The Saint Paul globe., 1897-05-31
AN UNFORTUNATE REFERENCE.

A contemporary which thinks 1t is
Its duty to grind out a high tariff
moral from every happening that
comes within it's notice tells us that
the strike Of the garment makers in
New York city proves the remark Of
Mr.. Mckinley that cheap goods pro-
duce cheap men," It quotes a sched-
ule of wages paid to these people rang
ing from S. to 50 week. These are
certainly starvation rates, and work.
ingmen and women are right to pro-
test against them and to use every
legitimate means to better them. The
paper to which we refer, having de-
clared that it is better thousandfold
that clothing be doubled in price and
those who make it be decently clothed,
than to have it purchased cheaply at
the expense of human misery. leaves
us to understand that the policy Of Mr..
Mckinley would remedy this lament
able state Of affairs by levying high
duties on wool and woolens.
This Is an inference worthy Of the
protectionist, your true doctrinaire, but
the reference is an unfortunate one
for the high tariff cause. Are the
wages referred to a consequence OF free
wool? Is the existence Of sweat shops
and the prevalence Of this scale OF
wages a new thing come to vex us since
the passage of the German bill? Have
not the authorities and the charitably
disposed people of all our great cities
been fighting for years, while the Nc
Kinley act was in force even more
strenuously than now, to relieve the
miseries of the wretched people who
work in sweat shops and tenements? :?
Are the wages which they receive a
consequence Of low tariffs or of the
terrible competition Of labor for en-
ployment?
Who are these garment workers? Any
one who has read the Investigations
that have been made into the condi-
ton of these people in New York city
knows that they are foreigners almost
without exception. Russian and Polish
Jews by the thousands, Italians, Bo-
hemians and Polanders may be found
among the victims Of this cruel wage
scale, bidding eagerly against each
other for the favor Of employment at
starvation wages. The gates have
been open all these years for the steady
incoming stream of these people, and
they are still. The sweater is at lib
erty, whenever his employees strike, to
the immigration laws are insufficient
and easily evaded. For the prices
that will not sustain life in New York
he can find steerage loads Of people
in the slums Of European capitals to
undertake the voyage to America. Just
as soon as they become little ac-
customed to our ideas, grow dissatis-
fled with their remuneration and or
ganize to secure better pay, their places
are taken by successors from the ranks
of Europe.
Free trade in labor and the conse-
quent pressure of Old World competi-
tion upon us, not in making foreign
products, but right in our own mar
kets, is the explanation Of starvation
wage scales. Double the duty on raw
wool ord wooIap clothing dol1hJa tho
price of garments, and you have not
improved your man or relieved the mis-
fortune of his condition. The situa-
ton Of the garment makers has been
precisely the same under all kinds Of
tariffs. Protection never has increas-
ed and never can increase the prevail
ing rate of wages. That is not an
economic theory, but an economic fact.