Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1888-05-31
The Orator and the Worklngman.

"Lower the tariff" said the orator;
striking the top of the desk with his
clenehed fist, land you lower the
wages that are the due of honest labor!
Look around us-what do we see? We
see a great country built up by the toll
of thousands of men in factories and
workshops. We see the most magni-
ficent spectacle of Industrial achieve
ment that has ever been presented to
the world. We see an unexampled
prosperity, i'm which all men share,
great or humble. We see vast body
of working people who are paid higher
wages than any other nation on the
globe can afford to pay. And why?
Because this nation, alone among the
nations of the world, dares to shut out
foreign competition-dares to place a
tax upon the work of underpaid and
helpless hirelings in England and
France and Germany-dares to say to
the world: Here the workingman
shall be adequately paid for bis labor,
your own price the gOuds made by men
who are little better than slaves, and
who must take what you pay them, or
starve.' This, then, is what the pro-
tective tariff does for the WOrkingman.
It is 10 this great institution that he
owes the superiority of his position to
that of the foreign laborer. If it did
not exist, his wages would be the same
as theirs. Shall we destroy this great
safeguard of labor? Shall Americans
be forced to live on the wages of Euro
peans? Shall we take from the work
ingman his best and greatest protec-
ton? I pause for reply"
please do not pause any longer"
said one of his hearers, rising; "because
| have few remerks to make, and
then I shall pause for reply, and if
you can give it, you will interest
great many Of my fellow-w Crkmen. /
take it you are not workman. l am.
The reason I think you are not work
man is that you seem to know nothing
about the workmen of this country
how they live, or what their condition
is. You speak of unexampled prosper
ity. 1t is true that our employers are
prosperous. They are rich men; they
build fine houses; they own yachts
and horses. No doubt they owe their
presently to the protective tariff; but
what do aUe owe the protective tariff?
"You will tell me that we owe the
present rate of our wages to the tariff;
but [ tell you that is nonsense. The
tariff enables the manufacturer to ask
higher price for his goods; but what
he makes in that way he puts in his
pocket. He does not share it with US.
There is no law compelling him to, and
he does not do it. That is human ma
ture. He is in business to make mon
ey; not to share it. He does not give
us money for nothing, any more than
we give him labor for nothing. He
makes the best terms he can with US,
and we make the best terms we can
with him; and the tariff has nothing
to do with it. 1t is 81 question of sup
ply and demand, and that is all there
is to it. If John Simpson is working
for two dollars day, and fifty men
turn up who are willing and able To do
his work for dollar day John Simp-
son will have to work for dollar, or
lose his job. That sounds hard; but.
hard or not, it's true. And | don't
know that it is hard, for it is just. 1t
works as well the other way. If the
employer can't get a man to take John
Simpsons place, John Simpson can
ask as much as he pleases for his work,
and he is sure to get it.
mo tariff in the world will make
labor dear if labor is willing to sell it.
self cheap. Whatever we are paid We
are paid because we can't be had
cheaper, and that is all there is about
it. If you reduce the tariff on the
goods we manufacture, the employers
will make less money, and build less
expensive houses that's all. They
won't pay US less. If we would have
worked for less, they would have made
the reduction long ago.
kl"Buf.there is one way in which the
protective tariff does interest us work
men. You say that we are paid higher
wages than the workmen of any other
country. But you might also have
said that we pay higher prices than
the workmen of any other country.
And we pay out of our pockets for the
very goods we make. 1 work in a
woolen-mill. am paid more than ]
could get in England; know it. But
pay more for almost everything /
buy than I should pay in England.
/ pay one-halt as much again for my
clothes. My coat is made of cloth
woven in my employers mill. 1 pay
the tariff duty on that cloth, Iray it.
He doesn't. And I pay the duty for
other employees. My house costs me
more than it would if the materials of |
which it is made were sold in fair COM
petition with imported articles. I pay |