Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1888-08-31

have bought q good deal-or he rents
land. Whether he cultivates his
| own land or whether he rents il,
the crop he gets from it
| Is the remuneration for his toll. That
! crop in the main consists OF cotton, some
corn, some little wheat, but mainly of
cotton. Now, how can the high protect
| i've tariff benefit that negro. He raises
cotton and has for his share of tbs crop
| four or five balls each year. There IS no
tariff On cotton, gentlemen. 1t comes IN
as free as ar. The price of cotton, there
! fore, is not raised, as they say, or iessened
by this tariff tax, and yet this is all the
negro has for his labor. He cannot get a
cent more for his cotton by reason of any
| high protective tariff, and he doesn't get
| a cent less. He has to sell it at the price
fixed in the foreign market, the price
made in Liverpool or London, which
| places the price upon cotton ex ported
| from the United States. 1t is there that
| the price of his cotton is fixed, and for
that price he has to sell it, tariff or no tar
| if. How is it on the other hand? Al
| though he is living ia a warm climate, the
| negro wants to be decent and comforta-
| bic, and he wants his wife and children to
| be comfortable. They need clothing as
we'll Us other people, but upon everything
| the negro buys to clothe himself, to clothe
| his wife and his little pIckauiniss, he is
| taxed by the high protective tariff, and is
com PEELED to pay g higher price than he
| otherwise would have to pay, SO that SO
| far as he is concerned, there can be no
pretense whatever that the tariff is any
thing but an unmitigatsd injury
to MIN. He has nothing to sell
which is benefited by it. He performs
no labor that by any kind of argument
| can be shown to be benefited by it. He
| sells his cotton at a price fixed in a for
| eign country, because he cannot sell it
| for any other prioe, ana upon everything
| he consumes, everything he purchases
| for his consumption, he has to pay an il
creased price, and is thereby injured.
| Now, [ do think our abolition friends
| especially ought to take this into their
most careful consideration. They say
| that they freed the negro from slavery.
em willing to grant them all the credit,
! although there might be something said
about who did it. Perhaps 100000
democratic soldiers in the army might
| have had something to do with it. But
give them all they claim. Do they mean
| after giving him freedom to make him
slave by compelling him to pay higher
prices upon everything he has to use, not
for his own benefit, but for the benefit of
somebody else? Is it not enough that
they made him slave by requiring him
to vote for them and swear not to vote
for democrat? Isn't that enough?
Must they also take all his little earnings
by compelling him to pay for everything
he wears, and everything his wife and
children wear, more than he ought to be
required to pay?
PROJECTED AND UNPROTECTED LABOR.
Now, my friends, while I am on this
iect of the laboring man, let me speak
Of American labor as compared with the
the labor of other countries. 1t is true
that in America the laboring man gener-
ally receive more wages in money than
| they do il foreign lands, bat by no man
ner of means to the extent that you may
suppose from hearing SO much said about
It. For instance, let me give you the fol
| lowing facts: According to the last
| census Great Britain had population of
| 4G1 to the -quare mile, and the average
wages paid Was 9725 cents per day. New
| England has 2l0 to tho square mile, and
the average wages are $l.02 per day
about cents more than in England.
| Ohio has eighty to the square mile, and
| the average wages are $i.0S day. Col
orado has two to the square mile, and
wages in that state average $1.45 a day.
| The entire United States, not including
| the territories and the District of Co
| iumbia, has twenty four to the square
mile, and the average wages are Slip
per day. What fact does this establish?
Does it not prove that the more dense
he population the greater
the competition among wage
| eaTners aud tEs lower tbs wages,
and the reverse proposition, the less com
| petition among wage earners the higher
| the wages? No man can deny that who
| has any regard FOR truth. That is it.
Now, my friends, you hear a great deal
said about the pauper labor of England,
especially because our chief imports are
! from Great Britain, that i5, England, Ire
land and Scotland, and yet you see in
that most prosperous state of Massa
ehusetts, the greatest manufacturing
state of the country, th3 averages are
only about cents more than they are in
England. But if you take the purchas
ing power into account, as you must do,
the wages are just as high in England as
they are in Massachusetts,. A gentle
man on the platform. "Higher."l 1
don't know but what they are. They are
as high certainly, because in order to as
certain how much a man is obtaipjng by
his labor, how much his earnings tend to
support him and his family, you must
| take what it costs him to live into ac-
| count, and if it costs him more to live in
one place than it does in another, al
though he gets more wages in the frs
place than he does in the second, he will
not lay up one single cent more money.
l am ready to admit that as general rule
American labor j. paid higher wages in
money than the labor of any
other country. But what are the reasons
for it, In the first place, labor is more
effective in this country. The American
laborer produces more than the foreign
laborer in the same time. All the authori-
ties admit that. All of them argue that
his superior industry, his superior skill,
his superior diligence, enable him to pro
duce more in the same time thar does
the laborer in any other country in the
world. Labor is, therefore, more effect
| i've here than anywhere else and can be
better paid for. Again, American labor
ers are better educated, more intelligent,
than laoorers elsewhere and therefore,
| they can take better care of their own in
| terests. That is an immense reason why
| they are better paid In this country than
| elsewhere. Now, | am not going to say
whether labor unions, Knights Of Labor,
! and organizations of that kind are a
| benefit or not benefit. That is q large
| question upon which it Is not necessary
for me to speak to-day. But this do
say, that the labor unions and the knights
of Labor have done more to secure
| reasonable wages for the laboring men
than all the tariff laws that were ever
passed in this world. loud applause J
There Is another reason why American
laborers receive more wages, and that is
the immense area Of uncultivated terri
tory In the United States, the effect of
| which is to free the laborers of that de-
pendence which may exist in other coun-
tiles where land is very dear, that de-
pendence upon the manufacturing or
cspitaiistic class for work in this country.
A man can get land to labor upon to sup
port himself and his family by sim ply
asking it of the gsneral government and
settling upon it and remaining upon l. a
given length of time. The consequence
is that with these advantages no man
need be dependent upon the good will
of any monopolist in the world, and that
gives our laboring men an independence
which is not seen elsewhere on the globe,
and enables them therefore to demand
and receive somewhat higher wages tha
laborers receive elsewhere. Then there
is the fact OF our free institutions and
there is the fact of the pride that every