New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1889-02-04
THO PICTURES.

A paper by some persons supposed to be
comic has a cartoon representing the American
laborer staggering under pyramid Of burdens,
while capitalist carefully poises on the top oil
the pile one more brick, labelled " tin plate
duty" The picture has one great merit. IL
puts into Ineligible form the notion which
many men honestly have of the existing tariff
and the Senate's amendments.
But the picture is a fraud. IL 1t told tne
truth it would represent the American laoorer
walking erect, utterly unconscious OF any bur-
dens whatsoever, toward the door of savings
bank in which he has deposited $1,000, 0OO-
600. or more than the entire bonded debt Of
the United States 1t would represent also the
home of the American laborer, supplied with
comforts such as are found in the homes Of
workingmen nowhere else in the world. The
house, the table, the clothing for self, wife and
children, bear testimony that the mans earn
ings enable him to share with others in
larger consumption for go, 600, 900 inhabitants
than can be found elsewhere on. earth for any
100, 100000. In the distance, the same pict-
ure would represent the laying of foundations
for new rolling mills and factories, in which
American labor is to make the tin plates which
it now has to buy from English monopolists.
1t is hundred to one that at least one OF the
workers engaged in preparing, engraving or
printing this free-trade cartoon landed not very
long ago, hungry, dirty and ragged, glad refu-
gee from some country where "high protective
TARIFF is unknown. He fed from that I'M
taxed" land because there he had no chance
to better his condition. After few months
or years in this horribly taxed country, behold
him decently fed, decently clothed and with
decent home, all the fruit of intolerably bur
dened" labor, and yet he spends his time in re-
Wiling and slandering the system which has
made a man Of him.
He is not always satisfied; this American la
borer he has not always reason to be satisfied.
Much as he receives, he might in many cases
Justly claim larger share Of the benefits Of
protection. But at the worst estate he is in
Rnitely better off than when he landed, flying
from untaxed lands. Compare the new men
who gladly offer to drive 'the horse-cars at
wages which 5000 workers in this city have
refused. The hours are hard and the wages
low, for this protected country, but they would
be good wages for a skilled mechanic in any
untaxedn land The men who come forward
to take these places are presumably worse off
than any body of Americans who have had en-
ployment, and yet compare them with the men
who land at the Battery, before they have en-
loved any of the benefits of the American sys-
tenn. Is there not difference which even the
stupidest of all Free Traders can SEQ at a
glance2
In this country, as in every other, some fall
by the wayside, or meet with disaster or at
tempt something for which they have not neces-
sary qualities or by the failure Of employers are
thrown out of work. Here congregate many
Of the half million yearly who come from other
lands to seek work. and they have to begin
where they can until something. better offers.
And yet even in this great city, the very door
way Of foreign immigration, and in an cccupa-
ton for which is necessary neither training,
nor education, nor acquaintance, nor eStab-
lished character, the workers get better wages
than the printers, smiths, coach makers, the
male weavers or spinners or Wrappers or sOrters
in woollen mills, the silk dyers and power
weavers the cotton mule spinners or fnishers,
the carpet weavers or dyers, the plate makers,
saucer makers, holow-ware preSsers or kiln
men, the paper makers or fnishers the iron
miners, coal miners or engine men, the rolling
mill puddlers, rollers, roughors or wheelers, the
moulders or pattern makers, engine men Of
iron furnaces, the hat finishers, gas stokers
boot and shoe cutters or fnishers, the car
penters painters or machinists of England, the
free-trade paradise What much-burdened
country this is, TO be surel