Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-03-18
Effect of High Tariff ON the
f.abOring Mau.

| Herald Correspondence.
If the question of tariff reform is
to be accepted by the Democratic
party in earnest the coming campaign
it seems as if there ought to be per.
sistent efforts to to educate the work.
ing people to see the fallscies of the
protectionist argument. Whether the
issue as presented by the President in
his message is accepted or not by his
party, it will certainly not be long be-
fore the great question of the day will
be "Free Trade VS.. Protection" Ii
will be the effort of the people to free
themselves from the industrial slavery
of the present day. The people can.
not always be blinded to theil
own interest and vote to keel
in existence the monstrous in
iquity of the present tariff. Let us
preface this article by calling things
by their right names. Instead of say
ing protection let US call it taxation,
for that is what it is. The masses
seem to be able to grasp the meaning
OF the word taxation, and are not apt
to think of it in the light OF "the
greaterthe taxes the greater the bless
ing" yet that is simply what the pro-
tectionists would have the working
man believe. At no time in the his
tory of the world has the maxim !:
External vigilance is the price of lib
erty," never more fully exemplifed
than the present, when combinations
OF capital and the might of corporate
power are used to tax the masses of
the people in every conceivable way,
and subiugate them to an
industrial slavery as hard to
bear as any that ever existed
when men grown strong in long con-
tinued power of taxing everything
seek to make their grip upon the la
Dor of the people still more oppressive
by forming "trusts"-when the
barons of the Pennsy lvania coal fields
are worse in the use of their power
than the feudal barons of 500 wears
ago-when the railways of New Jer-
sey openly fight the people of the
State to secure the whole water front
of New York harbor,-it is time the
masses Of laboring men should under
stand that their right of franchise
means something more than hurrah-
ing at mass-meetings for some politi-
cal demagogue. ora cheering some
popular speaker who has tickled them
with pleasant anecdotes on the beau
ties OF protection, but who are paid
for telling these anecdotes and stories
by interested manufacturers. Work
ingmen, take notice here that free
trade is principally advocated 1
upon the platform by philanthopists
who have no moneyed combination
back of them to furnish funds, while,
on the contrary, the protectionist
speakers are always backed by money
combinations, and are generally paid
in some way for their earnest speech
es. One of the most remarkable
things to be noticed is that so MANY
newspapers have earnest advocates
Of protection in their editors. / can
not conceive how it is that any set of
men who are intelligent enough to
edit metropolitan journal can hon
estly and really believe what thew
write when they uphold protection in
their editorials. l can only believe
that such men are hypocrites and are
selling their sheets to the moneyed
combinations.
For the sake of argument grant that
the wages Of ten thousand men are
higher on account Of the imposts that
give the few manufacturers a right to
put high tax upon the labor Of fifty
millions OF people for the benefit of
ten thousand. Carlyle must have
come near the truth when he said
that large majority of the people
were fools, and if they were so in
Great Britain their descendants with
their hereditary traits must be living
in the United States to-day, else how
can the masses be so easily duped by
our wealthy manufacturers and their
oratorical tools. 1t appears to be an
actual fact that a large part of the
laboring men in the United States
really believe high tariff makes high
wages, when all history shows that
the contrary is the case; for not a
single instance can be found in
European history where free trade
countries have not paid higher wages
than the high tariff countries have at
the same time. The same is true of
Europe to-day. England, the only
Tree trade nation in Europe, pays her
laborers the highest wages in Europe,
Why do our working men ignore this
fact? Is not history worth anything
to them? The high tariff men tell
the mill operatives that it is owing to
their fatherly regard that higher
wages have existed here than in the
old countries. 1t does not seem pos
sible that there are SO many people in
the United States who believe this.
Can they not see it is on account of
the United States being new country