Lexington weekly intelligencer. (Lexington, Mo.) 1871-1887, 1885-04-25
our Agents.
HOW LABOR Is PROTECTED.
From the st. Joseph Gazette.l

From the 81. Joseph daLoite'l
1t is q curious fact that the protected
industries are those which, as a rule,
paw the lowest wages. We know that
the favo1ite and never ending argu-
ment with the pr~otectionlsts IS that
American laborers and mechanics must
be protected against foreign pauper
labor. A Philadelphia anti-free trade
paper states that agricultural laborers
in England earned but $2.4O a week.
And that does not seem like poor
wages. OF course American laborers
must not be reduced to such pauper-
ism as that. They must be protected
by a tariff on their productions, N so
they are-in theory. Iron Is protected
by a heavy duty. We should expect
to see iron workers earning goou
wages and getting along comfortably.
That is what people have beer paying
about two prices for all the iron puf-
chased in this country for. But what
are the facts? In the same paper we
find a news item from Bethlehem, "a,
declaring that for fifteen months the
iron miners of Lehigh and Berks coun-
ties have not made over ninety cents a
day, and have not had work over half
the time at that, and that n man who
knew of many others like himself had
not earned over $50 in a year. Here
is practical illustration of a policy
which costs the people thousands OF
millions and yields the laborer out
$3.50 a week.
Coal is another protected article.
1t Is an article of universal cOnsump-
ton. Rich and poor alike mus nave
it. But rich and poor alike have had
to pay, in addition to the price OF coal,
Is cents a ton as a protective duty, so
that the "pauper" coal miners OF
foreign countries should lot come IN
competition with the free American
miner. Surely the latter should Lave
comfort for his wife and little ones.
This extra Is cents ought to form in
some way a bulwark against starvation
for these people. But that is precisely
what it does not do. The Is cents and
nearly everything else goes into the
pockets of the mOnopolists who Owl
and run mines. The following is a
picture of life in a mining town OF
Pennsylvania, Milesville, thirty-four
miles from Pittsburg. The item IS
from the Philadelphia Times, a thor
oughly reliable paper:
"The reporter visited some OF the
dwelling houses and heard many har-
rowing tales of suffering during the Sc
we're winter. Broken widow panes,
whose apertures were filled up with old
bed clothes, were. everywhere prevalent:
The floor of a room, covered here and
there with frozen pools of water which
had leaked through the rotten root,
had been the sleeping place OF a whole
family during the winter. Corn meal
and water had formed the principal
article of diet for this place ever since
work was stopped. Old books n
old clothes had been disposed OF to
procure funds with which to buy food.
The half dozen cows in the village were
kept alive by straw taken from bed
ticks. The reporter witnessed the
of a miners family. In one corner OF
the room, on a pile of old clothes lay
the grandmother, complacently chew
ing a crust of dry bread. The neigh
boring farmers, who are always OPP
came to the help of the starving miners,
often in consideration of help to be
given in housing the next harvest.
Manv miners have thus pawned next
falls work for food to keep them and
their little one alive. This is only
one of hundreds of these little mining
villages which can be found anywhere
along Electromagnetic andYough rivers.
There has been no exaggeration." The
reason of all this is plain enough. Pro-
lection kills competition. The whole
business falls into the hands Of large
corporations, who put down wages to
their own price, and men may work at
them or starve. Some day this horri-
BILE ''old man of the sea" called protec-
ton will be lifted off the shoulders of
the American people and such shame
full things as the above will not be
written against Is again.