Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1888-06-21
[Reprinted from last week.
TALK TO WORKINGMEN,

a TALK TO WORklNGMEN.
New York sun CDem)
There is only one country in Europe in
which the wages of labor are within
half of what they are in this country.
That is Great Britain.
Wages in Germany, France, Belgium,
and Switzerland are not one-third of
what they are here. Those of Italy are
not one quarter.
One duty of government is to protect
the labor of its citizens. Last year cheap
foreign labor was imported into the Uni
ted States in the shape of manufactur-
ed goods to the value of S692 2,319,7 ,768.
This was great wrong to American
labor In that immense amount of i'm
ports, permitted by our insufficient and
defective tariff, the labor of women en-
ployed in the Manchester, England, cot
ton mills, whose wages do not average
$50 a year, came into competition
with the higher priced labor of our
Southern and Northern cotton sDinners.
In that mass of imports was the labor of
German factory workmen averaging less
than s115 a year, and that of women
averaging less than $50 year.
Munich is gallery and center of art.
German women with as many as six
children saw wood in its streets for Is
cents day. May merciful God sink
the United States ten thousand feet un-
der the sea before that hideous specta-
Gle shall become an incident of our civ
ilization!
Nearly seven hundred million dollars
worth of the starvation labor of Europe
in the form of manufactured goods i'm
ported into this country last yearl That
which came from Belgium in bales and
boxes represented the wages of p cents
day for women and 43 cents for men;
and the highest priced labor in loose
cargoes of Belgian steel and iron repre-
sented wages less than 80 cents a day. |
Compared with these the wages of Car
negie's men at Braddoek are the income
of princes.
Italian labor in italian merchandise
was imported into this country last year,
in competition with American labor, at
prices that should fill sensitive souls with
horror, and alarm the thoughtful for the
human race. The pay in the cotton fac
tories of Naples is 20 cents day; of
the Neapolitan marble and granite cut
tiers from 40 to so cents day, according
to skill; of coachmen, 80 cents; of wo-
men in lace factories, 10 cents, and girls,
cents; of soldiers in the army, 81
month. Of all the workmen in the glass
works of Italy, only the skilled blowers
receive as high as dollar day, and Ia
borers on farms, hoeing, or making hay,
from Is to IS cents day, working from
sun to sun. God save America from
such wagesl
In the Swiss silk goods which came
into. our half-protected country last year
in those seven hundred millions of i'm
ports was the skilled labor of men at Al
cents day, and women at 20 cents, both
with the silk weavers of Pat
erson, New York, Philadelphia, and
Cheney. Glasgow, in Scotland, is the
steamship factory of the world, and its
blast furnace owners and iron rollers
howl for free trade day and night. Of
the families in that manufacturing Sod
Dm, fl 900 out of 100000 live in one
room, and half of the men and women
in that city are chemically out of work.
That one room for a family of father,
mother, daughters, and sons tells what {
wages are in Scotland, and how they
lrag humanity down into bestiality and !
misery.
Brothers! the Mills bill to reduce the i
5ariff is the first step to that one room j
'or an American family. Fight it with
,ut delay and fight it to its death; and $
hen make your tariff so protective as to
;hut out cheap foreign labor in the form
If manufactured goods.
A STAB IN THE DARK
SometimpS fails of itc nourdarouS intent |