San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1888-08-28
A Harmonious Keynote.

Frank Leslie's Weekly.
When Mr.. Blaine declared, in his
reception speech on the evening of
his return to his native land, that the
national contest for protection was a
contest waged in the interest of the
workingmen of the United States, he
sounded the keynote of the pending
campaign. The wage-earners are
manifestly the class who are the first
to suffer from any and every depres-
sion in trade, in mechanical employ
ments, in mills, factories, foundries
and machine-shops. The obvious
effect of a ten or twenty per cent
reduction of the import duties upon
hats, cotton, silks, china, earthen and
porcelain wares, manufactures of furs,
and a hundred other manufactures,
would be either the closing of the
American factories producing these
various goods, altogether, or else
the curtailing of the expenses
of running them to the extent
of the duty reduction. Cutting down
expenses, in every business or manu-
featuring establishment, begins with
lowering salaries or wages. Paying
only European wages, other things
being equal, our domestic manufactur
ers can successfully compete with
those of England and Austria. Lower
rates of duty on goods which our own
peOple manufacture must be followed
by lessened cost of production here,
which means lower wages. TO vote
=. l., / - Il in in,
the Mills tariff bill, which is made a
part of the democratic platform, is
clearly to vote for a reduction of
wages to all workingmen now en-
gagged in making the goods and fab
RIGS from which the bill removes the
duties or upon which it lowers the inn
port tax.
But when the effect of actual or
threatened duty reduction is to close
or shut down our mills and factories,
as has been the case in some in
stances already, then the working
man is thrown out of employment al
together. He is then compelled to re-
sort to farm labor or street labor,
which is poorly paid labor in all cOun-
tries. He Is lucky if he gets anything
to do at any compensation.
Fortunately, the working classes
seem to understand perfectly the eff
fects of free trade. They know that
the removal of all protecting duties
would destroy four billions of capital
invested in home industries, reduce
the labOrers therein employed to the
level of paupers, and end in national
bankruptcy and ruin. The American
system of protection, which was i'll
express terms recommended by every
president from Washington to Jack
son, was originally understood to in
volve protection to American labor
and the encouragement of healthy
immigration. General Jackson, in
his well-known letter to DR.. Coleman,
of North Carolina, dated April 26th,
1924, said: In short, sir, we have
been too long subject to the policy Of
British merchants. 1t is time we
should become little more Ameri-
canized, and instead of feeding the
paupers and labOrers of England,
feed our own, or else in short time,
by continuing our present policy we
shall all be rendered paupers
ourselves" The "policy' which
this stern democratic prOtec 10 =
list meant is shown by his
voting for the high protective
tariff of 1924, and his firmly executing
the still higher protective tariffs of
ISIS and 1882. 1t was against the en-
ecution of the latter tariffact by Presi-
dent Jackson that the South Carolina
nulifiers-the first free-traders-re-
belIed. How much these defenders of
a system of servile labor cared to- free
white wOrk;ngmen can be well mag
ned. Those who are against the policy
of protection, then, are clearly a5,,inst
protection to American labor, no less
than against encouragement to Amer
inall na1-ital and 4 nlnrican en- ternll sc