Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1913-08-25
Underwood Bill and U. S. Mills.

with Mr.. Pattangal and those
speaking for him on the stump telling
Of the prosperity Of Waterville textile
bills, and calling the Republicans who
tear the new tariff bill calamity
howlers." our readers may be interest
Ia in the following written for the
Kennebec Journal by Hon. F. G. r.
Gordon of Haverhill, Mass.
to the fact that japanese mills operate
% hours a day with a wage that av-
efages 20 cents day. DO we wish
to hive as they do in order to compete
with them?
eve shut out the Chinese because of
their manner of life, morals and stan
laboring classes to compete with them
on an even footing in the struggle for
existence?
Are the generations of building up
an American standard of life superior
to that of any other nation to be
thrown away without instant protest,
TO crafty the political whim and
gamble of quack doctrine party that
has no issue but the opposite of Re-
publican constructive policy?
Read what Prof. Gordon says of 1t:
I'VE are about to try the scheme of
a low tariff again. Everybody knows
what happened under the WilsonGor
1uan bill, under the Cleveland admins
atration. That measure filed our
Streets and highways with idle men
and women: it produced for the first
time in our history the soup-house
reign: it closed two-thirds of all the
wooden mills in the country and forty
per cent. of the cotton machinery. But
mighty changes have taken place since
the last Democratic administration
When the German Wilson bill became
n raaw we had only Europe to compete
with in the protection of textile goods,
but to-day We have not only Europe.
but what is of vastly more importance,
we are about to have the competition
of Japan. Twenty years ago Japan
was not thought of as a textile nation
and it is only within the last few
years that she has become a competi-
rAn>w4th the industrial nations of the
west of Europe and America. To-day
Japan is little giant in the textile
aNorld. She is expanding her cotton
mills by leaps and bounds. Last year
she imported over 1,141.000 bales of
raw cotton from America, India and
other countries. The mills of Japan
are equipped with the most modern
machinery, made in Hopedale, Mass,
and the machinery centres of Europe
The writer has seen cotton machinery,
ny the car load being shipped from the
great Draper plant at Hopedale direct
10 Japan.
The cotton mills of Japan run %
hours a day. There are no labor laws
in that country. Moreover, the mill
men of America have no advantage in
the matter of skill over those of Japan.
Indeed, the Jap is a quick and skillfui
operator. AS for wages: men opera
tives receive Is cents per day, women
receive 16 cents and children receive
only s cents for IL hours work-an
average wage of twenty cents for an
eleven hour work day Think of that
condition you workers of Maine.
Less than two cents an hour for
labor in the great cotton mills OF
doing in the matter of competition in
the markets of the world? Ten years
ago England had monopoly of the
cotton yarn trade Of China. Today
Japan has that monopoly. and Eng
land has lost it forever. Japan SEN
into the markets of the Far East las
wear more IMAM s5o,ooU,oVo worm %
cotton goods; she even invaded tht
markets Of India and forced the clos
ing Of mills in the city of Calcutta
THE Indian mill worker, though re-
ceising less wages than the Jap, il
unable TO compete with the more skill.
fsl, workers of the Empire Of the Ris-
sAng Sun.
Not only have the textile worker,
of America and Europe got to fac
the growing competition of Japan