Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1912-10-01
REPUBLICAN
NOMINATIONS
&
For President.
WILLIAM H. TAFT
OF Ohio.
For Vice President.
JAMES S. SHER MAN
or New York.
or New York.
Our workinemen or Foreigners?

suppose
consider this truism: when some
thing is bought ABROAD, the like OF
which has been made in this country
some American workman is robbed ,
employment. e es
DR.. Wilson attacks the silk indus
try. He would throw open our markets
to the competition of Chinese and
japanese cheap labor. We do not
know why he should prefer giving
prosperity to Celestiais to our own
countrymen. But he wears silk hose.
underwear and pajamas and that is
the inference to be drawn from his
1utterances.
We could hardly believe that DR..
Wilson has any personal grudge
against the silk industry in this coun-
try or any one of its $4,000 American
workmen. Perhaps he does not know
as much as he pretends to about this
business. He may not know the facts
which were recently published in the
New York Commercial. Perhaps Dr.
Wilson has not heard that this pro-
tected industry has grown from moth
ing to 900 factories in this country
He may not have heard that this bust
ness, which was unknown in America
in the days of Abraham Lincoln, now
has an annual output of $175,000,000.
And it likewise may not have oe-
CURED to him that silks cost from 80
to 50 per cent LESS now than they
did no farther back than the days of
Cleveland's first administration.
After DR.. Wilson has learned these
important facts, We would like to ask
him if he thinks the prices of silks
would have been reduced as rapidly
had we continued to buy all our silks
abroad, and prices had been fixed by
a foreign monopoly? Does he think
it would be any better now to de-
nounce the silk business as an over
grown industrial infant. and proceed
to cripple it, and turn its $4,000 en-
ployes upon the labor market to COM
pete for the jobs of other working
men? Would the turning over of this
splendid industrial enterprise to be
eign labor be more conducive to his
happiness?
We wonder why this immaculate
American gentleman is distressed be-
cause he has 70 Wear American socks.
He can certainly get the foreign arti
Gle if he is first patriotic enough to
contribute to the welfare of those who
employ him to teach their. children.
Or he might initiate the famed Sock
less Jerry Simpson.
Why should Democracy, in the face
of the demonstrations we have suf
fered, still fly in the face of Provi-
dence and common sense and persist
in favorng the country's rivals in
stead of it's own interests2
William L. Wilson was lauded and
puffed by British merchants as the
man who favored the introduction OF
foreign goods in our ports. to the dis
placement of homemade articles
Probably half the voters in this coun-
try remember the results of the Will
son tariff. How many in New Eng
land remember the day when twelve
Thousand unemployed workihgmer
marched to the State House in Boston
and demanded work? That was it
March, 1894.
In those days hundreds of thou
sands of able bodied and willing work
ers were living on charity in Ne9
York. Chicago and other large cities
The cost of living was low, but Their;
was no work in which to earn thu
money to get the living. AT that tim,
the. newspapers and magazines wer
Y mad with distressing accounts ant
pictures. Every week Harpers ant
Leslie's told the awful story in repro
duced photographs.
n In May, 1894, Coxey's army, an
4 KelIeys army marched on Washing
ton. to bear witness of the state of af
fairs and demand government bont
& issue with which to employ idle work
inginen in the construction of publ,
roads.
And today selfish politicians pooh
pooh at the reminder of those heart
reuding times. characterless Demo