Herald and tribune. [volume] (Jonesborough, Tenn.) 1869-current, 1892-05-05
A WOrkingman on the Party of Lincoln.

A practical printer who has for many
years been recognized as a leader of
thought in the reform movement, and
who has been an ardent trade unionist
all his life and an active Knight of La
Dor ever since that order was first insti-
tuted by Uriah S. Stevens, in Pennsyl-
vania more than twenty years ago, was
recently heard to say that he had no
use for the Democratic party, North or
South. A Democrat fellow workman
asked him to give his reasons for such
statement, which he did in the fol-
lowing language:
| am opposed to the Democratic party
for the reason that it is not now, and
never has been, friendly to the interests
OF labor. In States where that party
is in absolute control today, the wages
paid to mechanics and laborers are
barely sufficient to sustain life. In
telligent, liberty loving white labor
can not live ON the miserable pittance
accorded the colored labor in the old
slave States of the South. The Demo-
cratic party is controlled by men who
do not believe that labor is entitled to
any consideration in the commercial
affairs of life. When General McDuffie
of South Carolina declared in mes
sage to the legislature of his State that
the laboring population, bleached or
unbleached, was a dangerous element
in the body polite, he expressed the
opinion of the great majority of his
followers to this day. There can be
no affinity between the party which
would degrade American labor to the
level of the poorest paid labor of Eu-
rope and the American workingman
who has learned to enjoy good wages
and fair treatment under system of
protection to American labor, both
bleached and unbleached. While the
Democratic party was seeking to bring
the free white labor of the North down
to level with the black slave labor of
the South, the Republican party was
born, and from its very inception has
been the champion of the laborer. 1t
was Lincoln who declared that in the
contest between capital and labor the
latter deserved by far the highest con-
sideration. And in all his official life
Abraham Lincoln never departed from
this principle. With this to guide
them, his followers in the Republican
party have gradually but steadily ad-
vanced the interests of the producers,
until the labor of the United States is
today the best paid, most comfortably
situated labor in the civilized world.
And | have confidence that the Ameri-
can people will continue to repose con-
tidence in the party of Lincoln. Once
only have they been led astray, and
then twas by fraud. But the promised
exposure of corruption did not mater
ialize, and the people restored the Re-
publicans again to power. The masses
have learned that an ounce of protec-
ton fact is worth tons of free trade
theory, and the oily tongues of the
enemies of labor will not prove seduc-
tive enough this time. The picture of
an average American workman S home,
in contrast with the best that can be
shown among the toilers of Europe, is
enough to convince intelligent mechan-
les and laborers that it would be sui
cidal to permit the Democratic party
to obtain control of the industrial sys-
tenn in the United States. I not only
recognize in the Democratic party an
opposition to all that labor holds dear;
but believe that to permit that party
to control this Government for a period
of ten years would be equivalent to
turning back the hands of industry on
the dial of progress for half century.
They have never performed one single
act to commend their party to thought
full, intelligent workingman.