St. Paul daily globe., 1895-05-20
THE WAL OF THE RoBBER.

Your high protectionist is never
weary of exhibiting his solicitude for
the workingman. All his anxiety
about having tariff duties made as
high as possible is, he will tell you,
caused by his desire to have the wages
of labor made ample. He has never
yet explained how the manufacturer
is to be obliged to divide with his
employees. 1t is the capitalist into
whose hands a protective tariff puts
the power to eXtort money from the
consumer. He is the direct beneficiary
of those taxes that have been i'm
posed, under the protective theory
on the nation, for the alleged benefit
of labor. But at that point legislation
stops. No machinery is provided for
realizing the professed benefit to the
workingman. There is no means by
which he may enforce a divide. And
in practice he usually works on at the
old wages until at last he extracts, by
the costly process of the strike, por-
ton of the increased profits that his
employer is receiving through the tax
ing power of the government exercised
upon the whole people.
1t is seldom that the rapacity of the
protected classes is as openly con-
fessed as it is by the New York Trib-
une, which views with amazement
and sorrow the desire of the laboring
man to share in the benefits of the
late improvement in business condi-
tions. Looking upon the movement
of workers in various portions OF the
country to secure for themselves a
portion of the gain involved in new
activity and a rise of prices, it Won
ders at their unreasonable rapacity.
"It is to be regretted extremely" it
says, edtorially, "that just when the
great industries are enjoying an in
creased demand for their products, an
epidemic of strikes for higher wages
has broken out, and spreads rapidly"
This is a species of nreasonableness
for which it has no tolerance; and it
warns laborers in the great indus
tries that '4they have no more chance
of success than the angry waves have
Of breaking down the iron-bound cliffs
against which they dash"
Every one who understands politi-
cal economy, and the New York Trlb-
une, which does not, will tell the
workingman that he ought not to
strike on falling market. Resistan
to reduction Of wages, caused by de-
cline of business and lowered prices,
is usually hopeless. But now the
Tribune tells him that it is equally
useless, and even more unkind, to
ask for more wages on a rising mar
ket. The logical conclusion from
which is that he ought never to eX-
pect better wages at all. When prices
are going down, he cannot expect
them. When prices are going up, he
must not petition for them; because
the wicked Democrats have reduced
the tariff, and manufacturers cannot
afford to pay wages even when they
are making money. This is all that
one would expect of the New York
Tribune. But it is worth while for
the Worklngman TO stop 70 consider
the quality of the sympathy extended
to him by this apostle Of extreme
protection. 1t is exactly what one
might suppose it to be. The care of
the protectionist is for himself. If
he can use the Iaborer for his own ad
vantage, that is enough for him.
Never was the true nature Of the
"robber tariff better exhibited than
in this wall of its organ over the de-
mand of labor to share in the profits
of returning prosperity. Labor can
judge for itself of the sincerity of a
professed devotion to it's interests
which exhibits itself in plea for
stationary wages with a rising mar
ket.