Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1888-10-17

Ha<rison's Misleading Statements Regard
ing Wages at Home and Abroad.
Ben Harrison In hia Tnlado snaach said

Haxrisonss Misleading Statements Regard
ing Wages at Home and Abroad.
Ben Harrison, in his Toledo speech, said
this:
'sThe one fact that do not need to stop to
demonstrate by statistics, the one fact that
could call out Of this vast audience hun
dreds of witnesses to support by their per.
sonal testimony, Is that the scale Of Ameri-
can wages is higher than that of any other
country in the world If this weren not true.
why is it that the working-men and the
working-women of the older lands turn
their faces hitherwardf If there is better
country, one that offers better wages, fuller
hopes than this, why is that those who are
IN quest of such better things have not
found it out and turned their faces thither-
wardi Now, if that is true, then why is it
true, and how is it to be continued,
this condition of our countryl 1t is be-
cause, and only because, we have for
years, by our protective tariff, Disseminated
in favor of American manufacturers and
American workmen. Strike down this pro-
tective system, bring our worang-men and
working women into equal competition in
the products Of their toll with those who
labor abroad, and nothing is clearer than
that these mills and factories must reduce
wages here to the level with wages abroad
or they must shut down."
Ben Harrison, although an uuinstructed
political economist is a man of intelli-
gence. He possesses general information.
he has read the history of his country. He
knows, therefore, perfectly well that the
scale Of American wages has been very
much higher than in Europe ever
since this country was settled. He
knows that this has been the case,
under all kinds of tariffs, and when there
was no tariff at all. He knows that in all
new countries where population is sparse
and land abundant, wages are higher than
in old and densely populated countries He
knows that wages increased most rapidly
in this country under very low tariff. He
knows, says the Indianapolis Sentinel, that
the tide of immigration has always been
toward the United States, regardless of the
changes in our tariff system. He knows
that England, which has no protective tar
iff at all, pays very much higher wages than
any other country in Europe, most of which
have high protective tariffs.
He knows-or il he doesn't know it he has
no business to aspire to the position he
seeks that Russia, which has the highest
protective tariff in Europe, pays the lowest
wages OF any country in Europe. He knows
that, taking the world over, the countries
China, Russia, Spain, Italy, Germany and
Mexico, pay the lowest wages.
We say Ben Harrison knows all these
things, because there is no intelligent man
who reads the newspapers that does not
know them. He knows, too, that these
facts are utterly inconsistent with the
theory that our monopoly tariff makes
wages high And yet Ben Harrison stands
before an American audience and deliber-
ately says that wages are better in this
country than in Europe ''because and only
because, we have for years, by our pro-
tective tariff, Disseminated in favor of
American manufacturers and American
working men,"
We are asked to believe that the man who
thus plays false with his own intelligence,
and appeals to blind ignorance instead of to
the understanding and reason Of his
auditors is an honest man.