The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1891-09-30
There Are no Tin Plate Manufactures
in the United States.

There are no tin plate manufactures
ln the United States Under the plea
of establishing such factories the Nc
Kinley tariff largely increased the i'm
port duty. When the tin plate clause
was before the house of representa-
tives, Congressman Ben Butterworth
denounced the proposition as monstrous,
and declared that it would cost the peo-
pie of the United States fifty millions
of dollars to establish the industry.
Mr.. Butterworth was moderate in his
estimate. 1t will cost the people one
hundred and fifty millions, and then it
will still be an infant industry. 1t will
take its place among what the repub-
licans call the struggling activities
There will never arrive day when the
protectionists will concede that any in
dustry is able to stand alone. After
eighty years it is found that the woolen
industry needs more protection than 1t
did when it was first started. The
manufacture of cotton goods is just as
helpless as it was three-quarters of a
century ago. The iron interest is no
more able to stand alone than when the
furnaces went into blast under the first
application of the protective policy.
The tin plate industry will never be
ANYTHING but an infant-a sucking on
the people.
The republican press are asserting
that tin plate factories have already
sprung into existence. 1t is false
hood. There Is not sheet of iron
rolled in the United States fit to be
made into tin plate. There is not suf-
hcient tin ore produced in this country
to finish thousand boxes of tin.
The object of the increased duty, as
fixed in the Mckinley bill, is to give
opportunity to republican capitalists to
rob the people. No effort has been
made to manufacture the iron sheets.
It was not the intention of the trainers
of the Mckinley bill that there should
be. There is profit enough for the
greedy protectionists in dipping the
sheets" They import the sheet iroIl
and they import the tin pig. They melt
the pig and dip the sheets, and call il
sAmerican tin" When the tariff
bill went into effect and the ''tin
plate manufacturers" as they style
themselves, discovered that Amer
lean mechanics, aware of the i'm
mense profits which were in the
business, demanded a share of them
the great protectors of home-born la
Dor, determined that they would gel
along without the American mechanic
They sent agents to Wales to hire for
eign labor to dip the plates, for the rea
son that it was much cheaper thai
American labor. The contract laborer
came to this country, and when pro
/ L. H. 1ax i0h
hibits the importation of contract la
Dor was being violated, the patriotic
American labor-loving manufacturer
| of tin plate, held up their hands an
raised their voices at the insolence {
native born labor, declaring that ther
was conspiracy to throttle at il
birth the tin plate industry" They al
pealed to the treasury department
protect their contract Wales tin plat
llaborers." An official of the treasur
decided that as the tin plate il
dustry was ian infant that it was ne
a violation of the contract labor law
import foreign laborers, and that the
should be permitted to land, accompan
their importers to their dipping fact
ries and take the places of the deare
American mechanics. This decisio
Twas made without consultation wit
Secretary Foster, and as soon as th'
acute, far-seeing politician heard of tt
Idecision, he recognized its assiniI
icharacter and revoked it. Had that d
cision stood, the whole snap would hay
n been given away; the dirty mask won
Y i have been torn from the hypocritic
faces of the authors of the infamo1
tin-plate clause of the tariff bill, al
It the people would have been undeceiv'
s as to its object. The american T
# Plate'' cry is simply fraud, umitigat'
by even a semblance of truth.