Sturgis advertiser. (Sturgis, Dakota [S.D.]) 1887-1???, 1888-08-15
Wages Of Workers.

There is only one country in Europe
in which the wages Of labor are within
a half of what they are in this country.
That is Great Britian. Wages in Ger
many, France, Belgium, and Switzerland
are not one-third OF what they are here.
Those of Italy are not quarter.
One duty of government is to protect
the labor of its citizens. Last year cheap
foreign labor was imported into the
United States in the shape Of manufac-
tured goods to the value of $692, ,318,-
1853. This was great wrong to Ameri-
can labor. In that immense amount of
imports, permitted by our insufficient
and defective tariff, the labor Of women
employed in the Manchester, England,
cotton mills, whose wages do not average
$50 year, came into competition with
the highest priced labor Of our southern
and northern cotton epinners. In that
mass of imports was the labor Of German
factory work men averaging less than
$115 year and that of woman aver
aging less than $50 year.
Munich is gallery and center of art.
German woman with as many as six
children saw wood in the streets for 15c
day. May merciful God sink United
States 10000 feet under the sea before
the hideous spectacle shall become an in
cident of our civilization!
Nearly $70O,ooo,Ooo worth of the star
walton labor of Europe in the form of
manufactured goods imported into this
country last yearl That which came
from Belgium in bales and boxes repres-
ented the wages of 22c day for woman
and 43s FOR men; and the highest priced
labor in loose cargoes of Belgium steel
and iron represented wages less than 60c
a day. Compared with these the wages
Of Carnegie's at Braddock at the incomes
OF Princes.
Italian labor in italian merchandise
was imported into this country last year
in competition with American labor, at
prices that should ell sentive souls with
horror and alarm. The pay in the cotton
factories of Naples is zoe day; of the
Neapolitan marble and granite cutters
from 40c to 300 day, according to skill,
coachmen, 30c; of woman in the lace
factories, loo and girls 7c; of soldiers in
the army, 50 month. OF all the work
men in the glass works Of Italy, only
the skilled blowers receive as high as 81
a day, and laborers on farms, hoeing or
making hay, from 12c to 18c per day,
working from sun to sun. God save
America from such wages!
In the Swiss silk goods which came
into our half protected country last year
in those $700,0o0.OOO of imports. was
the skilled labor OF men at 41c day
and Of woman at Zoe, both competing
with the silk weavers Of Patterson, New
York, Philadelphia and Cheney. Glas-
gov, in Scotland, is the steamship fac
tory af the world, and its blast furnace
owners and iron rollers howl for free
trade day and night. OF the families in
that manufacturing Sodom, 41,00O out
of 100, 900 live in one room, and half Of
the men and woman in the city are
chemically out of work. That one room
for family Of father, mother, daughters
and sons tells what wages are in Scot
land and how they drag humanity down
into begtiality and misery.
Brothers, the Mills bill to reduce the
tariff is the first step to that one room
tor an American family. Fight il with
ont delay, and fight il to its death; and
then make your tariff 50 protective as t.
shut out foreign labor 70 the form o.
manufacturing goods. New York Sun