Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1900-07-02

protection to the infant industries 81
America, with particular reference to
the share falling to the working
man. We are accustomed to hearing
this along about the opening of Cam
paign, and there e columns of figures
and great masses Of words going to
prove that if it was not for the high
tariff the industries of this land would
disappear, the mills and factories would
become silent, and once prosperous
cities and towns would become waste
places, with soup houses ON every block
and desperate and starving men wan
dering up and down the streets, vainly.
seeking for work and never finding it.
It's fetching picture, and Is supposed
TO have some effect upon certain weak
minds, to the corresponding benefit of
trusts and manufacturers.
This scarecrow assertion is scarcely
opportune at the present time, how
ever, although it has appeared. The in
dustrial news columns of yesterdays
papers contained the information that
175,000 iron and steel workmen were idle
through the closing down of mills and
furnaces, that the wage scales had not
been signed and probably would not be,
and Mr.. Henry Clews, of New York, who
contributes weekly review of the in
dustrial and monetary situation to the
press of the country. thinks that the de-
mands of labor must be modified
The wage-earner, who will be called
upon to vote in about four months,
should carefully note few facts.
The trusts and combines and the
money interests of the country gener-
ally unite in the statement that this
has been year of unusual prosperity.
The Republican press reiterates the as
sertion, and presently Republican ora
tors will be proclalming the statement
from thousand platforms. Money has
been plentiful and easy" Aggrega-
tons of capital have been formed with
out a parallel in the history of this or
any other nation, and prices have adj
vanced throughout the whole list of the
necessaries of life. Dividends have been
declared upon monstrous over-capital-
ization, much of it being water, and sur
pluses have been laid aside, while in
dustrial stocks, largely based upon
wind, have been doomed to par and far
above it. Vast fortunes have been
made in the past year or little over,
by favored few, and our export trade
has increased to magnificent proper
tons. But how has the wage-earner
Jared? A comparatively small number
have secured some advance in wages.
but the increase has by no means COM
pensated for the added cost of living.
The vast majority have received no in
crease at all, and are actually worse off
than before these piping times of trust
prosperity, for their income has not
been increased while their expenses
have. Now comes the reaction. Over
production has glutted the market, not
withstanding the foreign demand fac
tories are shutting down, and there are
intimations that wages may have to be
curtailed to the end that the artiflcially
promoted boom may be continued in
some shape or other, prices of stocks
maintained and dividends kept up
upon wind and water And meanwhile
the retail price to the consumer will be
maintained at the highest possible
notch, and the wage-earner will be
ground between the lower milestone of
unfair compensation and the upper one
of high prices for commodities.
This is where the alleged beauty of
the man who works for wages-it al
ways was and always will be. He pays
more in this country for the protected
article of manufacture than the citizen
of other nations, and he works for less
money than he did fifteen years ago.
The many are robbed and a few are
benefited yet the cry of the Republi-
can press and of the Republican plat
form declaimer is still that our imma
ture manufacturing interests require the
protection of a tariff tax, and that the
higher this tax is the more the poor
man is benefited.
1t is the most gigantic humbGg of
any age, and its continuance is a re-
preach to the intelligence of enlightened
men.
4
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