Meade County news. [volume] (Meade, Kan.) 1900-1918, 1912-09-19
NO AID TO WORKER
TARIFF is NOT RESPONSIBLE
FOR THE PROSPERITY OF
THE WAGE GARNER.
PROVED BY TWO INSTANCES
Condition of Worklngmen In Highly
Protected Steel Industry Is Bad
While Plants of Moderately Pro-
tected Farm implement Industry
Are Bright Spots In Labor World.

BY agreement of all observers,
lie dies hard. There, for example, is
the lie that asserts that the Ameri-
can workingman is dependent upon the
tar1n for whatever he enjoys of super
iority to the 'pauper workman" of Eur
ope In wages and standard of living.
Let US look at a couple of great Amer
lean Industries, one very highly, the
other very moderately, protected. BY
the theory, the workingmen employed
In the first ought to be better off
than those employed in the second.
Take the steel industry and the
agricultural implement industry, both
hourishing, and each enjoying a good
export trade. And in order not to
complicate the tariff problem with
the trust problem, suppose we leave
out the harvesting end Of the imple-
ment industry and consider only the
manufacture Of plows and machinery
for planting and cultivating, an I'M
monopolized branch. The SHOEMAKER
Is protected by As per cent. tariff;
the tariff on agricultural implements
Is Just 10 per cent. For the past fif-
teen years-the period of most rapid
development of both industries-the
tariff en- steel has ranged from two
and one-quarter to three times as
much as that on implements.
The condition of the workingmen
In the highly protected steel industry,
generally speaking, is bad, as the
world knows. A tariff barrier of As
per. cent. against the output of the
"pauper labor" of Belgium, Germany
and England has not kept the Ameri-
can workingmaR from making the ac-
quaintance Of the tNelve!-hour day
and the seven-day week 1t is ret
necessary to resume familiar facts;
tho Pittsburg Survey will supply de
tails to the curious, at any public IL
brary. Since the degree of prosperity
assured to the workingman by a 45
per cent. tariff is so low, we should
be prepared, according to orthodox
Republican doctrine, to find the en-
ployes Of pillow, planter and cultiva-
tor factories the pariahs of the in
dustrial world.
The very contrary of this assump-
ton is the fact. There are no bright
er spots in the American Industrial
system than these very plants, whose
tariff protection is relatively so little.
In the pillow towns" of Illinois you
b find
ton Is paid to matters of safety and
factory sanitation. In, 30 industry
employing an equal amount of I'M
skilled labor are conditions more sta
BILE. From this, and the thriftiness Of
the workingmen. 1t results that a
large proportion of them own their
own homes. 1t Is not uncommon to
find workingmen of three generations
Of the same family in single organ
! ization. One large concern has a sue
cessful pension and insurance scheme
In operation; another, instead of buy
ing outright inventions of employees,
pays substantial royalties for the use
Of them.
The tariff was not designed to help
the workingman. y is a thick to en-
able the manufacturer to exploit the
consumer, Nothing could be more
conclusive on this point than the con.
trast between industrial conditions In
the two industries under discussion.
Why is the infant" steel industry
protected by As per cent. tariff and
selling annually about $4,000. 900
worth of its products in the foreign
market, unable to treat its working
men as we'll as the pillow and planter
industry, which has only Is per
cent. tariff and an export trade OF
about one-twenty-flfth as much? And
how does it come that the implement
maker some years since, professed
their willingness to get on without any
tariff at all while the steel industry
according to no less an authority than
President Taft's veto message, would
be withered and blighted If the du
ties on steel were reduced to a figure
still substantially higher than the i'm
plement duties?
The answer Is that the tariff philos
ophy is a farrago of lies
Mere Details lacklnu