The copper era and Morenci leader., 1912-11-01
lINIMvlIAISkING THE
 TARIFF DELUSION
Franklin Pierce Shows That La Dor Is Not Benefited by
 Unjust Tax.
MANUFACTURER KEEPS PROFIT
Proof of Democratic Platforms Sound ness Cited In Reports of Wage In- vestigations.
By FRANKLIN PIERCE.

OJ hAtNNGiiN
 For a hundred years of our history the manufacturers, believing that they received a benefit from the protective tariffs, have ingeniously devised plaus- ible pretexts for imposing increased prices upon the necessaries of life. At first they said that industry in our country was in it's infancy and needed protection. When those industries had become strong and needed no aid the manufacturers invented the theory that the foreigner paid the duty. This theory was exploded, and they declar- ed that cheap clothing meant cheap men and was not blessing.
 Driven from every one of these inde- fensible positions, their final and only argument left today is that the tariff is imposed upon foreign imports to en- able the manufacturer to increase his profits and pay higher wages.
 The Democratic platform declares that:
 Tn the most highly protected indus tries, such as cotton and wool. steel and iron, the wages of the laborers are the lowest paid in any of our indus tries"
 Proof of this statement is found in reports of many recent official investi- gations of wages in the United States. Wages In Cotton Industry.
 Under the existing Payne-Aldrich tariff law actual imports of cotton cloth paid in 1910 average duties of 56.4 per cent
 In 1905, when work and wage condi- tions in the cotton industry were ex- 4I.z cotton mill operatives in the United Statesmen, women and children-av- eraged only $6.47 week. The average wage for men was but $7.71 a week, for women S6.30 and for children, $3.21.
 AS to the profits, seventeen leading cotton mills, with total capitalization of $25,110,000 and total surplus of $21,- 363. .501. paid in nine years dividends averaging 22 per cent.
 The cotton manufacturers turned out in 1905 $442, ,451,2 ,21S worth of goods and paid in wages therefore $e4, ,337 ,695, or 21 per cent of the value of the finished product.
 Extortion of Wool Tariff.
 Outside of the duties on two or three commodities of comparatively little i'm portance, the duties on woolen, cloth are the highest of any in the tariff schedules. According to Senator Reed Shoot, owner of woolen mill at Provost, Utah, and chairman of the fEance committee in charge of tariff legislation in the senate, wearing ap- parel valued at 30 cents a pound now pays 206 2-3 per cent. duty.
 This and other corresponding1y high duties on the manufactures of wool are made to enable the manufacturer to pay his labor an increased wage oyer those of foreign countries. But the duty on woolen goods is nearly five times the entire labor cost, while the in wages only IS per cent of the total value of their production
 At Lawrence in this most highly pro- tected industry the laborers were obliged to strike even for a living wage. Thousands of adult males were receiving only from s6 to $9 week and many only $5 to s6 week As result of the strike the American Woolen company gave it's employees slight increases in wages.
 The wool tariff bill vetoed by Presi- dent Taft reduced the duties on raw wool from APO to 29 per cent. and on manufactures of wool from S7.65 to 4S.36 per cent. MT. Taft said he ve- toed it because the proposed rates did not comply with the findings of the tariff board. Senator La Toilette con- tradicted the president, saying that the proposed rates varied from l per cent. lower to 11.6 higher than the tariff boards findings justified.
 Low Wages In Steel.
 Manufacturers of iron and steel in 1905 paid in wages only 15 per cent of the total value of their production, while the duty then would average about 45 to AT per cent, and on all metals 1t now averages 34.51 per cent.
 American wages are really the cheapest wages in the world when YOU take into account the amount of pro. duction per man.
 An illustration of this appears in the Stanley report, Investigating the steel trust, as follows:
 ''The labor cost of producing pig iron in Pennsylvania fell from SIPS a ton in 1902 to S2 cents ton in 1909 yet the realized value of the pig iron output was $15.64 in 1902, whereas it was $17.44 in 1909. In other words. wageworkers in 1902 got S125 for pro- 1ucing only S15.64 worth of pig iron and in 1909 only S2 cents for produc- Ing $17.44 worth
 While thus treating labor the indus rial combinations that have grown up 1nder the protection of the tariff have fixed the prices of commodities at the highest point the home market would stand. For twelve years they have oeen unjustly transferring through the protection tariff billions of dollars from he earnings of labor into their own oockAtS