The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1888-08-09
THE DEMOCRATIC, PRESS !
T Mammal Rank

1t is manifest that the aim of protection is to
lessen competition in the selling of commodi.
ties, not in the selling of labor. In no case,
save in the peculiar and exceptional case,
on commodities benefit those who have labors
not commodities, to SELL Nor is there in our
tariff any provision that aims at compelling such
employers as it benefits to share their benefits
with their workmen. While it gives these en-
ployers protection in the goods market it leaves
them free trade In the labor market, and for any
protection they need workmen have to organize.
I am not saying that any tariff could raise
wages. l am merely pointing out that in our
protective tariff there is no attempt, however
inefficient, to do this-that the whole aim and
spirit of protection not the protection of
the sellers of labor but the protection of the
buyers of labor, not the maintaining of wages
but the maintaining of profits. The very
class that profess anxiety to protect Amer
lean labor by raising the price of what they
themselves have to sell, notorious1y buy labor
as cheap as they can and fercely oppose any
combination of workmen to raise wages. The
cry of <tprotection for American labor comes
most vociferous1y from newspapers that lie under
the ban of the printers unions; from coal and
iron lords who. importing "pauper labor" by
wholesale, have bitterly fought every effort of
their men to CLAIM anything like decent wages,
and from factory owners who claim the right to
dictate votes of men. The whole spirit of pro-
lection is against the rights of labor.
Employers never give the increase of their
workingmen, though they frequently assign de-
creased profits as reason for reducing wages.
But this rs an excuse, not a reason. The true
reason Is that the dull times which diminish
their profits increase the competition of work.
men for employment. Such excuses are given
only when employers feel that if they reduce
wages their employees will be compelled to SUBJ
init to the reduction since others will be glad to
step into their places. And when trades unions
succeed In checking this competition they are
enabled to raise wages.
We thus see from theory that protection can
NOT raise wages. That it does not. facts show
couc1uslve1y. This has been seen in SPAN, in.
France, in Mexico in England during protection,
times and everywhere that protection has been
tried. In countries where the working classes
have little or no influence upon government it
is never even pretended that protection raises
wages. 1t is only in countries like the United
States where it is necessary to conjole the work.
ing class that such preposterous plea is made
And here the failure of protection to raise
wages is shown by the most evident facts.
Wages in the United States are higher than in
any other countries, not because of protection
but because we have had SO much vacant land
to overrun. Before we had any tariff wages were
higher here than in Europe, and far higher,
relatively to the productiveness of labor, than
they are now after our years of protection. In
spite of all our protection-and. for the last
twentyfour years at least protectionists have
had it all their own way-the condition of the
laboring classes of the United States has been
slowly but steadily sinking to that of the pau
per labor" of Europe. 1t does not follow that
this is because of protection, but it is certain
that protection has proved powerless to prevent
it.
To discover whether protection has or has not
benefited the working classes of the United
States 1t is not necessary to array tables of fig
ures which only an expert can verify and exam
ine The determining facts are notorious. 1t is a
matter of common knowledge that those to
whom we have given power to tax the Amer
lean people "for the protection of American in-
dustry" pay their employees as little as they
can and make no scrupie or importing the very
foreign labor az anst whose products the tariff is
maintained 1t Is notorious that wages in the pro-
tected industries are, if anything, lower than
in the unprotected industries, and that. though
the protected industries do not employ more
than twentieth of the working population of
the United States, there occur in them more
strikes, more lock OUTS more attempts to reduce
wages, than in all other industses. In the high
ly protected industries of Massachusetts, official
reports declare that the operative cannot get
living without the work of wife and children.
In the highly protected industries of New Jer-
sey many of the "protected' laborers chill
dren whose parents are driven by their necessi-
ties to nnd employment for them by misrepre-
sentlng therage as to avoid the state law In the
highly protected industries of Pennsylvania
laborers, for whose sake we are told this high
protection is imposed, are working for Is cents
day, and halfciad women are feeding furnace
fires. 'tPluck-me stores" company tenements
and boarding houses, Pinkerton detectives and
mercenaries, and all the forms and evidences of
the oppression and degradation of labor are,
throughout the country, characteristic of the
protected Industries.
The greater degradations and unrest of labor
in the protected than in the unprotected INDUS
tries may In part be accounted for by the fact
that the protected employers have been the
largest importers of ''foreign pauper labor"
But, in some part, at least it is due to the great
fluctuations to which the protected industries
are exposed. Being shut off flom foreign mar
kets, scarcity of their products cannot be SO
quickly met by importation nor surplus
relieved by expectation, and so with
them for. much of the time it is either
"a feast or fanline.' The violent fluctuations
tend to bring workmen into q state of depend
ence. if not of actual peonage, and to depress
wages below the general standard. But what
ever be the reason the fact is that SO far Is pro-
lection from raising wages in the protected in
dustries, that the capitalists who carry them on
would soon "enjoy" even lower priced labor
than now, were it not that wages in them are
kept mp by the rates of wages in the unpro-
tected industries.