The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1899-10-10
TARIFF TRUSTS AND WAGES.

It is interesting to know how many de-
tenders and friends a~ll-grabbing trusts
have. and that. too. among people who
are not rich, are not manufacturers,
are not working people. They are ready
for plausible defence and favorable adj
vocacy. And they are in newspaper Of
ices as well as in other offices. Take
a recent example OF a rise in price OF
iron The production OF a ton Of pig iron
is s. more than IL was some time ago.
The advance is $40 per ton. Seven dol
lars extra of profit. you see. above
cost. How much of his rise goes to
the toilers? Labor gets 80 cents per
ton increase-the lions share going n
the greedy trust. Ii reminds one OF
the old plea OF the robber protection
lists all along the past. They cried that
unless they obtained a great bounty
from the government they could not
pay good wages or compete with for
eign manufacturers. Both pleas were
rotten, were lies. The great increase
in profits went into the pockets Of the,
remorseless owners. When the opera
tive received a dime increase in wages,
the owner put a dollar or five dollars
in his pocket. Now American manu-
features go into all the markets Of
the world and compete easily with The
goods of other nations. The whole
scheme of bounty bleeding was a fraud.
a piece of robbery and rascality.
Senator Foraker is now on the side
of the attorneys for trusts, holding
that the outrageously high tariff tax
has nothing to do with formation OF
trusts. In the United State more
trusts have been formed in two years
under the -Dingley high rob-
Der tax han in the preceding hundred
years. Everything found in the tariff
schedule that is largely protected has
been followed by a trust formed to
manufacture that thing. Surely, the
| tariff is tremendously influential in
building up gigantic trusts. The Chi
cago Chronicle, about the only simon
pure democratic paper in Chicago, says:
THE object of every trust is to stife
competition at jill IL IL - SuCCSSS-
full it has only competition from abroad
to meet, and If the tariff protects it
against foreign competition by a duty
of say so per cent. on the foreign COM
peting article it is enabled by that
duty to practice eXtortion to just that
extent. TIC every man of sense, there
fore, it is all but s~elf-evident that pro-
lection favors trusts"
But how the curse is to be lifted from
the country Inc protection against their
enemies given to the people is just what
rrovokes much controversy. Probably
the views of Mr.. Bryan are as practi-
cal and sound as those of any other
public man or newspaper.
Some time G the manager of the
steel mills at Johnstown, Penn, issued
"a notice to it's employees, telling them
that on account of depressed prices,
n the severe drop in the price of
rails" their wages would be cut down
10 per cent. The Johnstown Democrat
wishes to now this:
Nov, if wages were cut on account
OF the reduction in the price of steel
l;lils. why are they not now advanced
correspondingly with the tremendous
advance in the price of that commodi-
ty? The steel manufacturers compelled
their workmen to share their, alleged
losses. Why should the workmer not
in turn compel the manufacturers to
share their enormous gains?"