The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-07-18
A MCKINLEY JUSTIFICATION.

The arguments which some of the high
tax organs present to justify the Mckinley
law and make an excuse for eXtorting ex-
orbitant taxes from the American people
are simply astonishing on account OF their
! impu1ence. Those who make these argu-
ments must assume that the masses are
ignorant, that they never read and never
think. Here comes an exchange glorying
in the announcement that plate glass fac
| tory of considerable proportions is being
established al Irwin, Pa, as the direct re-
suit of the Mckinley law. The factory Is
to give employment to five hundred hands,
and the paper gees on to say that under the
old law IT would have been impossible to
establish this concern. ''The new tariff
-MCKISLEY's-is thus daily justifying
itself By actual progress" is the ciincher
with which the organ disposes of
the business. OF course this is convinc-
ing, unanserable argument, in the opinion
OF the high tax people, and it ought to shut
up every body who would ike to say some
thing on the other side. Ii would be a
good argument under certain conditions,
but unfortunately for those who make it
these conditions do not prevail. II plate
glass had not been manufactured in this
country and the Irwin factory had been
established as the direct consequence of
the Mckinley law, had come as an ''infant
industry" the new concern might have
been pointed out as in some sort of respect
a vindication of the high tariff law. But
what are the facts! Plate glass was made
in this country in enormous quantities long
before MIR. MCKINLEY or his tariff was
thought of. An exchange mentions sew
eral plate glass factories, one of which, at
least, is well known to many of our
readers as the concern has long had deal
ings in this section of the country We
refer to the Depauw Plate Glass works at
Albany, Ind, an immense establishment
which has been in successful operation for
fifteen or twenty years and which employs
about a thousand men. 1t didn't require
the new tariff TO establish the Depauw
works or keep them going, for these works
have made the proprietors immensely
rich during the years when Mr.
MCKINLEY was an unknown law
yer in Ohio. There are several
other factories OF greater or less proper
tons, some Of them in Pennsylvania, near
neighbors of the Irwin concern which 1t is
claimed could not have been established
except for the Mckinley law The fact is
plate glass has been manufactured here for
many years, and at immense profit. The
new law Will increase that profit at the ex
pense OF the people who use plate glass,
but the law will notincrease the wages of
single American laborer. It cannot be
shown that the new law has put dollar
into the pocket of i laboring man, nor viii
the law ever put dollar into a work
ingman's pockets. His wages will
remain as they are, or be cut down If the
manufacturer can smuggie in, duty Free q
'spauper laborer' from Europe to take his
place. We believe the workingmen under
stand the situation. Last November they
proved that they were not the ignorant.
stupid creatures the Republican high-tax
advocates thought them to be, for they
relegated MIR. MCKINLEY and more than q
hundred of his tariff robber following to
the rear, carrying tax reform Democrats
to the front. The overwhelming majority
which the party of low taxes and tariff
reform has in the present Congress, il
pretty good proof that the workingmen
have had their eyes opened to the iniquity
Of McKinleyism, and that they are doing
their own thinking and own voting nova
days, regardless OF what Republican papers
and Republican orators tell them concern
ing the beauties and benefits Of ''protec-
tioun