Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1886-08-26
CoIorcd worlsingmen's Wages.

CoIorcd Worllingmen's Wages.
| Mr.. Blaine's speech at Sebago Lake.
Maine, Tuesday, full synopsis of which
was published in our dispatches yester-
dav, was characteristic one, and is call
culated to give workingmen throughout
| the country false impression of the
effect Of the triumph Of the principles OF
the Democratic NY. 1t was intended
to lead working d.. 10 believe that the
asceudancy of the Democratic party
means their degradation. The points
made to sustain that belief are worthy of
the great demagogue that Mr.. Blaine is,
and show his skill in so twisting facts
which are against him as to make them
appear to support his position.
The Republican party has always
claimed to be the friend of American
workingmen because it is the protective
tariff party. 1t has not been able, now
ever, to sustain this claim to the satlsfac-
tion OF workingmen. The workingmen
have had their eyes opened to the fact
that protective tariff means eXtraordi-
nary profits for the mine, mill and factory
owners, and no especial benefits for the
wOrkingmen. The workIngmen have seen
the great monOpolies of Pennsylvania,
which are clamorous for a protective
tariff solely for the benefit of American
workingmen, as they claim, import Hun
garian contract laborers, who work for
starvation wages. That alone was sutfi-
Client to shake their faith in the protested
friendship of the Republican party,
The new point that Mr.. Blaine skillfully
makes is that the colored workingmen Of
the South are becoming the competitors OF
white workingmen in branches of labor
that were monopolized by white working
men before the negroes were given their
freedom; that the colored workingmen are
underpaid, and that 1t Is the policy Of the
Democratic party of the South to under
pay them; that this policy is enforced by
denying them free ballot, and that this
policy will force white workingmen to &C
cept the wages paid colored workingmen
or abandon the field to them.
or course, Mr.. Blaine doesn't pretend
TO show that a protective tariff pre-
vents competition between the alleged
underpaid colored workingmen and white
workingmen. And whyp Because ne can
not. If there is competition between the
workingmen Of the TWO races, that COM
petition will be just as great whether the
tariff is high or low. The advantage of
n low tariff to workingmen Is that it re-
duces the cost OF living.
But is 1t true that the colored working
men Of the South are undergrad? Isn't
Mr.. Blaine's statement that they are, in
tended to make the colored workingmen
dissatisfied, and to arouse a feeling of
hostility among white workinQmen to the
Democratic party? 1t doubtless is. AS
matter of fact, colored workingmen are
paid just what their work is worth in
comparison with that of white working
layer, or plasterer or painter does the
same class OF Work that a white
workingman does he gets the
same pay. AS a rule colored work
ingmen do not get as high wages as white
workingmen, because they do inferior
work. They have to be overlooked and
carefully directed. They cannot be in
trusted with jobs as general thing. In
neither the amount of work per day that
they do, nor in the character of their
work are they the equal of white work
ingmen. The reason they get less wages
is therefore plain.
A careful comparison would doubtless
show that colored farm hands in the South
are as we'll paid as farm hands at the
North. In some localities they may not
get quite so much per day, but when the
amount of work they do and the fact that
they are generally given little patches of
land to farm for themselves are taken
into consideration 1t is probable that their
compensation equals that of farm hands
in any other part OF the world.