The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1888-02-03
PROTECTION OR FIRE e TRADE.
A Rhode Island Thread Manufacturer Says
Workingmen Have Made Their Choice.

Workingmen Have Made Their Choice
New York Press.
two2 Bless you. ne has decided long ago. By
the million and the tens of millions the toilers
of the world have been focking from every cor
of it to our shores. They know which they
prefer. They have turned their backs upon the
cheap prices and the starvation wages of the old
world to the higher prices and the higher
wages of the new. And you couldn't get one of
them to go back. The last conner who has just
had taste of the new order of things is as GER
tain TO insist upon its c'ntinuancs as hal who
is to the manner born Many of these people
sill be deluded by the sophistries and false
hoods of the tariff reformsrs ~ as well by
their OVID ignorance of their situation into vot-
ing the Democratic ticket this year. But when
free trade, the ultimate fruit of Democratic
success comes, these deluded ones will be tho
most frantic protesters against the low price,
low wage life which will then be their lot Free
traders entering upon undertaking IN
which they will find complete ruin only when
and if they succeed | don t care to be present
when the laboring men of this country, whetbey
in out of the shops. come to be told that Their
must take half pay. / shouldn't even care to be
the one to announce to them the good news
that after all. food and clothing will be cheap
''How the immigrant artisan feels about this
question" continued MIR. Couant lis we'll illus
trated by an anecdote Some friends of mine
came from Scotland a few years ago to start a
thread mandatory in Massachusetts They
brought their own operatives with them. L
asked of them some time ago what he
thought of protective system. Well he
said, for the interest of my mill over in Scot
land. I'd like have your protective system
knocked on the head, but for the interest," Of my
mill up in Grafton want it TO continue. Oh, L
know its a benefit to every one who lives under
it, no matter how those who don't may feel
came over here to etsome of it. But if it's good
thing for me it's a better thing for nv men.
had to laugh at one of them the other day. Hei is
one of my best men and had worked for me for
years III Scotland. l brought him and his
family with me. and several of the children are
also employed in the mill The other day Sandy
told me with some PRIDE that be had $500 in bank.
1t at the end of the first years work over
here. l looked on our books and found that
he and his family together were getting
the $500 represented the family savings.
To try him, said to him day two after
that I short of good men in the home
place, saying at the same time that l supposed
he'd be glad to get home again. He turned abb
souteiy pale in the face and blurted out that he
didn't want to go back to Scotland at ALL This
man lives in a comfortable house, expects soon
to have ons of his own, sends his younger chill
dren to good schools and Is looking forward to
the time when he will have comfortable sum
in bank. SO that he will not have to work in his
old age.
'Ill tell you where to find the real simon pure
free trader on the anxious BENCH said Mr.
Conant. Iaughingly. in conclusion. He grows
luxuriantly over in England and Scotland. go
over there often on business, and whenever l do
l am invariably greeted by a chorus: When
are you going to give trestrade can sell
you some goodsE That's where the shoe plnches
worst over the other side of the Atlantic.
see the rising young statesman from Kentucky,
Mr. Breckenridge. told some people in Philadel-
phia yesterday that the Reading strikes
caused by protection. They don't have any
strikes in free-trade England. 1 suppose. |
would like to ask him. or better, some laboring
man. whether it is better to live in country
where you strike for higher wages or in coun-
try where you are obliged to strike to get any
wages at all There two three hundred
thousand men to-day in London who could be
relied on to answer that question without any
prompting, l believe"