Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1903-09-15
PROTECTION AND LABOR.
An Acute Exposure of the workings
Of High Tarin I'm This
Country.

who have been striking for some time
past, are evidently doing some thinking,
and recently in every street parade made
by the strikers banners are carried bear
ing sarcastic announcements and ques-
tons such as I'VE are protected by q
tariff, but the republican miu-owners
Say We will be starved into submission"
why are the tariff-protected mills
closed?" and many others of like ma
ture. One motto was especially sig
pificant: IF prosperity is SO general.
why can't we have q bit of it?" The
workers are at last discovering that
the protective tariff means high prices
for what they have to buy and taxing
the many for the profits of the few.
They now discover what It has been diff
dcult to make them before believe, that
the trusts and combines are unwilling to
Increase wages to par with the in-
creased cost of living, or indeed any
where near it. says the Indianapolis
Sentinel.
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
consumer. The tariff has prevented
competition and has allowed the trusts
to raise prices until the average cost
of living has increased about 40 pei
cent. The second excuse has been an
arrant failure or the workingman would
not be striking for fair share of the
prosperity that the trusts enjoy. The
wages received by these workers are GER
tainly less than will keep them in COM
fort at the present high price of living.
The hours OF labor of the Philadelphia
textile workers have been too long,
when 1t is considered that a majority of
the workers are women, girls and chill
dren, and ten hours day or co hours
week, In badly ventilated workshops,
Is more than their tender years should
be asked to endure. The wages paid
range from $13 week for the expert
weavers to two dollars week for the
children. Do the hours or wages protect
these workers as the protectionista
would have us believe? The manufac-
turers have advanced 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 tarin-the workers dis
satisfied with their condition instead OF
/ the good wages and comfort that the
champions Of the protective system
would have us believe always accom-.
pany it.
The manufacturers, who are mostly
combined into trusts and are the sol,
benefciaries of this extraordinary sys
tenn. have become rich and are still
growing richer. They sell to the Amer
lean people at exorbitant prices and ex
port similar goods and sell them in Eu
rope and elsewhere at a much less price
And yet the republican leaders say
Stand pat" Let we'll enough alone,
1.-THE friends of protection only mus
reform the tariff" When more inquisi
tive or impatient voters ask when ref.
ormation will begin. the answer Away
is After election" and like the Span.
ish "manana." tomorrow never comes
The tariff will never be reformed until
the people elect majority of congress.
that are free from the trust faint and
whom the corporations are opposed to
It is not human nature to expect those
who are receiving trust and corporation
favors to legislate against them.