Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1890-09-11
PROTECTIVE BLESSEDNESS.
Benefits of the Republican Doctrine
to the Women of the United
States.
And the Miserable Condition Free,
Trade Brings Upon the Sex in
Foreign Lands.
Testimony of Many Witnesses, 1nclud-
ing the Martyred Garfield, on
this Great Question.

There is the best of reasons why the wo-
men of America should be protectionists
as well as the men, but seldom are they
presented to show that the republican
economic system really does closely affect
the gentler sex. The condition of women
in the United States, in all parts of the
country, receiving respect and considera-
ton nowhere else shown her, would of
itself De almost complete answer to the
question whether protection bel ps women.
In this country only Is the wife and moth
er, comparatively speaking. exempt from
coarse, physical toll. Here it is expected,
and the aim and purport of the protective
tariff Is to obviate the necessity of female
physical labor for the support of the fam
lily, that duty devolving almost universal
ly upon the male members, fathers and
sons.
In order to clearly comprehend the con
dition of things in the United States IL is
essential that contrast be drawn, and the
condition of female labor in foreign coun-
tries shown up.
First, take England. In his Latter
Day Phamplets'' Carlyle says:
British industrial existence seems fast
becoming one huge-swamp of reeking pes
thence, physical and moral; a hideous liv-
ing GOlgotha of souls and bodies buried
alive; such a Curtius gulf communicating
with the neither deeps as the sun never
saw till now. Thirty thousand
outcast needlewomen working themselves
swiftly to death; 5000, 900 paupers rotting
in forced idleness, helping said needlewo-
men to die; these are but items in the sad
ledger of despair Thirty thousand
wrecked women sunk in that putrefying
well of the denomination; they have oozed
In upon London from the universal Stygian
quagmire of British industrial life, are ac-
cumulated in the well of the concern to
that extent
RELATIVE TO LABOR,
which means, in England, female AS well
as male, the London Times says:
For whole generation man has been
a drug In this country and population a
nuisance. 1t has scarcely entered the
heads Of economists that they would ever
have to deal with a deficiency of labor.
The inexhaustible Irish supply has kept
down the price of English labor, whether
in the field, the railway, the factory. the
army or the navy; whether at the sickle,
the spade. the nod or the desk. We be-
lieve that, for fifty years at least labor,
taking its quality into account, has been
cheaper in this country than In any part of
Europe, and that this cheapness Of labor
has contributed vastly to the improve
ments and power of the country, to the
success of all mercantile pursuits, and to
the enjoyment of those who have money
to spend.
OF that coarse physical labor almost I'M
known to women in this country but
which is common in England, we have
testimony by Englishmen which is start
ling, the result of Investigations made by
persons from actual observation. Here
follows an extract:
John Burnett. sent by the London board
of trade to examine into the condition of
the nail and chain makers of England, re-
ported: ct shows that
WOMEN STAND AT THE FORCES
all day long in warm weather, in con.
dition of semi-nudity, making spike nails
as large as inches, inches and inches,
working the freddie of the heavy
oliver, welding the hammer and blow
ing the bellows, while the perspiration
streams from their faces. With ten to
twelve hours per day of this work a
woman can save from Is Cd to As go cents
to Sl.25) per week Young girls placed
on beams above the heads of workmen
operate two bellows below them, one with
each foot, and this is kept up hour after
hour, day after day, week after week.
Young women appear to have no feeling
of shame in speaking of their illegitimate
offspring while homes are neglected, and
infants are rocked to sleep on the bellows
tops in the sitting air of the forges'
Mr.. james Park, Jr., of Pittsburg, de-
ceased gave his testimony in 1882, after a
VISIT to Europe He said:
when was in Europe last summer |
visited one of the largest iron and steel es-
Establishments on the continent. Through
out the works | noticed numbers of wo-
men whose bodies were covered with the
ragged, thrownotf clothing of their hus,
bands and brothers, and was told that
at this establishment, over 500 women
were employed, none of them receiving
over franc, or a little over 10 cents pei
day. These women were doing mems
work such work as our mill men receive
S125 to 81 so for performing. Those who
advocate free-trade doctrines would have
the citizens of our republic work in com
petition with those
POORLY PAID WOMEN.
Yet when you call the attention of the dis
ciples of free trade to these facts and him
to them that their course if adopted
would result in compelling us to pay
the same low prices for labor and engage
the same classes to do the work that strong
men are hardly equal to, they cry alouC
and deny it all, but cannot show how, un
der the adoption of their doctrine, it coulC
be avoided.
Hon Abram s. Hewitt a, democrat free
trader and United States commissioner t
the Paris exposition, reported: LAS
general rule the labor of the women ant
children is required to exc out the sub
81 tence of the family. In Wales womel
are extensively employed in the works. do
ing the labor for which a man would b,
required in America, and earning from
ten pence to one shilling three pence pc,
day. or rather less than One-haif the wage
that would be paid to a man for the sam,
amount of labor, which they perform
equally as well.
On the making of iron, eic., Mr.. Hewitt
said; I'm Statfordshlre and in the nortl
of England and in Scotland women ant
children are still extensively employed
above ground about the mines and arounC
the coal heaps at the mouth of the pits tn,
substantial result of which is that the labo
of the whole family is procured for the sun
which would be paid to its male head if h
alone labored for the support of the family
of course at far lower cost in the resultin.
productions of iron than would otherwis
be possible.
Of the labor in France, notably the irol
industries, Mr.. Hewitt reported:
1T requires the utmost economy on tn