Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1893-06-01
DIVIDENDS MUST BE PROTECTED.

DIVIDENDS MUST BE PROTECTED.
Wages Cannot 10 Reduced Below the Pres
ent Bottom Rates.
The Hon. Z. Ellery Anderson. in Amer
ican Industries of April 90. makes reply,
in an article entitled "The Lament Of
Our Industrial Pensioners. to some Of
the wild and reckless statements of pro-
tected manufacturers recently printed in
The American Economist criticising the
Reform clubs proposed bill. After quot
ing many of the gloomy statements and
disposing in detail of few of them. Mr..
Anderson continues;
1--WE should like to inquire If there Ia
any proportion whatever of truth in this
lament of the manufacturers. What has
become of the assertion so loudly pro-
claimed throughout 1899 that protect
i've tariff was tax only in the inception
that very soon natural competition
among domestic producers would reduce
prices so that the consumer would OBJ
tain his goods cheaper at home than he
could from abroad? Surely this sham
plea must be withdrawn and abandoned
if we are to consider the proposition as
now made-that under the reduced per-
centages Of the proposed bill every form
of American activity is to become stilled
and its product furnished by its foreign
competitor. With every possible allow
ance for the manifest exaggeration of
statement, the proposition made can only
mean that consumers in this country are
now paying to manufacturers mora than
they would pay if the proposed tariff bill
were to become law.
"There is one proposition about which
all writers to The Economist seem to
agree-they are all going to cut down
their wages from % to 80 per cent. Div
idends must be protected though the
heavens fall. The reduction, if any be
necessary, can be ground out of the oper-
ative.
Whether it be true or not that some
of these bleating calves that have for the
better part of q century drawn their pap
and support from the protection COW
have so long adhered to obsolete and ex.
travagant methods of production that
the time Of their usefulness has expired,
and that they should shut down and &C
out of existence because they are of nc
use to any one, we will not at present in
quire. But of one proposition we are
certain, and that is that none of these
industries will be able to take the hun.
dredth part of a cent from the wages oi
any of their operatives. They cannot
reduce wages because they have never
advanced wages. The rate of the wage
Garner in this country is in no manner
dependent upon the existence or nonex
istence of protective industries. It il
higher here than abroad because the op
portunities for production in the United
States are greater than elsewhere, be-
cause the individual power of produc.
ton is greater here than elsewhere, and
because the opportunities for self ad.
vancement are better here than in other
lands. We raise over $4,000, 600, 600 Of
agricultural products from our lands
We build 10000 miles of railroad every
year and open up vast areas of rich and
fertile fields. We build countless new
houses and stores in our cities and towns
We manufacture nine-tenths of the cloth
ing of our people. We construct ingen
ious machinery, endless in variety ot
form and application of usefulness. We
have given to the world the best appli
cation of the telegraph, the electric light
| the telephone and the sewing machine.
Sin these great fields of agricultural
product, mechanical pursuit and usefu
invention the United States leads the
world. And yet in all these pursuits WI
pay good wages to our workmen and are
able to do it because the product thai
comes from their hands is greater in
given time than the product in similar
fields of employment abroad The un
protected occupations in the United
States afford today employment to nine
tenths of our workmen. For this reason
We dSStIG W III ClILlIO COllllllcllCG tlldU lllt
industrial pensioners of this country will
not succeed in their threatened reduc
tion of the wages of their operatives be
cause they can always find abundant EN-
ployment in occupations that are not pro
tected.
"We donot. however, believe that any
of the melancholy forebodings foreshad
owed by The Economist have substantial
foundation in fact. While, as before
suggested, some few forms of produc
tion may have to be discontinued in tht
United States (and no one should regre
their discontinuance any more than on,
should regret the abandonment of futil,
effort to raise coffee or tea in lands un
suited for such production), as far as tn,
great mass of our textile and metal in
dustries are concerned, we are satisfied
that the only effect of the enactment O
the proposed bill on these. industrie
would be to compel those engaged il
them to resort to more careful and eco
nomical methods of production, which
would in short time enable them to ri
val and outdo the producers of othe
lands"
Shearman's Letters to Cleveland.
| Mr.. Thomas G. Shearman's series o
letters to President Cleveland on "Meth