Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-07-02
MONDAY, july g, 1888.
DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL TICKET.
FOR PRESIDENT
GROVER CLEVELAND,O of New York
FOR vICE-PREsIDENT-
ALLEN G.. THURMAN, of Ohio.
To enforce .frucality IN public erpends-
lures and abolish unnecessary taxation.
FOR CONGRESS, SIXTH DISTRICT
REEL II. TERRY, of Fresno.
A Thin Device.

The tariff which the Mills Dill seeks tO
revise and reduce is the highest which
has ever been known in the United
States. 1t is far higher than the Morrill,
tariff. Yet under this high protective
tariff we have seen repeated strikes and
great industrial depression. In the last
fifteen years We have had the memorable
panic of 1878, the labor riots of 1876, and
innumerable lockouts and strikes. just
now there is strike of vast proportions
in Pit!sburg, Pennsylvania, place
which was the center of the crisis OF
1876, which almost amounted to an in
dustrial revolution, and which involved
bloodshed and the loss of five million
dollars worth of property in the county
of Allegheny alone. If an extravagantly
high tariff is an unmi xed blessing, why
do we have these disturbing develop
ments? The Republican press will
ascribe the present great labor
outbreak to the Mills bill,
and the headlines of these newspapers
are already seeking to trumpet this lie.
There is probably not man OF sense in
the United States who does not know
that the Republican Senate will kill the
Mills bill, even if it passes the House Of
Representatives. The truth is that un'
der system of excessive protection the
home markets are glutted, while the
system itself makes it impossible that
We should have any markets abroad for
our manufactures. The deliberately
adopted system is to let all chances oi
foreign commerce go in order that oul
own people may be feeced. The panic
of 1873 was brought about by the over.
production of our iron mills and foundries.
The suspension of railway building found
all the rail mills choked up with enorm-
Gus stocks for which there was no de-
mand. What the laborer needs is a
tariff which will admit of the manufac-
turer enjoying moderate profit which
will not lead him into overproduction and
which will give US chance to sell our
manufactures to the outside world. The
policy of Cleveland and of the Mills
bill by admitting raw material free tends
to energize many branches of our manu-
factures, and to give us fair opportunity
for sharing in the commerce now en-
crossed by England and other European
countries
The present labor outbreak is a very
obvious and cunning device on the part
of the manufacturers to make political
capital. 1t is time-honored expedient,
and will deceive no one; nor will it bene-
fit the party of great moral ideas. If an
exceptionally high tariff fails to enrich
the wage-earner it is at least worth while
to try the experiment of lower one.
High profits to the manufacturer have
failed to assure the laborer high wages.
On the contrary, he has found his mod
est stipend steadily diminishing; the en-
ployer watching with lynx-like eagerness
for every opportunity to grind him down
to the lowest possible scale. That there
is no real ground for the action of the
employers is shown by the fact that
Oliver Brothers & Phillips, the heaviest
iron firm in Pittsburg. have agreed to
the scale demanded by the iron-workers,
and they base their action on the fact
that they have heavy contracts ahead.
The trick is very transparent one in
face of the quite general prosperity which
but the other day was chronicled all over
the United States.