Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1888-05-24

she viii throw overheard her old free rsde
theory to adequately meet her condition
Rut some of our friends on the other side
reiterate the stale old cry that the advantages
of protection go to the manufacturer and not
to the employe. Do these gentlemen know
how MANY employees have become empioserss
But the savings banks in the manufacturing
States. with their enormous deposits and
many depostors. make answer to the state
ment. And. moreover. the fact that so many
people from the Old World come to these
nine manufacturing States to find employ
ment while none go back to better their con-
dition, shows where the workman fnds his
best chance in the world
oh. bur Won have labor strikes in the nine
manufacturing States, say our free-trde
friends. Yes, and in some others Why have
not you had such strikes Do you know
will tell YOU 1t is because your laborers
have been SO oppressed that they have not
bad the power and self-reliance to strike
They have not had among them Sufficient
money to sustain a strike. They suffer wrongs
that the Northern laboring men would not
endure for a month. They are peaeeable
laborers; peaceable as dead men. They do
not even protest against being robbed OF the
primary rights of an American citizen-the
right under the Constitution to exercise the
electoral franchise and receive the benefit OF
fair result of their ballots.
More than forty members of Congress hold
their seats against the wishes of majority of
voters in those several States and districts,
because these peaceable laboring men are too
much crowded down and crushed to claim and
secure their rights guaranteed to them in the
organic law of their country. 1t requires
some power, courage and hope to strike for
Justice. Strikes prove always an unsatisfac-
tory condition of affairs but not the worst condi
tom or even necessarily worse condition than
that next preceding it, Why have there not
been so many strikes in the past Why did
they not occur during the dark oppressive
ages of Europe? Why did not the slaves
strike for freedom Because the heel of OPP
preston was too heavy, and the oppressed
too weak to assert their rights. 1t is because
the workingmen in our Northern States, nour-
ished by protective laws, have become strong
in intelligence and money to sustain them
selves, and, as a consequence, in will and
purpose, that they stand up, the Lnbent
images of God, their faces as high as their
employers, and demand their rights.
But the gentleman from Massachusetts,
Mr.. RUSSELL says that it is not the laboring
man but the protected industries which are
being paralyzed by protection. And SO it
goes. Gentlemen have to administer all
kinds of nostrums to their free-trade patient
to keep him alive and give him character
THE gentleman from Missouri, where the
power of the labor organizations have been
felt, affirms that protection enriches the man
ufacturer and gives nothing to labor; while
the gentleman from Massachusetts, where
great manufacturing establishments exist,
declares that it is the protected industries that
are paralyzed by being protected
Now, the fact is that both capital and labor
in America want that control of the American
market which protection gives. They can
not afford to share its profits with all
the world nor be entirely robbed of
them by the free admission into this country
of the products of poorly paid labor Let
them, mean both the employer and the en-
ploye-have the benefit of this market, the
best market on the globe; let its profits be
assured to them and not given away to the
foreigner, and they will settle between them
selves what shall be the share of each The
| first point to be gained-and protection alone
can secure this-is to give them the shilling
which the American market affords, rather
than the sixpence which they will get if the
products of cheap European labor come in
freely to compete with them; and then they
will take the shilling rather than the sixpence
and make their own division of it.
| And labor will not fail to get its share. As
l have before intimated, the laboring organ
iZations in America have become strong.
Protection has given them the advantage to
make them so, and they are all the time
growing stronger. Capital and corporations
may establish trusts and make their combina-
tons, but for the first time in the worlds
history, and in our country, almost alone,
labor is combining with the strength which
comes with intelligence and thrift and it will
have. because it has the power to command
it, a just portion of the combined profits of
capital and labor He who doubts this doubts
the advancing intelligence of the people, and
is blind to the signs of the times.
Buff there are no profits the laborers share,
as well as that of the employer, will be nothing
or, if the profit be small and scant as it is in
those countries whose pauper-made goods
our Democratic friends would admit freely
to our market to compete with the products
of our own labor, then the share of each
must be scant and small as it is there. The
free admission of the products of European
labor to our markets will subject American
workmen to the same price for their toll as
European laborers obtain. All must fare
alike where all have equal admission to the
same board, and equal prices for the toll of
American and European workingmen must
result in like conditions of life.
The comfortable homes of which so many
of our workingmen may boast, the children
at school instead of in the workshop, the
decent clothing, the respectable position of
their wives and families, and the manly indie
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