the operative
but, of the capitalist. If protection has been
in the interest of labor, now have not the
cotton manufacturers OF New England at
once duped the Government and robbed the
operatives of more than 90 per cent. OF tho
wages to which their governmental tariff
protection entitled them,
Mr.. Randall tells rs that high protection
il and has been for the benefit of the opera
tives of New England mills. But any man
not subsidized to speak falsely, visiting the
mill towns of New England and going
among the operative classes, will promptly
and stoutly denounce Mr.. Rsndsll's state
ment as false. The truth is that The ma
jority Of those working people are slaves for
bread, lodging and cheap attire. They ara
80 pitiably paid that half OF them would
never have the means to take them 10 the
West or South did better opportunities in
vite them. The mills are owned by corpor-
atoms whose officers are in Boston or New
York. Esth mill is under the direction OF
an agent of the corporation whose large
salary is the price of his procuring the
largest possible amount Of products at the
very least possible expense. So economically
do many of the operatives have to live that
several viii sometimes be found huddIed n
single apartment. Parents spend theil
lives upon the bare necessities OF ife rails.
ing children who in their turn, 60 through
the same work for like mesger compensation
II is not unusual to see a girl, her mother
and her grandmother, working in the same
mill. YEARLY, monotonously replenishing
spindles and tending looms, these Ameri-
watching the growth of wealth Of the manu-
fsctursrs whom they toll for and who have
religiously pocketed the S per cent. duties
legislated by Congress, pretsndedly for these
operatives.
Protection is not and has never been in
the interest of other than capitalists. The
pretense OF its being for the heboof Of work