Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1892-09-01
SHORT TARIFF SERMONS.

Free trade and poverty are Siamese
twins
In free trade England there were
1,3i7,lO paupers, exclusive of lunatics
and vagrants, in the year 1s90-9l.
They included persons of all ages.
There were 3l5, 457 under 10 years Of
age, or about three in every hundred
Of the total population OF similar age.
Between 10 and so years, there were
sol, 100, or about four TO every hundred
Of same age.
Eight in each hundred Of those be
tween 80 and 65 years, or G5, $50 In all,
are paupers
Over IS years, twenty-six out OF every
hundred, or more than one In four, de-
pend on public charity, of whom the
total amounts TO 343, 902.
These are the estimates made by
Gen. Booth Of the Salvation Army in
his recently issued book, "Pauperism,
A Picture"
While strength and health lasts, the
| sturdy Briton, as a rule, bears up some
how, no matter how low his wages,
against the burdens Of his miserable
free trade existence.
But when old age draws near he is
forced to the poorhouse to end his days
Here Is Gen. Booths own pathetic
comments on the sad facts he sets forth:
"old age fares hardly In our times.
Life runs more intensely than II did, and the
| old tend 10 he thrown out
"Thc community gains by this, but the old
| suffer
"Thoy suffer beyond any measure OF actual
ncapaclty, for the fact that man Is old Is often
in itself enough 10 debar him from obtaining
work, and II is In vain he makes pretenso by
dycing his hair or wearing false teeth
II will be sad day for America when
we experience such conditions here, as
we surely would under free trade
American Economist
American Homes.
The home is the pillar of our national
life.
1t represents the thrift and the energy
of our people; II Is the product of their
wages and savings The home is the
schoolhouse of our youth and the COM
fort Of our age. To have little house
that one can call ones own makes n
man happier, manlier, more indie
pendent
No country can be accounted pros
porous the majority of whose people do
not own their own homes. Here, then,
we havea good test of the relative bene-
fits of protection and free trade. Which
system makes It easier for working
man TO have home of his OWN
Among the iron workers OF free trade
England, and they are perhaps the
most prosperous of all that country's
worlSingmen, one man out Of every
twenty-five occupies his own home.
In Philadelphia, the largest city of the
greatest iron producing state in the
Union, there is one home to every five
inhabitants.
The latest British parliamentary re-
port on the "llousing of the Working
Classes" says: Even in the country
districts (whcre surely one would eX-
pect 10 find more homcs) human beings
are TO BE- found boarded together in a
condition considerable 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,o55,sl2. The population was little
over 80, 900, 600; 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 wages come
the greater savings of our 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
the frcer broader, manlier spirit of our
people.
Protection is the safeguard OF the
American home. Economist
| Protection and Agriculture.
Our American policy of protection
was inaugurated by farmers for the