The prison mirror. [volume] (Stillwater, Minn.) 1887-1894, 1889-12-05

and the cost of living. comparatively speak
ing, assumed such dimensions as to totally
shut out from their reach nearly all of the
comforts that go to make life happy. Let
us go to their abOdeS of wretchedneSs, ig-
nOrance. disease and crime around the man
ufacturing districts of Manchester. Birming-
ham. Leeds etc.. and then ask ourselves the
question, did the wOrkingmeD of America
do wrong in uphOlding and defending pol
icy of protection that has brought to them
comfort, intelligence. health and virtue?
One of the methods of free trade arguing
is to attack manufacturers in this country
who have been successful in their enter
priSeS. Some notable instances of this are
the attacks upon the men engaged in man.
ufacturing who have dared to succeed. If
a man is successful in an honest business
he helps others as we'll as himself. People
whom one would think should commend
American manufacturing enterprises which
employ thousands of wOrkmen and distrib-
ute millions of dollars in wages, base their
arguments upon the theory that the tariff
rObS labor. while it enricheS manufacturers;
arguments the falsity of which is shown by
the happy condition and continued pros
perity of the workingmen of America to-
day. Give us free trade tomorrow and in
less than two years we will have our now
youthful. healthy, and prosperous indus
tries crushed by foreign competition. and
our labor market inundated by the pauper
labor of Europe and with it it's consequent
condition of low wages. destitutiOn and
death.
Again let us contrast from a national
standpoint the condition of this country
under free trade and protection with that of
some of the European nations. That free
trade is an ignOminiOus failure is proved by
our own experience in the free trade era Of
1884 to 1912 when our cash and credit were
so abjectly low that President Tyler could
not get enough money from the Treasury to
meet his house excepting bills. Adverting to
this Freeman Hunt. the ableSt statesman
of the time, said in the Merchants Maga-
| zine:
The condition of the nation at the date of the
passage of the Tariff Act of 1912 was humiliating
in the extreme. The Treasury unable to obtain
at home the means required for administering the
Government even the most economical scale,
had failed in all its efforts to negotiate loan at
six per cent even in the same foreign markets in
which it had but recently paid off at par debt
bearing an interest of only three per cent Never
theless. deep the abyss into which the ma
tion had been plunged, magical was the effect
of the adoption of system that had turned the
|
Act of August, 1912 protecting home laborl be-
come a law when the Government found that it
could have all its wants supplied at home. Mills,
factories and furnaces long closed were again
opened labor came into demand and before the
close of its third year prosperity almost univers
ally regned.
The same result followed the enlarged
protective tariff laws of 1864. and by the
policy therein inaugurated and continued we
stand to-day, thanks to that policy monu-
mentally as the best debt-payers and the
greatest accumulators of money of any ma
tiOn known in ancient or modern history.
In Turkey, under the influence of free
trade, industry was paralysed and poverty
usurped the place of plenty; in France,
every attempt to establish the same has been
followed by ruin; and even in poor Ireland,
who, when she had her own parliament anG
protection baSked in the sunshine of pros
perity, collapsed into poverty with the ad
vent of English free trade.
Protection then in my opinion protects
and forgetful of the obligations he owes his
wife and little ones is the American work
ingman who will condemn a policy tina
has wrought him so many blessings spirit
ual and temporal. PROTECTIONIST.
A Hopeful HumOrist.