Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1894-06-27
s'THE TARIFF DID IT."
THE CITY OF SUPERIOR AS A
PROTECTION ARGUMENT.

Three Wool Periods-The Tariff and the
Farmers-Sugar and the Sugar Trust
More Results of Tariff Reform
What Reciprocity has Accomplished
Potatoes and Protection.
How the Industries of a Prosperous City
Were Paralyzed.
A correspondent of the Inter Ocean has
been writing up the past and present of
Nest Superior. He describes how the
foundations of a prosperous city were laid
an the primeval forest, how the town grew
III four years from a lonely hamlet of a
very few hundreds, to city of 10000 or
more, paying out $5000,000 in 1892 for
wages manufacturing 100000, 900 of
products and having an assessed valua-
zion of S26, 600, 900. This growth Outdoes
Bell3my's dream, and is q splendid eX-
ample Of the influence of American pro-
lection. Here is part of the story as told
ny the correspondent:
What has the Democratic policy done
for this tariff town? That was the ques-
zion | asked of business men, lawyers,
newspaper men and labOrers.
Taken the opportunity to work from
1900 men who were in the American
Steel Barge works. said Capt McDou-
gall, the inventor and builder of the ia
m0uS whalebacks. In three years L paid
out S3,00O,OOO to labor, and converted
Eaw material, the earth which we shovel
up out here few miles, into whaleback
vessels, which have been loaded with
grain and flour, and some of them made
the circuit of the globe. Those ZOO men
earned an average of 81 day, and we
paid out $1,000 900 a year for labor of
one class or another.
There was nothing to buy but labor.
We had the iron ore, and all that was
needed was labor to convert 1t into
whaleback. When we began here L had
200 men working on the excavations and
was paying them 81 a day for that labor.
"A mob of men came down here with
shotguns and tried to prevent men from
working for those wages. Now men
come here every day and beg for work
dor 81 a day or any wages. But in the
last II months instead of paying out
than $4,000, and now instead of 1000
nen we have about 80 on the pay rolls,
who are kept on repair work, and to keep
up the organization That is what the
democratic policy has done for the Amer
fCFn steel barge works And the men |
Employed helped to do it. They listened
20 the saloon talk and voted the Demo
cratic ticket. because they thought |
must be a Republican. The yards here
tTere full of work when the financial
crash came, and we finished up the most
Df it. There is the framework of one
fWhaIeback on the ways, and we shall
finish it sometime. 1t is difficult to say
When.'
This whaleback is the most conspicu-
GUS object in the shipyards. It's great
steel ribs stand there like the skeleton of
some mighty leyiathan of the deep which
mas been scraped and wired by the natu-
Ezaiist President Cleveland seems TO be
Sne naturalist who has dissected the body
90 the industrial giant that trod the
american continent only year ago.
The West Superior Iron and Steel
works are as quiet as the shipyards.
W. ere there were 600 men, 400 of them
SAILED Workmen, receiving S350,000 in
Iwages in 1892, there are now only the
{Watchmen TO protect the property from
destruction. The chair factory. that en-
Eloyed 500 men, now has about half that
Number working at reduced wages. The
Wagon works have 100 men instead of 200
e year ago: the Superior Stove works,
9faat had loo men year ago, have given
{he men but one months work this year
because there cannot be orders secured
faOr more work. These works will start
sR again about June 20 with twenty men
and a straight cut of 20 per cent. in
wages. For the last ten years the bust
ness of the stove foundries had steadily
increased at the rate of 10 per cent.
year IN this country, but last year it fell
OIL one-thiTd presumably because the wage
carriers did not have money to buy stoves
and heat their houses as they had done in
aGure prosperous times The same depres-
sion has run through all the manufacture
SQz plants in Superior. with the exception
OF the -four mills Some of these have
oG2E been finished in the last year, and
they have entered into sharp competition
with other mills. They have kept up their
1gil forces of men, but have run only
about ole-half their capacity, and they
sxsFwe saved the average payroll of the in
S1Esstrial army from falling below so per
cent of what it was in 1892
The trade review published by the
Evening Telegram April y, this year,
9kaces the number of men employed last
wear at 1912, as against S176 employed in
1892, and the wages paid at S2,S0O0O0,
as against nearly S5,O00,000 paid for
wages in 1892"