The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1893-11-30

asters that will come from what they
choose to call free trade" have been
made to play an important part in
political speeches and election cam
Ipaigns
Yet the facts stare the country in
1.-THE face that under the boosted high
tariff the laboring classes throughout
the land have been suffering from dis
tress. thousands upon thousands of
them unemployed, and the poor grow
ing poorer while the rich were becom-
ing richer The Impoverished millions
were RECALLED with tales about the bene-
lifts of protection, while the profits of
the high tariff went into the pockets
of the capitalists, for whose especial
benefits the protective tariff was en-
acted and increased till it reached the
summit of McKinleyism.
Under the suggestive caption, What
Has Protection Done for Starving
Miners, the Detroit Evening News
propounds some queries which ought to
open the eyes of our protectionist
friends to the hollowness of some of the
high-fown claims which are put forth
i in support of their pet theory. We
quote the principal portion of this strik-
ing article:
| The more one reflects upon the state
of things in the iron country, the deep
| er becomes the feeling of sadness, be-
cause it suggests so many things be-
yond the immediate sufferings of the
unemployed of this country. In
country like ours, enjoying opportuni-
ties that have never been enjoyed by a
people before, with an industrial sys-
tenn which is claimed to be the ideal
system for giving the largest measure
I of prosperity to the workingmen, the
/ inSinuating question will not down,
! why should the suffering Of working
men begin the moment work is temper
arily suspended for any cause? Our
protective system exists, according to
the claims of its defenders, for the
purpose of giving to labor wages
| enough to live upon. The industry in
which the iron miners are engaged has,
during the existence of the higher
tariff, enjoyed the practical monopoly
| of the business as against the world
There was imported into this country
during 1892 iron ore not to reach the
value Of 81, 000, 600 Yet life is 80 desc
late and hopeless to the laboring people
for whose benefit this protected in
dustry is created, that not cent can
they lay up for a rainy day, and the
moment work stops, eating stops.
Could any system present more
wretched record? Could even the de-
tested free trade system, which we are
told is now soaring half the country to
death through fear of its speedy APP
proach, do worse?
Commenting on these remarks the
Lansing, Michigan, Journal says:
1t seems that the condition of the
iron miners in the Upper Peninsula
is not very much unlike the condition
of the iron miners in Pennsylvania and
the workers in nearly all the leading
protected industries. Four-fifths of
them are foreigners. They have been
paid only what their labor is worth
in the open market, while their en-
ployers, the mine owners, have
pocketed all the tariff swag. This i'll
ustrates the use and effect of the
boasted high tariff 1t is for the eX-
elusive benefit of the rich and the
powerful It's effect is to inordinately
swell their plumber. Labor is forced
to take whatever the tariff benehc1ar1eS
see fit to give it or else shift for itself.
The tariff profits come into the mine
owners hands first and there is no
provision in any law that Republican
subservience to monopolistic greed has
yet placed on the statute books COM
polling the division of any part of
them among the humble toilers in the
mines There are no tariff bounties
for them. 1t is the owner of the fee,
and the firm or. corporation which
operates the mine, that reap the
enormous profits which the tariff
yields. They constitute the class which
Mckinleyism protects. 1t has been
the comparative scarcity of labor in
the Upper Peninsula. that has made
wages high there Tariffs have never
increased wages a cents worth. Tariffs
are everywhere and always laid for
the benefit of capital.
These remarks demonstrate the eff
fects Of the high tariff on one branch
of labor. Similar results have been
felt in nearly every other department
of American industry, and it was time
that the reforms We're instituted which
find expression in the bill just made
public as the Democratic tariff policy.
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