Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-04-15
HIGH TARIFF.
II is n Machine to Enrich Capital
and Pauperize Labor.

Se"NOAA SoPit0l anu LopOi
IS no new feature of life, only under
our new conditions and new materials
we have to use in this age of steam,
the struggle assumes a different as
pect. The desire Of capital has al
ways been to make labor as cheap as
possible, to own it, if possible, if not to
get it down to the lowest point. We
have seen how it was made cheap in
the supposed case of the Ohio tariff
There is no other way in which labor
in the United States could have been
so effectively brought to a pauper
basis as by the course adopted by
Congress in putting high tariff on
everything we use while admitting
foreign labor free, and the
protectionists know it too. 1t seems so
strange that they are so easily able
to deceive the working classes of
America. History teaches us that men
who use labor have always sought to
make that labor as cheap as possible.
Ii is true that in nations where the
masses were slaves or chattels such
ownership gave the few the control of
the avenues of wealth, as they con-
trolled the labor which, applied to
land, produced the wealth. Nations of
serfs did not tneed:protective tariffs, as
the rich already had themselves pro-
tected in owning the labor. The
strife has always been by the
governing class to get con-
troll of labor. We know that labor
applied to natural resources produces
wealth. If the capitalists own the
land and labor too, they have got it
all. After the masses were no longer
held as serfs or chattels, then it be-
came necessary to have some other
form of ownership. They get this
ownership of labor in a great degree
by the high-tariff. This infamous
protection has given the few the con-
troll of labor. 1 claim that if this
high-tariH is kept upon the American
people long enough, it will eventually
place not only the labor but all the
farms in the hands of the money
power. Even now, many of the
central States have SO many mortgages
filed upon their farms, that it is doubt
full If they can ever be paid. There is
no doubt that continuance of this
high tariff for one hundred years
would pass nearly all the farms of the
United States into the hands of the
banks and insurance companies. Can
the farmers of the country contem-
| nj a fn c1nh gr 70 al -
Tor protection and consent to tax
themselves so much on everything
they use, eat or wear, and on all the
labor they perform?
AS | have already shown that pro-
lection is nothing but taxation, it is
easily seen why capitalists and manu-
facturers are SO desperately deter
mined to keep the country bu dened
with the tariff. Taxalitn n in some
form has always been a favorite
method of enriching few at the ex-
pense OF many. From ancient times
down to the present all nations
have been able to form an aristocracy
OF wealth by taxing the masses. his
tory tells US that the Egyptians suffer-
ed an intolerable taxation. 1t was so
in the Roman Empire. We know
that the Turkish subjects for hundreds
of years have felt the severity of a sys-
tenn of excessive taxation. 1t is a
matter OF fact that in all ages people
have been taxed into pover5y. Tax
alton has been one of the greatest
causes of poverty in all nations. The
old world, from the Euphrates to the
Tiber, from the deserts of Africa to
the shores of the North Sea, is strewn
with the ruins of the ancient monu-
ments of barbaric splendor, erected by
a taxatian akin to slavery
where toiling millions have bent
the knee to serve the mas
ter. In the United States,
while nominally free, this in 'amous
taxation is another hydra-headed
monster to which all must bow, en-
riching few at the expense of the
many.
The price of lumber at the present
time is an example of protection car
ried to a logical conclusion. If a
tariff further than for the expense of
Government is good thing at all,
why stop at a moderate tariff? The
higher the better. If one dollar per
yard on woolen is a good thing, five
dollars would be better thing. 1t
would enable the manufacturers to
tax the farmers more and conse-
quently enrich them the sooner.
We must impress upon the laboring
people the fact that protection is deep
laid scheme for robbery under the
sanction of law. Protectionists tell us
that whenever the tariff is raised
better times and higher prices follow
Immediately, and when the tariff is
removed times become dull and
wages lower, but they do not follow
the argument to its logical results.
Suppose, for case, that Los Angeles
prohibits the importation of bo It's and
shoes into the city by prohibitory
tariff of $40 pair. Now, it must be-
seen that people would soon have to
go barefooted, unless somebody
manufactured them here. For a
time all branches of the boot
and shoe manufacturing would
be stimulated to a high degree, fac
tories would be built and workmen
employed, until an infant industry
would become large business in the
city; few men would get rich out of
the rest of Los Angeles people, and
one or two hundred workmen would
get high wages for a few months
long enough to call competing work.
men down from San Francisco; then
wages would come down lower than
ever, on account of the influx of
workmen; but the manufacturers
would say they were having glorious
times, and they would be getting rich
making shoes at a ten-dollar tariff;
but would the seventy-fve thou
sand people of Los Angeles
be having good times, pay ing SIS a
pair for their shoes Remove this tariff
and the influx of shoes temporarily
would hurt the pockets ofthe shoe man
e. 4