The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1892-08-10

mug W ulup.
Protection and Invention.
Free traders tell us that our wonder
full industrial growth is due to our in
ventions and labor-saving machinery.
As usual, they put the cart before the
horse.
1t is our American system of pro-
lection that creates and develops indus
tries, giving our masses work and
wages, comforts and homes education
and ambition.
This stimulates inventive genius, and
when new devices are planned and per-
fected there is use for them at once.
Thousands of pairs of boots and shoes
are daily made in Massachusetts by
machinery, giving employment to thou
sands of workmen at good wages
We export largely to England, where
labor is much cheaper than in this
country.
The United States leads in inventions,
three times as many patents being
granted here as in Great Britain.
During our free trade period, from
1916 to 1860, the total number of patents
granted was 26,234.
From 1861 to 1875 the number granted
was 1877 ,345, and from 1875 to 1889 the
number was 236, $50.
The greatest number issued in any
one year prior to 1862 was 1919, while
now we issue annually from $4,000 to
1000.
The result is cheapening of the
product, increased consumption and
greater demand for labor at good wages.
Protection does not make geniuses,
but it does make the opportunity, it i'm
| proves the mind, stimulates the intellect
and rewards the inventor.
Wherever the influence OF protec-
| tive tariff has been greatest, there in
vention has progressed most rapidly.
The result is saving in cost of produc-
| ton and greater prosperity for the
masses of the people.
| American Homes.
The home is the pillar of our national
| life.
1t represents the thrift and the en-
crgy of our people; it is the product of
their wages and savings. The home is
the schoolhouse of our youth and the
comfort of our age. To have little
house that one can call ones own makes
a man happier, manlier, more indie
pendent.
No country can be accounted prosper
Gus the majority of whose people do
not own their own homes. Here, then,
we have a good test of the relative ben
etits OF protection and free trade.
Which system makes it easier for work
ingman to have home of his own?
Among the iron workers of free trade
England, and they are perhaps the most
prosperous of all that countrys work
ingmen, one man out of every twenty
five occupies his own home.
In Philade lphia, the largest city of
the greatest iron producing state in the
Union. there is one home to every Ave
inhabitants.
The latest British parliamentary re-
port on the Housing of the Working
Classes" says: Even in the country
districts (where surely one would eX-
pect to find more homes) human beings
are to be found boarded together in a
condition considerably worse than that
in which the beasts that perish are
usually kept by their owners"
The United States census of 1880 re
ports that the number of dwellings in
the United States in that year was
s,955,sla. The population was little
over 80, 600, 900; so that there was about
one dwelling to every six inhabitants.
One out of every six inhabitants occu-
pied his own home.
1t is to protection that we owe the
larger number of American homes
For the tariff maintains the American
rate of wages; from our higher wage,
come the greater savings of the people
and from the savings of the family
comes the home
So we see that without protection
many of our homes would disappear
and with them also would disappear tn,
freer. broaier, manlier spirit Of oul
people.
: Protection n the safeguard of tn,
AmcTic.u hnRla Americas Economist