Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1903-08-27
PROTECTION AND LABOR.
An Acute Exposure of the Workings
of High Tariff in This
Country.

The textile workers of Philadelphia,
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-
lions such as 1--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 ma
ture. One motto was especially sig
nificant: "If 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 taxing
the many for the profits of the few.
They now discover what it has been diff
ficult to make them before believe, that
the trusts and combines are unwillingt to
increase wages to a 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
to raise prices until the average cost
of living has increased about 40 per
cent. The second excuse has been an
arrant failure or the workingman would
not be striking for a 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 it is considered that a majority of
the workers are women, girls and chill
dren, and ten hours a day or 60 hours
a week, in badly ventilated workshops,
Is more than their tender years should
be asked to endure. The wages paid
range from $13 a week for the expert
WSdNClo W lNO uOllulo q WCCh lol IhO
children. Do the hours or wages protect
these workers as the protectionists
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 tariff-the workers dis
satisfied with their condition instead of
the good wage 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 sole
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 well enough alone"
i, "The friends of protection only must
reform the tariff" When more inquisi-
tive or impatient voters ask when ref
ormation will begin, the answer always
, is after election" and like the Span
ish "manana," tomorrow never m
The tariff will never be reformed until
the people elect a majority of congress
. that are free from the trust faint and
whom the corporations are opposed to.
, 1t is not human nature to expect those
who are receiving trust and corporation
favors to legislate against them.