Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1886-08-25

vorkmen in nine states working under pro-
tectiye tariff. have over thousand millions
of dollars in savings banks, the vastly greater
mass of working men in England, ireland,
Scotland and Wales, the whole United King
dom, all working under free trade have less
than four hundred millions of dollars in the
aggregate both in Savings Banks and Postal
Banks. These figures and these dollars are
the most persuasive of arguments and the
conclusion they teach is so plain that the
running man may read.
| THE LABOR QUESTION.
The leading feature in the industrial field
of 1885 and 1886 is the discomfort among the
men WIN earn their bread by skilled and bv
unskilled labor. Uneasiness and uncertain
ty are found on all sides; there are wise
aims among many and with not few there is
aimlessness with its inevitable result of dis
appointment and encouragement. The man
who could by any prescription remove this
discomfort and at once restore harmony and
| happiness would be philosopher, patriot and
statesman. The man who processes to be
f, aele to do it will generally prove to be a
compound of empiricism and ignorance. But
in the end, perhaps by toilsome paths, with
| manv blunders and some wrongs, no one need
doubt that sound and just and righteous con-
illusions will be reached. Perfect freedom 10
test the virtues and secure the advantage of
organization, to exert strong power through
combination, are certainly among the
common rights of all men under
a Republican Government. Labor as
sociations have the same sanction and
the same rights that any form of incorpora-
ton may assume-subJect, as all must be. to
the condition that the persons and property of
others shall be respected II is we'll for every
citizen of a free Government to keep before
his eyes and in his thoughts the honored
maxim that 1.-THE liberty of one man must
always end where the rights of another man
begin"
l have no new nostrums to offer for the
cure of labor troubles. have no qusck reme-
dies to propose. am a firm believer in the
efficacy of the Protective Tariff, and l can
look back with serene satisfaction to my re-
cord in Congress as never blotted by single
vote that was not friendly to the interests of
American Labsr. l never promised anything
when | was a candidate for public Office, and
now a private citizen have no temptation
to datter any man or state anything else than
the simple truth as see the truth. 1t is in
this spirit that offer some suggestions which
seem to me worthy of attention under the ex
listing situation of the Labor question.
In what may be termed the political creed
of the various Labor organizations l have OBJ
served some singular omissions of pertinent
and. as think, controlling cts,-facts which
in a spirit of friendship and candor I beg to
point out. l read, few days since, in a creed
put forth by an association of Knights of La
Dor. in another State, recital of eighteen
distinct ends which they desired to have secur-
ed or maintained by national legislation.
Among these there was not the slightest men
ton of protective tariff That might have
been accidentally or it might have implied a
perfect sense of safety in regard to the con-
tinuance of the tariff; or it might have meant
that those who proclaimed the creed are in
different to the tate of protection.
In any event it would be we'll for the Labor
organizations to diligently inquire and ascer-
tain how the wages of labor in the United
States can be kept above the rate of wages in
England, Germany and France on the same
articles of manufacture without the nterven-
ton of protective duties? With the present
cheap modes of interchange and transporta-
ton of all commodities, | inquire of these
gentlemen how, under the rule of free trade,
can wages in the United States be kept above
the general standard of European wages?
do not stop for the detail of argument, only
desire to lodge the question in the minds of
the millions of American laborers who have
it in their power to maintain protection or to
inaugurate free trade; who have it in their
power to uphold the party of protection or the
| party of free trade.
| Another portentous fact has been omitted
| so far as have observed-from the consid-
Grafton and judgment of the Labor organize
tons. They seem to have taken little or no
| heed of the existence of more than a million
and half of able bodied laborers in the South
with dark skins, but with expanding intellect,
| increasing intelligence and growing ambition
| While these men were slaves, working in the
| corn and cotton fields, in the rice swamps aud
| on the sugar plantations of the South the
skilled labor of the Northern States felt no
| competition from them. But since they be-
came freemen there has been a great change
| in the variety and skill of the labor performed
| by colored men in the South. The great
mass are, of course, still engaged in agricul-
| tural work, but thousands and tens of thou
| sands, and in fact hundreds of thousands,
| have entered and are entering the mechanical
and semi-mechanical field. They are making
| pig and bar iron in Tennessee and Alabama
| They are manufacturing cotton in Georgia
| and the Carolinas. They are brick-layers
and plasterers everywhere; they are carpen-
tiers and painters; they are blacks miths they
make wagons and carts; they make cigars !;
| they tan leather and make harness /;
they are fremen and pilots on river
| boats they calk vessels in southern ports :;
they lay railroad track; they are switchmen
and section men on the line and firemen on
locomotives. In fact, they are generally en-
| tering all the avenues and channels of skilled
| labor. OF course they are underpaid They
| receive far less than has been paid in wears
past to Northern mechanics for similar
| work. They are able to take no part
| in making laws for their own protec.
ton and they are consequently and in
evitably unable to maintain fair standard of
wages or to receive fair proportion of their
proper earnings.
l do not dwell on this subject at length.
though it could easily be presented in agra
waiting detail. l mention it only to place it
before the Labor organizations of the North.
with this question addressed to them-Do
you suppose that you can permanently
maintain in the Northern States one scale of
prices when just beyond an imaginary line on
the south of us far different scale of prices
is paid for labor? The colored mechanic of
the South is not so skillful a workman nor so
intelligent man as you are, but if he will
lay brick in a new cotton factory in South
Carolina at halt the price you are paid, il he
will paint and plaster it ut the same low rate
he is inevitably erecting an industry which
if the same rate of wages be maintained
| throughout, will drive you out of business or
lead you to the gates of his own poverty.
| The situation is therefore plainly discerni-
BILE and demonstrable, viz: Flrst-If the
Democratic party shall succeed, as they have
| been annually affemptinu for fualva