Herald and tribune. [volume] (Jonesborough, Tenn.) 1869-current, 1893-12-20
The starvation Wages Policy.

his message that "free raw materials"
and slow tariff duties" will result in
flower rates of wages" is an acknowl-
edgement of facts that could no longer
be denied. When Mr.. Cleveland was a
candidate for the Presidency his public
addresses were filled with assertions
that tariff reform meant substantial
improvement in the condition of the
workingman. If he had made such a
confession as that contained in his mes
sage during the last Presidential cam
paign the result would have been over
whelming defeat for the Democratic
party. Now that he is in office, with
the Southern Bourbons bent on striking
down American industries, behind him
he coolly admits that the statements of
The Press and other protectionist news
papers in regard to wages were true.
The workingmen whose votes gave him
the Presidency are informed, on the
threshold of a bitter winter, with pov.
erty staring them in the face, that the
whole Democratic argument in behalf
Of n revenue tariff was a fraud and a
falsehood that their wages, already
g%rievously reduced, are to be cut down
still further and that they must rely on
the chance that free raw materials"
will give them STEADY employment"
for the opportunity to earn a scanty
living forthemselves and their families.
The gravity of the industrial situation
is shown by the dispatches which The
Press is printing daily. Recent issues
of The Press have contained the news
of the prospective shutting down of
New Jersey potteries employing 1000
hands; of a 20 per cent. reduction in
the wages of tho employees of the Pull
man repair shops at Wilmington, of a
similar reduction in the pay of the L.
200 men employed in railway repair
shops at Reading ; of a 10 per cent. cut
in wages in the Sawyer Wooden Mills (;
of the notice of the Miller Brothers.
Cutlery Company in Meriden that. if
the Wilson bill, reducing the duty on
pocket cutlery go per cent, became a
law, a reduction of 40 or 80 per cent in
wages was inevitable of the closing of
carpet mills at West Cornwall of the
closing of knitting mills in Troy 4; of
further reductions in wages in knitting
mills in Cohoes and of the united pro-
test of Newark pearl button manufac-
turers against the ruinous Wilson bill.
Today's Press contains an interview
with Arthur Dodge, senior member
of the firm of Arthur Dodge & Co., in
which the statement is plainly made
that if the felt goods factory in Dodge.
vile, N. Y, is to be run at all under
the Wilson bill, wage of employees
must be reduced at least 80 per cent. {;
an account of a great mass meeting of
workiDgmen in Amsterdam, N. Y, to
protest against the Wilson bill and
the news of a proposed reduction of
from 30 to 45 per cent. in the wages of
1900 employees of the Wheeling wv.
Va. Iron and Steel Works.
The Cleveland humbug of "better
times" has vanished. The Flower rates
of wages" which Mr.. Cleveland holds
out as a prominent result of Democratic
legislation-or worse still, no wages
and no work at all are becoming the
universal substitutes for the prosperity,
high wages and comfort of Republican
rule. 1t is openly announced in Ad-
ministratiOn organs like the Boston
Herald that all the power and patron
age of the President will be used with
out shame or scruple to compel reluc-
tant Democratic Senators to vote for
the starvation wages bill framed by
the Ways and Means Committee. The
outlook is indeed dark unless Republi-
cam in Congress can obstruct the in
famous Wilson MEASURE until the peo-
pie can elect a House of Representa-
tives that will defend their interests.
There must be no hesitation, no timidity
no delay in opposing.ruinous free trade.
Fight the Wilson bill at every stage !;
and fight it to the death.-New York
Press.