Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1900-08-23
OF Interest to Labor.
Democratic Platform.
Republican Platform.

Republican Platform. Democratic Platform.
We renew our faith in In the interest ofAmer-
the policy of protection ican labor and the up
to American labor. In lifting of the working
that policy our indus man, as the corner stone
tries have been estab- of the prosperity of our
lished, diversified and country, we recommend
maintained. BY pro- that Congress create a
tecting the home mar department of labor in
ket competition has charge of a secretary,
been stimulated and with q seat in the Cabi-
production cheapened. net, believing that the
Opportunity to the in elevation of the Amer1-
ventive genius of our can laborer will bring
people has been secured with itincreased protec-
and wages in every de- ton and increased pros
partment of labor main perity to the country at
tanned at higher rates home and to our COM
higher now than ever merce abroad.
beforehand always dis
tinguishing ourworking
people in their better
conditions of life from
thise of any competing
country.
Here are the respective planks OF
the two platforms on the question
of Improvement Of the condition of
the American workingman. These
planks are worthy of a little study.
The Republican plank is positive,
frank and definite. 1t distinctly
says that the Republican plan for
bettering the condition of American
labor is to maintain the policy of
protection; to protect, by tariff,
the labor of the United States from
the competition which free trade
would certainly produce in allow
ing the products of pauper labor
from both England and Asia to
come into the American market
and thus stopping mills, factories,
mines and the thousands of indus
tries now furnishing remunerative
employment to American skill.
What does the Democratic plat
form promise? In another plank
it opposes a protective tariff, and
for the uplifting of the condition of
American labor it promises nothing
more and nothing better than the
creation of another office. They
say in effect, we love the American
laborer so much that in the event
of our success at the polls, we
promise to try to create secretary
and a lot of other of1ice-holders to
look after the interests of the labor
ing men, unmindful of the fact that
there is already non-partisan de-
partment of labor doing efficient
and satisfactory work for the labor
interests of the country. Were the
labor interests Of the country to be
placed in charge of a cabinet officer,
the matter by the very nature of
the case would have to become par
tisan.
Laboring men can easily weigh
the respective merits of the two
parties with reference to their in
fuence on the question of work and
wages by comparing the tramping
armies, the charity soup houses,
the silent factories, the grass-grown
railroads. and the stagnation of
1898 and 1S94-produced by the
Democratic threat of a policy of
free trade or revenue tariff-With
the protective tariff and its results,
as seen to-day with busy mills,
crowded railways, employed labor,
good wages, and the heaviest ex-
ports ever made by this or any other
country since nations began to ex-
change product. Labor will be
slow to give up an evident, tangible,
constant condition of prosperity
for the promise of creating another
office to be filled by a henchman of
the boy orator of the Platte.
Bryan says it is better to open
the mints and cut the dollar in
which wages are paid in the middle.
President Mckinley says tits better
to open the mills and continue to
pay good wages in the best money
the world has ever known. 1t is
for labor to decide which of the two
policies is most likely to butter his
bread.