Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-03-18

that it has had high wages-that we
have had high wages in spite of the
protection? All new countries where
land is free, or very cheap, has higher
wages than old settled countries.
where the price of land is high.
What spectacle is here presented
to the thoughtful; one that should
make the American people sadder to
contemplate A young nation with
a vast undeveloped empire, furnish
ing food for millions in other lands,
and yet with cities overflowing with
the unemployed, thousands of young
men looking for work; cities breeding
vice and discomfort, manufacturing
towns owned py monopolies, here
the mill operatives are living from
hand to mouth, and every few years
thrown out of employment. These
towns are the hot-beds of poverty.
Behold this young nation filled with
tramps, the direct outgrowth of our
outrageous protective system. Ii our
country has become filed with pauper
labor at this stage of its existence,
what will it become in another hun
dred years? At the present rate of
increase of the pauper mill operatives,
one hundred years more would present
q nation with few hundred moneyed
kings and manufacturers controlling
every avenue of wealth, and taxing
daily hundreds of millions of
slaves. We can only expect,
however, that long before an
other hundred years have rolled
away the burden imposed by excess
sive taxation will have exasperated
the people to madness, and that some
degree of freedom will have been OBJ
tanned through fearful revulsion.
The wealthy protection element de-
clare they wish tariff only to help
the laboring people. When did this
wonderful change take place in the
hearts of the wealthy and controlling
class, that they, in the lattA part OF
the nineteenth century, are only
striving for the welfare Of the masses,
and invest time and money for the
exclusive benefit of the workingman :?
| History tells us that in the time of the
Roman empire the wealthy were
avaricious and oppressed the masses.
Centuries later, in the middle ages,
we find the controlling element just
as selfish. Later still the feudal
barons considered the common
people as made out of the same kind
Of material the beasts were, and
the rich used every means to tax the
masses and considered them as chat
tells. Later still, we fiud that the
landowners or aristocracy OF England
have strenuously opposed granting
concessions Of liberty to the people,
and even at the present time the
House OF Lords do not grant conces-
slons to the masses except as they are
compelled in order to prevent popular
outbursts of frenzy and to stave off
the coming revolution. France, only
100 years ago, gained freedom for
the masses at vast expenditure of
blood.
Thus, we see in all ages there has
been persistent efforts on the part of
the wealthy and controlling element
to tax and enslave the masses. But
during the past twenty years
we are told that the controlling ele.
ment in the United States is so kind
and generous that their only desire is
to legislate for the interest OF the poor.
They would have you believe that all
these combinations of capital are for
the purpose OF helping the laboring
man, yet there is stupidity enough to
believe it. Take, for example, the
steel and iron manufacturers of the
United States, a very powerful monop-
oily. They are so magnanimous as to
shut down their mills occasionally for
a few months at time sending their
operatives home for a rest. At the
same time they print millions of
tracts treating upon the benefits of
protection to the working man. These
tracts are sent to the homes of the op-
eratives for them to read and study !
during their enforced idleness, and !
the poor fools are SO silly as to believe
all that the tracts tell them, and
are s ready at the next election |
to vote again for the men who will |
keep the tariff on steel and iron. The
people of the United States pay a
hundred million dollars per year more
for their steel than they would if the
tariff were removed. Do you wonder
that the steel manufacturers want to
shut down their mills occasionally in
order to give their employees chance
to study what fine thing protection
is-to the mill owners? Do you
wonder that such monopoly can
afford to reduce the wages of their
operatives to the very lowest living
point? The steel-men are among the
most highly protected and their oper-
atives are among the poorest paid
and the least protected in the country.
One hundred million dollars on steel,
forty-five millions on sugar, one
hundrei and seventy five millions on
woolens and hundreds of millions on
everything else that can be taxed
that we consume, aggregating nearly
one thousand millions of dollars per
year that the people of the United
States pay in excessive taxes to man
ufacturers and monopolies. The most
OF this is paid by two-thirds of the
people who have the least money.
which includes all the laboring
classes, men and women, of the land.
Can you wonder that the land is
hiicu Will pOOr Wullo Sucn q Tariff |
system is turning out millionaire
manufacturers every year? Do you
wonder that the protec,ionists can
afford to employ the most brilliant
stump speakers to show up before
election time the transcendent glories
of protection, or taxation? The only
wonder is that the people have not
been bankrupted before this. Remove
this one thousand millions of exces ,iye
tax and see how soon the people would
recurerate. See how soon a large
part of the hundreds of millions that
are in farm mortgages would be paid
on. See how soon every idle man in
the country would be at work.
Scientists tell us the steampower of
the United States in the industrial
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