Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-10-27
send Him to an Asylum.

the platform OF rotten planks on which
his party is making this canvass, and
cannot keep it together. The people
know it is rotten and going to pieces,
and they are getting away from it as fast
as they can. The Western people are
running away from it in all the States,
and even the grave and reverend seig-
rors of the Republican party in the
United States Senate have gotten as far
away as their legs could carry them.
Mr.. Blaine himself has not been able to
stand on the platform of his own design
ing, and he has been going about the
country from his opening speech
in Maine to his last great ef-
fort in New York, floundering
in a sea of platitudes, faleehoods and
contradictions, until each new statement
gives the last the lie. At Portland it was
"trusts" he blundered upon. In Michi-
gan he delivered a sophomore history Of
the use of the veto power. At Rochester
he did get back with the welt on the toe
of the left boot, on to the platform he had
designed as he thought so cunningly. At
this point he discussed the tariff suffi-
ciently to say that he did not bring
thirty-two trunks full Of English clothes
into the country on his return from Eur
ope, and he also talked tariff to a suffi-
cient extent to tell us Why he did not.
His reason is that he can buy the same
quality Of clothes as cheap in New York
as he could in England.
Now that is sorry statement for a
high Protecticnist to make. For if
clothes were as cheap in New York as in
London we do not need any protection ;
protection cannot protect; American
wages must be lower than English wages,
for in England raw material is duty free,
and the manufacturer here is at that
disadvantage, SO that he must cut wages
or work at loss. But Mr.. Blaine knows
he told a big 'stretcher" when he said
clothes are as cheap in New York as
they are inEngland. His case is really
not go bad as he makes it out to be. He
is in the position Of the lawyer who falls
into the error of pleading against his
client.
Then at New York on Thursday
night he tried to get tottering
and uncertain stand on his Floren-
tine mosaic Of a platform. He took
up the manufactures of iron and steel
and claimed that in four years we
had imported $14, 900, 900 of these manu-
factures. He bulked them all and did
not 60 into details as to what items in
the metal schedule they fell under. Blaine
is made on guage entirely too broad to
allow Of his dealing with details. He is
an imaginative man who delights in
large figures, general way Of speaking
and rhetorical, rather than logical
way of arguing. He prefers fiourishes
to syllogisms. Therefore we do not know
if these imports of iron and steel goods
are pens, pins, needles, watch-springs,
shovels or steel nails. We dc
not know how highly they are
protected. But it may be taken fol
granted that the protection is quite am
pie. Iron and steel are Pennsylvania
industries, and Mr.. Blaine's friend, Andy
Carnegie, is interested in them. Now
notice Mr.. Blaine's contempt for plod
ding accuracy and dry detail. He says
had these goods, which cost delivered in
our ports $14 ,0O0, 900, been manufactured
in America, the enterprise would have
furnished labor for one year to 300, ,OOC
laborers. Here he betrays his familiarity
with the practical workings of the ex.
treme system of protection. He feels
bound to provide work for only one year
out of four. The protected mills
having got rich in a year, and al
the same time glutted the market with
goods, the owners will close them down
and take Mr.. Blaine off coaching in
Europe. The men will rest three years
out of four. But then there are
$14 ,0O0, 900 to support them. Divide j,
up among 100000 and he gets exactly
$46.6625 per annum for each laborer
This Mr.. Blaine said was good wages
The men will each get that for the yea,
they work, live on it and save enough
for the three years they are to lie idle
Then Mr.. Blaine has, in one of his
great tariff speeches, claimed that the
war tariff is the cause of our greal
increase in population. Therefore he has
to set these $14, ,0OO, 600 protected enter.
prises to turning out babies as we'll az
steel rails. He allots to each man who
shares in this munifcent sum of $46. .662s
for year, and to support him four years
four dependencies in the way of family.
Thus Mr.. Blaine triumphantly proves
that his sl4,000,OO0 will support for four
years l 800, 900 people! For each family
of five there is paid by this great protec.
tive system $46 6625 for the year the
mills run, and for the three years they
stop!
But that is not all. Mr.. Blaine in his
peculiar economics ignores entirely such
trifies as the raw material which goes
into these imported goods. He also cast
to the wind the profits of the mills. Now,
that does not matter, these goods were
made in British mills like Mr.. Blaine's
thirty-two trunks full of clothes, 80 we
do not care whether there is a profit or
not. The cost of transportation we will