St. Paul daily globe., 1891-10-23
THE TRUTH aTLasT.

Those OF his opponents who have been
brought into close contact with Maj.
MCKINLEY in the house speak in the
highest terms of the man. his honesty
and his sincerity in the belief that tie
policy he advocates is really that which
is for the best for all. If there is incon-
siStency and contradiction in the argu-
ments by which he supports his posi-
ton, it is because he is so constituted
mentally that he cannot perceive it. and
not because he is the artful demagogue,
lodging deftly the difficulties of his po-
sition. So when he urged the passage
of the bill with which his name is as
sociated because it would keep the
wages of our Wnrkingmen far above
the level of their European com
petitors it was not doubted that
he was honest in his belief that
that would be its effect, though
it might have been thought re-
markable that his mind should be so in
accessible TO the fact that it could not
be. But it is now plain to be seen that
the major is one of those optimistic men
who think that all men are as generous
as himself; and he took no account,
either of the selfish greed of the class
of men who were to be the direct ben
eficiaries of his bill. or of the pressure
of business competition which con-
trolled their generosity. if they had any.
1t is now evident that he believed that
these men could be trusted to divide
with their workmen the benefits that
they might derive from the effects of
the law. Senator SHERMAN, it will be
recalled, had less confidence, and prom
ised that if the manufacturers absorbed
to themselves the gains it gave, he
would come back and vote for its re-
peal.
That this is not a mistaken conception
of Mr.. MCKINLEY and of his point of
view is made plain by his very frank
statement to the workingmen in the
factories at Akron, whom he addressed
oh the 18th inst. The GLOBE COM
mends to those workingmen among It's
readers who are yet under the delusion
that there is any possible benefit to
them from the protective policy, care
full reading of this extract from that
oPSSSil' ihSik'OiiloitJ, IL oioO COiIulCHuS
it to those editors of Republican papers
who affect to believe that it is only a
tax on imports that makes wages higher
IN this than in European countries.
Said Mr.. MCKINLEY:
protection cannot fix the price of wages
any more than it can fix the price of any
commodity. 1t sometimes seems as if men, in
their greed to get rich. fail to leayeD their
prosperity with the teachings of the golden
rule. and, on every pretext. cut the wages of
their labor. That, however, is not the fault
of protection. And if, finally, wages are not
measured by fair standard OF their value
then must labor take advantage of the thou
sands of.opportunities afforded In this free
and protected country and do for itself what
1t now Goes for others
Mr.. MCKINLEY thus acknowledges
that any increase of wages over the COM
petitiye point can only come to the
wage earners from the gains of tariff
for protection through the generosity
Of their employers, who receive them,
and there is little doubt that his percep-
ton that they do not get any of the ben
eftS came to him as result of his Joint
debate with Gov. CAMPBELL, when the
latter asked any man whose wages had
been increased since the passage of the
MCKINLEY bill to rise, and none stood
up, and the following statement of the
governors that he held in his hand a
list of over 800 establishments in which
wages had since been reduced.