The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1889-06-13
WHY NOT RE AMERICANS ?

The Mail and Express of Saturday has
a long letter addressed to the three mil
lions of workingmen as well as those
who dwell in the city of New York and
contiguous territory, in which is con-
tanned some of the finest arguments we
have seen on the question of naturalized
citizens becoming Americans in fact as
well as in name. From this article we
take three paragraphs that will apply to-
any other section of the country as well
as the metropolis, and commend it and
the logic thereof to the careful consid
Grafton of our readers.
The Mail and Express says: The Re-
publican party proposes that Americans
shall do their own work and have the
pay for it. The Republican party COM
prehends that we have nothing in this
world except that which we pay for, and
that unless we have work we can get no
money so that, as without money we
starve, so without work we have no
money. The Republican party lays
down this simple proposition, which the
wayfaring man, though fool. ought to
comprehend, that if the working people
of Europe or Asia perform the work
which produces the goods which supply
lu6 NhC PNO-
pie of America cannot get either that
work or the pay for it. That seems to
be easy enough, and the whole tariff
question is simply this : Who shall do
our work. the European, the Asiatic or
the American There is no objection to
the foreigner OF good antecedents, char
acter and race who comes here to work
with US, for he will consume as much as
he will produce, and will fight with us
and for us when necessary. But that
foreign working shall make abroad the
goods which are used in this country
and thus deprive our labor and capital
of their own work and the pay for it, is
just crime. Free trade is crime. The
democratic doctrine of free trade Is
treason. 1t gives aid and comfort to the
industrial enemies of the working peo-
pie of the United States, 1t levies war
upon American labor and capital.
"Just why it is that the three millions
of people who occupy this peculiar posi-.
ton in our politics are SO welded to the
democratic party it is not necessary now
to mention. There would not be much
disagreement among candid men as to
the principal causes. But hold that
the statement of the leading principle of
the Republican party-American work
for American workers-is sufficient to
show that the great mass of men, women
and children who make up the millions
of this wage-wOrking community are de-
pendent upon the success of the Repub-
lican party, in the long run, for physi-
cal sustenance and that intellectual and
moral improvement which follow the
comfortable supply of the more direct
wants of existence. In other words
this great population is naturally Repub-
lican. That it does not vote the Repub-
Iican ticket is owing to causes which are
hostile to the true interests of the people
themselves. Such prosperity-such work
as they have-is owing not to their own
votes and political action, but to the fact
that elsewhere the interests of working
people are better understood by working
people, and the working people of other
parts of the country vote down the I'M
fortunate ballot of New York and Brook
Ign, so that they are saved in spite of
themselves. What has made the indus
tries of Philadelphia but the Republican
policy of protection to American work !!
Why is New York now a larger manu-
featuring city than Philadelphia except
it be that the Republican party has ap-
piled the same policy everywhere, aud
has thus built up these great cities at
the mouth of the Hudson, whose work
ing people are their own worst foes.
"Woik ingmen of New York, these
things ought not to be. That they are
so you are greatly to be blamed your
selves. You belong in the Republican
party of the nation, and you should cast
for that party three-fourths majority
of the three millions who daily earn
their daily bread in this majestic me-
tropols. But, on the contrary, it is the
everlasting toll of the rest of the country
to preserve your own interests as labor
ing men from the deadly thrust of your
own vote ~