Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1888-04-30

homes and in their education, and happy be
cause the State is a Republican State
Laughter.
i Mr. Russell stated that many of the mann
facturers in Massachusetts were paralvzet
by the tariff, whereupon Mr.. O'Nelll an
nounced his readiness TO remove the paraly
SIS by increasing the rates of duty.
Mr.. Whiting of Massachusetts. said tha
he lived in a city where there was a grea
variety of manufactures, and statistics showet
that wages there were from 65 to 10 per cent
higher than in Great Britain, and that the
cost of living was no higher. More than
half of the working people were depositors
in the savings banks. What <as true of
that city was true of every city in Mas sachu-
, setts, and he believed that the effect of the
Mills bill would be to reduce the wages of
labor.
Mr. Ford characterized Philadelphia as an
overgrown country village, and contrasted
Its slowness with the bustliDg activity of New
York. This condition of affairs, he said,
arose because the citizens of Philadelphia
had not depended, as the citizens of New
York had their own enterprise, thrift
and frugality, but had been fed on the public
pap.
Mr.. O'Neill suggested that the gentleman
must have been in some remarkable condi-
tion when he visited Philadelphia, or must
have had his eyes closed. The manufact-
ures of Philadelphia amounted to many more
millions than those of New York.
Mr.. Russell o. Massachusetts, also attacked
Philadelphia, and told story of the Boston,
ian, who, in answer to Philadelphian's com
plant that Boston streets were crooked, and
he wished they had been laid out like rhila-
delphia's had rejoined: when Boston is
as dead as Philadelphia we will have it laid
out Laughter Referring to Mr.. O'Neil's
boast that Pennsylvania could be depended
upon to give eighty thousand majority for
the republican party, Mr.. Russell warned
the gentleman TO see to it that the majority
did not exceed the total number of votes
cast.
Mr.. Milliken replied that the republican
party had never been guilty of that offence,
but there were many democratic districts not
| free from it,
Resumipg, Mr.. Russell said that this coun-
try had nothing to fear from pauper labor,
and he cited the practical result of the oper-
ations of an American patented shoe machine
in Europe to show that the European laborer
could only produce Al per cent of the amount
| of work that was turned out by the American
laborer. All the manufacturing cities of
Massachusetts had grown up under the more
honest and lower tariff of 1916.
| Mr.. Whiting declared that Holyoke had
never had spark of property until the pas
sage of the tariff act of 1861.
Mr.. Russell said that the real cause of the
failure of lloyoke to progress before 1861
was the failure of the engineering works in
tended to dam the waters of the river; but
now, in his opinion, every one of the large
towns of Massachusetts favored reduction
of the tariff.
Mr.. Russell, referring to the condition of
the protected State of Pennsy lvania, stated
that affairs in the coal regions were a shame
and scandal to human civilization.
Mr.. Bayne declared that the wages paid
for labor in the county of Allegheny alone
were annually more than the entire wages
paid in all the States represented by the
| southern contingent on the ways and means
committee. Applause on the republican
side.
Mr.. Breckenridge of Kentucky, said that
the coucrete representative of the protective
system was n guard of Pinkerton detectives
at the Edgar Thompson steel works for the
purpose of enabling Hungarian emigrants to
work, while American workmen were kept
out at the point of the gun and revolver.
That was concrete picture of the state of
wages in Allegheny Applause on the dem
ocratic side.
Mr. Bayue declared that that was a mis- |
take. Detectives were there but the men :
they sought to protect were not Hungarians /
The men they were to protect were non-union /
men, whom the Elgar Thompson company de- /
sired to employ. The Hungarians who
there were not skilled mechanics, and could
not do the work required
Mr.. Breckenridge inquired what wages the /,
workmen at the Thompson works had been
receiving.
Mr.. Bayne replied that they had been re-
ceiving So day.
Mr.. Breckenridge said that the average
wages of the Pinkerton detectives was SIS a
day. They received that rate of wages to !
prevent a breach of the peace by men who (
received SO day.
Mr.. Reed of Maine said that the gentle
man from Kentucky had drawn picture |
which left the American workmen in the 1
cold and showed the Hungarian protected by
Pinkerton detectives. The gentleman had |
pictured that us the final result of protection /
when it was only an incident in the great dis |
pute which went on either under protection
or free trade. The gentleman wanted to
contrast the wages of men temporarily en- !
ployed with those received by permanent
employees. He (Reed) thought that it ought |
to be pointed out that such methods of argu
were somewhat petty in their nature The |
question was what system secured the great !
er wealth to the country, and the higher wag-
es to the workngmen.
Mr. Breckenridge said that Allegheny /
county had been depicted as the scene of
protective development, and he had shown
the result of that Development A man did
not have to eat whole leg of mutton t.
know that it was spoiled. lie denied that it
was an incident that he had depicted, and as
serted that it was the necessary consequence
of an unnatural system of taxation, under
which an organized body of armed detectives
was used in guarding convict labor to under |
sell American labor. As to what the gentle |
man said about the ways and means commit
tee. either in the present or last Congress
he Mr. Breckenridge treated it with the
contempt it deserved. Applause on the
democratic side.
Mr. Reed replied that when there was a
fear of a discussion of the actual situation,
it was always the custom of those not suffi-
cen,ly skilled in the use of parliamentary
language to express their feelings by
using language that was not parliamentary.
Applause on republican side.
Mr. Breckenridge-If my language is un-
parliamentary retract it. That it is true
and deserved there is no doubt Applause
on democratic side.
Mr. Smith of Wisconsin said that the sub
ject of monopolies was the one calling for
attention now.
Mr.. Farquhar replied that the gentleman
meant the monopoly of transportation-the
monopoly which would make all the shoes
of the country in Massachusetts. That State
had squinted toward free trade because she
had had all the benefits of protection, and
would keep it from other sections now about
to benefit in turn.
Mr.. Smi,h--Who put the monopolies in
the field?
Mr.. Farquhar replied that most of them
came from the west. Congress had done
everything in its power by passing the inter-
state commerce law TO restrain them.
The committee then rose and the House
adjourned.
Notes
Judge Cooley of the interstate commerce
commission is much better tonight and it is