Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1886-08-14

expenses of living to the laboring man and
his family will be reduced from FIVE to eight
per cent, thus enabling him to add that
amount to his savings for "a rainy day."
Still another evil in our labor system
should be corrected. Children are now per-
mitted to work in the factory at too tender
an age. This evil is caused rather by the de-
sire of certain class of parents to have
their children earning wages than by the de-
sire of those managing the factories. The
law should prohibit children engaging in
| factory work at an age so tender as to under
mine health and strength and at the same
time deprive them of the opportunity to attend
school. If the age for factory labor were
fixed at fifteen years both evils, physical and
mental, would be avoided.
have for a long period in private, and a
few months since IN public, advocated these
reforms. My experience has suggested their
value and think in addition to the points
presented it would prove advantageous to ar
range a system Of weekly payments of wages.
|
to the laborer prompt control of his earnings
in cash will prove helpful and profitable to
HIM and 3 regulation directing the weekly
payments would, am sure, prove beneficial.
1t will, however, be found in the end that
the principal influence upon the wages of the
laboring man comes from the tariff system of
the National Government. A protective tar
III means good wages, while free trade or
mere revenue tariff mesns poor wages to the
labor of the United States. 1t has been the
steady aim of the Republican party to main
tain protection and it has been the steady aim
Of the Democratic party to enforce free trade.
On this direct issue lies the whole question to
the labOring man. If he fails to consider it
and to act upon it he fails at the point which
vitality affects his own personal interests.
No citizen of Maine should fail to see that
the Morrison tariff bill supported at the pres
ent session of Congress by the mass of the Dem
ocratic Representatives struck deadly blows at
every material interest of Maine. 1t gave to
the farmers and lumbermen of Canada the
free market of the United States for all their
products thus placing the alien who pays no
tax to support our State or National Govern
ments, on the same basis as our own citizens,
who pay all those taxes. To the fishermen of
Canada the bill proposed to concede such
manifest advantages over the fishermen of
New England that one might suppose the
n..n, tir isl . M
for the Canadian interest and cherished a
special malignity towards the New England
interest. Every manufacturing interest in
which Maine capitalists have embarked their
good wages was imperled and its prosperity
menaced by this tariff bill, which bu. for the
stubborn opposition of the Republican Repre-
sentatives in Congress would to-day be the
law of the land.
agree most heartily with the resolution of
| the State convention which declares it to be
"unfair to withhold pension from disabled
| soldier on the ground that his disability can
not be proved to have been directly incurred
in the lire of dutv" The only two questions
to be asked, as the republican convention
| well expressed it, are these: WAS he a loyal
| soldier? Does he need the aid of the Govern
ment he helped to saver" Since the adop.
| ton of this resolution the country has been
panied if not shocked to see the President OF
the United States using his veto power in
many cases to deprive worthy soldiers who
are in want of bread of the small bounty con.
terred upon them by Congress While con.
ceding to the President sincere and proper
motives for bis action, think the general
feeling of the people is that it is better for ar
irregular case to escape the scrutiny OF oul
law makers than that the risk be incurred OF
throwing honorable soldiers as pauper,
upon the charity of the world.
| We hear from the Democratic party toe
much complaint Of pensions granted to de-
serving soldiers. But for the efforts and sac
rifices of the soldiers of the Union there
would be no national treasury in existence
and I hold that their claim should be regard
ed fret mortgage on the resources of the ma
ton. President Lincoln gave to the Union
army the generous assurance that "the coun.
try would care for the soldier and his widow
and bis orphans" rejoice that IN so far a,
the Republican party could act this pledge ha,
been honorably redeemed in the past and thai
the future will see no abatement of Justice
and liberality.
| congratulate the members of the Conven
ton upon the unmistskable terms in which
they endorsed the Prohibitory liquor law
The history Of prohibition in Maine NAV Al
this time be profitably recounted. The orig
inal law in 1851 was enacted by the votes o.
both Democrats and Wings and was approve
by Democratic governor. The next Year by
a coalition of all its opponents the Democratic
party lost control Of the State and when it re
gained it in 1855 one of the first acts was t.
repeal the prohibitory law and enact license
law instead.
The Republican party composed of the Ere,
Soilers and of the anti-slavery sections o.
the Democratic and Wing parties. gained con
troll of the State in 1856 under the lead o
Hannibal Hsmlin, and the Democratic part,
has never since exercised legislative power il
Maine. Among the early and promnen
measures Of the Republican party completed
in 1879 was the re-enactment of the pro
hibitory law, which was approved by the di
1 mt xnfa Of tha L. Al n