The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1897-07-29
Daily Eagle
NJ. NJ. MURDOCH. Editor.
A SERIOUS RUESTION.

General prosperity is only possIol
when everybody is busy, with remuner
ative work. Good times are Impossible
with half of the laboring people OF tht
country idle, whatever may be the 9th
er conditions. or however large the vol
ume of the currency. Industry is at the
bottom. is the basis of all prosperity
local and national For four years Oh
more there has been dearth in the in
flustrial interests of the country. Fac
tories have stood idle, improvements ol
every character have been standing
still and town building and railway
construction have practically ceased
The demand for labor being Nil, the
products of labor have fallen TO IN
profitable prices. In the idle Iaborer,
the consumer was wanting. therefore
everything wanting that goes to make
I'D good times. To meet this eXigencc
and to surmount all the depressing con-
ditions growing out Of it the Republi-
can party has pur up a bar against the
products of cheap foreign labor, in the
way of high tariff. The aim and ex-
pecttion is that by shutting out the free
competition of cheap foreign labor that
our own labor would find remunerative
employment, that the factory and mine,
and field would thus find consumers at
living prices for their respective pro-
ducts.
And now. with the enactment Of the
bill signed by the president last Satur-
day, the protection for American indus
tries by means Of duties on imports
must be considered settled for years.
The business interests will resist all
attempts at further tampering with the
law as it now stands. Whether it
would have been wise to Lave immedi-
;tely taken up the money question and
thereby bring on a new agitation before
the effect of the new policy had been
given time for legitimate results, we
will not pretend TO declare That the
next great issue seems, to Us, certain.
Still its pOStpOnement for the present
may have been for the best. The c0un-
Try should be given a few months to
test its bearings under a protective tar
if, which promises much. The dizziness
and inactivity of the past four years,
e-l,-
les, are not wholly attributable to over
production. The SURPRISES of cheap I'M
portatiOns have played their depressing
parts. The question of a standard
money and the uncertainty and diSsatis-
faction growing out of its agitation has
affected every value and reached every
conceivable line of business. But next
II these two factors comes the immi-
grafton question. The product OF cheap
foreign labor bears no more heavily
than the product of the cheap lmmi-
grant. 1t is. in fact, one and the same
thing. A protective tariff VIII keep out
the product of the cheap laborer but
not the laborer himself While immi-
grafton for the past two years has been
comparatively very light, it was only
because times have been so hard here
that there was little inducement for
immigration. especially from Great
Britain and Germany, where times, ow-
ing TO the Cleveland policy of free
trade, have been more than ordinarily
good. But with Il change for the better
i'll this country every ship will come
loaded with foreigners seeking labor.
which foreigners will per force of their
htraitened circumstances compete
with the home labOrer for whatever
they can get. This will counteract
much of the good of the tariff law and
also tend to weaken the results of its
revenue features.
In short the United States of America !
has arrived at that stage of her devel- |
opment when it is no longer necessary |
10 coax people to come to our shores, |
that class who bring nothing I
but expect 10 gain everything from us. |
American wOrkmen must be protected |
against the cheap dependent of Europe. /
or otherwise our Norkingmen viii I've /
forced down TO the same cheap level. |
Congress, at its next session. should /
take up This question Of immigration /
with view of preventing the old-time |
flow of cheap, dependent
European immigration.