Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1890-05-08
PROTECTION.
THE PITH AND MARROW OF THE CUES.
TION.

| WI VI Ilcc
Manufacturers like NJ. D. Harter and
John H. Thomas, for example, would
not be injured by free trade, for the rea
son that the manufacturers of no ma
tion in Europe or elsewhere can com.
pete with them in their line of product
ion. The American market is all theirs
in any event.
1t is charged and complained of that
manufacturers engaged in the protect
ed industries" have grown rich On dis
honest profits which the protective tar
iff enables them to extort from the
American people. Yet the naked truth
is that the practically unprotected man.
ufacturers of agricultural implements
have accumulated three-fold more
wealth, in proportion to numbers and
capital invested, than have the protect
ed manufacturers of wooden, cotton and
silk fabrics, iron, steel, nails, glass, etc,
for the good and sufficient reason that
the former have no foreign competitors
while the latter have.
Representative Democrats like the
Breekinridges, Carlisle, Coke, Mills,
McMillin, Reagan, Voorhees, and Vest
premise that the American manufactur
er who succeeds in accumulating for
tune is necessarily rascal and an ex-
tortionist-a ''robber baron" and thief
at heart. Now, if that be true of Re-
publicans like Carnegie and Phipps,
who are engaged in the protected in
dustry of iron and steel, why is it not
also true of Democrats like Harter and
Thomas, who manufacture mowers,
reapers, threshing machines, hay rakes,
and the like, and sell them at the high
est price that the market will bear, they
themselves having practical control of
that market? Take notice we neither
charge nor intimate that men like Hart
er and Thomas are rascals and extOrtion-
lists. That is the logical inference de-
ducible from the free trade arguments
of Carlisle, Mills, VOORHEES, and Vest.
In point of fact, a large majority of
the manufacturers of agricultural i'm
plements -plows, harrows, reapers, ,mow
ers, wheat drills, wagons, etc. are in
favor of the protective tariff, though
they receive, directly, very little of its
benefits. But they are in favor of CO.
ordination of intereSts-in favor of equi-
ty and justice to all, to the employer,
the farmer and the laborer.
Men like NJ. D. Harter and John H.
Thomas may be honest in their alleged
convictions as to propriety Of practical
free trade. But, as they are men of
parts, ability and education, they must
know (if they consider the question in
all its bearings) that free trade, or
tariff for revenue only" would inure
to their personal benefit, and to the in
jury of the masses of the American peo-
pie, especially wage-workers.
A tariff for revenue only on clothing,
blankets, boots, shoes, hats, glass and
manufactures of iron, steel, ETC., while |
not materially reducing prices, would
give Europeans an advantage in our |
markets, and would necessarily encour- |
age importations to such extent that
the consumption of European products
by the American people would be in
creased two or three-fold And with
what effect? He must be dull person,
indeed, who does not see that the in
creased importation and consumption
must displace one-half or two-thirds
of like articles now produced by Amer
ican workmen. Hence, One-half or two
thirds of the employees of American
manufacturing establishments must seek
in other occupations-in
industries or in the culti-
vation of the soil. Result-a glutted Ia
Dor market, a reduction of wages to the
European standard, a greater redun-
1ancy of agricultural prodncts, and mil
lions of tramps and paupers in a land
Of plenty.
Carlisle and Mills and Voorhees, and
Vest together with Democratic news
papers everywhere) talk about demol-
shing the tariff wall and giving Ameri-
can manufacturers the freedom of the
worlds. markets. That is sheer non
sense. With the exception of a few
specialties, of which Americans have i
monopoly, American manu-
facturers cannot compete in the markets
If the world, or in our home market, J
with the products of the cheap labor, of
he convict labor and the pauper labor .
If the factories, prisons and warehouses
If Europe. A reduction of wages to !
he European standard would not suf- J.
ice for the purposes unless all idle men I
ind women land there would be some
Millions of them) be arrested, confined ,
n warehouses; and compelled to earn I
heir bread, and American employers !
,e given the privilege to contract for i
convict and workhouse labor to produce
FOODS for the foreign and home markets. L
BY doing that we may get even with the
'blarsted British" may beat them in ;
ime-may reduce 25 to 30 per cent. of
,ur people to the condition of paupers,
While their proportion is IA to 20 per I
.ent. L
American farmers and workingmen
and very properly, too,) are urging Con-
,ress to adopt more stringent meas
Tres to check the tide of criminal and
,auper immigrants from Europe, for
he reason that such immigration is
nimical to American morals and Amer v
can industry, in that these offcasts q
rom Europe lower the moral tone of :,
American society and injurlously COM
,ete with American workmen, and /
ramp about the country to the great
and loss of American farm
rs-for, be it remembered, farmers =
md their families are the greatest suf-
erers on account of tramps. They can Y
lot always have constable or police !,
nan in sight or hearing to protect them ;,
against insult, theft and violence.
Those disciples of Calhoun Democ- {
Brecknridges, Carlisle, Crisp,
Jrain and Coke, Mills and Mcmillan,
voorhees, and Vest-apparently join in
his demand for the exclusion of pauper !, 4