Los Angeles herald., 1891-04-14
BEGGING THE QUESTION.

The esteemed Times has great deal
to say, following in the wake of the New
York Press, about the wages Of hod-car-
riers in sixteen cities of the United
States, and about the fact that women
work in Sweden at very low wages, and
do mems work. All this is mixed up, in
perfectly inextricable way, with the
tariff. What have the abuses of the tariff
to do with the fact that women work as
hod-carriers in Sweden, and are even
found drawing the pillow in portions of
Europe? There was never a period in
the history of the United States charac-
terized by more universal prosperity of
all classes than during the years in which
the tariff of 1s46 held sway. In those
days the shibboleth was Free Trade
and Sailors Rights" This journal does
not believe in free trade, but, none the
less, itEtakes no stock in downright rob-
berry, whether it be perpetrated through
the medium of an UNANIMOUSLY manipu-
lated tariff, or by the pistol of the high
wayman at the turn of a dark road.
Surely, the coal and iron regions Of
Pennsylvania are the places in which to
see the full benefits of protection. And
what do we find there? AS matter of
fact, the tariff which preceded the Nc
Kinley bill was higher than the cele-
brated 'war tariff" enormously so
called. 1t was enacted in 1866, and
made sweeping advances on the duties
that had been thought sufficient during
our great internal struggle. The McKin-
ley bill advanced these duties still more,
and gave us Pelion piled on Ossa of
fiscal exactions.
And yet, how is it in Pennsylvania
today? We have no hesitation in assert
ing that the wages paid to the coal miner
and the deliver in iron, to the puddler
and his helper, to the foundryman and
glass-blower, and to every man con-
nected in any way with any of the great
protected industries as laborer, are not
more than TO per cent. of what was paid
in 1866. Now here is something tangi
BILE. There is in it no twaddle about
women working as hod carriers i'll
Sweden, or Schleswig- -Holstein, or
Pomeranea, or elsewhere. The material
for comparison is immediate and
lies ready to any mans hand. If the
American workingman receives imme-
diately, and by the very operation of
infexible laws, the benefits of the tariff,
why are steadily expanding tariffs fol-
lowed by steadily diminishing wages?
Here is nut for our esteemed contem-
poraries both of New York and Los An
geles to crack.
OF course, everybody knows the rea-
son for all this. At the same time that
the iron barons showed up the tariff
rates they imported cheap foreign labor
by the ship-load. They put every cent
of the enhanced duty into their pockets,
and they took from, instead of adding
to, the wages of their employees. AS
result, we see Pennsylvania, the center
of this blessed system of protection, an
armed camp, and the rattling volleys
from the rifles of hired assassins have
as yet scarcely died away in that de-
voted region. Squalor, misery and ruth
reign in these supposed outposts of Ar
cady, where the pampered workingman
is supposed to stretch his limbs on
couches of down, and to sink nightly
into the slumbers of the contented.
Meanwhile, under the operations of
the Mckinley tariff, the Republican
party ID consummating two colossal !
steals to further enrich the capitalist
classes. These are the sugar and tin
steals, by which untold millions will be
filched from the revenue of the United
States to be put into the pockets of men
already enriched beyond their deserts.
Verify, this is not more thoroughly the