Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1903-08-06
PROTECTION DERIDED.
Workers Want Their share of Pros-
perity as Well ms the PAM
pered trusts.

The prolonged strike of the textile
workers at Philadelphia is having one
good effect that will aid the whole coun-
try in throwing off the incubus of the
protective tariff. Special dispatches
from the Quaker city report that duxng
the last few weeks the trend Of political
feeling has been changing rapidly. and
in every street parade made by the
strikers banners are carried bearing
sarcastic announcements and questions
such as: we are protected by a tariff,
but the republican mill owners say we
will be starved into submission" Why
are the tariff protected mills closed?"
and many others of a like nature. One
motto was especially significant: III
prosperity is so general, why can't we
have a bit of it?"
The workers are at last discovering
that the protective tariff means high
prices for what they have to buy and tax
ing the many for the profits of the few.
They nov discover what it has been diff
ficult to make them before believe, that
the trusts and combines are unwilling
to increase wages to a par with the in
creased cost of living, or indeed any
where near it.
Only two excuses have been made for
protection; first to control the home
market for American manufacturers,
and, second, to protect American labor.
The first excuse has been pretty fully
accomplished at the expense of the con-
sumner. The tariff has prevented compe-
tition and has allowed the trusts to raise
prices until the average cost of living
has increased about 40 per cent. The
second excuse has been an arrant fall
ure, or the working man would not be
striking for a fair share of the pros
perity that the trusts enjoy. The wages
received by these workers are certainly
less than will keep them in comfort at
the present high price of living.
The hours of labor of the Philadelphia
textile workers have been too long, when
it is considered that a majority of the
workers are women, girls and children,
and ten hours a day or GO hours a week,
III pduly NClllldISu W. " ohoPS, io
than their tender years should be asked
to endure. The wages paid range from
$13 a week for the expert weavers to
two dollars a week for the children. Do
the hours or the wages protect these
workers as the pr~otectionists would have
us believe? The manufacturers have adj
vanced the price of the products of the
mills, and carpets and the other textiles
the workers produce have increased
fully Is per cent, and those who buy
them have to pay that increase. So in
Philadelphia we have an acute exposure
of the workings of the protective tariff
The workers. dissatisfied with their con-
dition, instead of the good wages and
comfort that the champions of the pro-
tective system would have us believe al
ways accompanies it.
The manufacturers, who are mostly
combined into trusts, are the sole bene-
f~ciaries of this extraordinary system,
have become rich, and are still growing
richer. They sell to the American peo-
pie at exorbitant prices, and export sim
liar goods and sell them in Europe and
elsewhere at a much less price. And yet
the republican leaders say stand pat"
''let well enough alone" THE friends
of protection only must reform the tar
iff." When some inquisitive or impa-
tient voter asks when reformation will
begin, the answer always is-after cleo
ton, and like the Spanish "Manana,"
tomorrow never comes. The tariff will
never be reformed, until the people elect
a majority of congress that are free
from the trust faint and who the cor
porations are opposed to. 1t is not
human nature to expect those who are
receiving trust and corporation favors
to legislate against them.