The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1896-09-08
A HOME ISSUE.

The rolling mills have started up again
in this city. If business is fair the opera
tors promise to give employment to several
hundred men. If otherwise, the mills will
not run very long These mills are making
steel billets out of which sheets for tin
plates are made and rods for the making
of wire nails
What are the menaces to the running of
the rolling mills for a long time? First,
the panic which the election of William j.
Bryan would bring. The works would close
in a week after such an event, and no man
in the iron and steel business could pre-
dict when such factories would again light
their fires. Second competition of cheap
labor. To a citizen one of the managers
of the rolling mills said: Il can't tell how
long we shall run. A large part of our
product is turned into wire nails. Within
a few weeks the japanese have purchased
and shipped to that country duplicates of
the machinery with which wire nails are
made After a while japanese workmen. to
whom not over 80 cents a day is paid in
silver worth but 10 cents in gold, can make
nails as we'll with that machinery can
those who are paid ten fifteen times
as much wages in this country. The men
who are putting money into the japanese
| nail enterprises propose to sell their prod
uct, made with cheap labor, in this coun-
try in competition with our product
Freights are but an inconsequent matter
consequently the Japanese nail makers will
capture the market of the Pacific coast
and as much more they supply. If
o,;ff AZ:
ence in labor between Japan and the
United States. the cheap-living, low-wage
japanese will materially injure our home
market
The above is the statement OF one BUSH
ness to another in canvassing the
prospects of an Indianapolis industry. The
Stewards and the other silver mine owners
urge as a remedy the forcing of this country
to the silver basis of Japan, which would
reduce the actual compensation of men re-
ceiving 81 per day a gold basis to 81 per
day on a silver basis. If the difference
between the purchase power of silver
money in silver countries and the money
now in use in the United States should
prevail in the event of going to a sill
yer basis, the 81 now paid would be equiv
alent to 81 as the 80 cents a day now paid
in Japan is equivalent to is cents in our
money. But even the defrauding of COM
peting labor in this country of one-half
the present wages by substituting silver
monometallism for gold would not email BILE
our manufacturers to hold the home mar
kets. With the same kind of machinery
we must fall to the japanese level of wages
or else the duties on imported merchandise
must be made so high as to make up the
difference between wages in the two coun-
tries.
The Republican remedy for saving our
competing industries from being destroyed
by the low-wage. low-living labor of silver
monometallist countries is to maintain our
present monetary standard and impose a
tariff which will make up the difference
between the wages in the two countries
This is not a case where the tariff reform
or free trade theories be applied, since
to do would tend to degrade the condi-
ton of labor in this country to that of
Japan. Such a change in wages as is in
volved in anything like free competition
with Japan in the industries it proposes to
adopt is an assault upon the American
standard of living-upon American civiliza-
ton.