St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1916-11-01
c. 0. P. RALLY
CONTINUED from page one.)
limited opportunity to individual
effort and development

effort and development.
The marked effect of our type of
upon wages is astonish-
ing. The American thought has al
ways been that IL the people are to
govern, they should individually be
as well as moral.
Under our system OF public schools.
town meetings. frequent elections and
suffrage, the ancient blight
of serfdom has been destroyed, the
dignity Of labor has been recognized.
and a reasonable reward has been
accordeded to every form of indus
try.
The extent to which this has been
done is astonishingly revealed in a re.
cent report of the British Board of
Trade who Investigated the subject in
every country Of continental Europe.
as well as in the United States. and
whose report shows that wages in the
United States are, as a whole. two
and one-half times greater than in
Great Britain: two and three
fourths times greater than in Ger
many and more than three times
greater than in France or Belgium.
In the attitude of the republican
and democratic party toward labor,
the reward for which is so much
greater in the United States than in
Europe, differs radically in character,
and the. question whether the Ameri-
can working man shall be protected
in his birthright or whether he shah
be compelled to relinquish it and
compete directly with his less fortu-
nate brother across the seas is one
which must be determined in the ap-
preaching election.
For more than a half century, this
government has, with the exception
of a single term, been administered
under the principles adopted by the
republican party; that in providing
revenues for the support of the gen.
eral movement by duties on imports,
they should be so adjusted as to de-
velop the industrial interests of the
whole country, to secure to the work
ing man liberal wages, to agriculture
remunerative prices; to manufacture
ers and mechanics an adequate re-
ward for their skill, labor and en-
terprise and to the nation commercial
prosperity and independence.
On the other hand, the democratic
party has, from the beginning, ad
vocated the principle of a tariff for
revenue only, and has before the war
and ever since, and especially in their
platform of 1912, declared, that the
federal government has no right or
power to impose or collect tariff du-
ties except for the purposes of rev.
enue."
In other words, it denies that any
right or power exists in our govern
~ To- 70 wit
eign nations so as to preserve to
American citizens that superior rate
of wages which is their birthright,
the construction Of which, the prin-
pie Of protection is absolutely ig-
nored.
President Wilson in his message to
congress said:
1.-THE object of the tariff duties
henceforth laid must be effected COM
petition, the whetting of American
wits by contest with the wits of the
rest of the world"
And the democratic committee In
presenting the Underwood bill to con-
gress said:
Long before the committees work
has been founded upon a belief in the
theory is absolutely rejected as a
guide to tariff making"
Later in the discussion in the SEN
ate. the chairman, Mr.. Simons of
North Carolina, who had charge of
the Underwood bill, said:
1--WE have not been trying to bal
ance any labor cost here and abroad
because we are not trying to make a
protective BILL
And in replying to a question from
Senator Mclean Of Connecticut:
Now the senator from Connecti-
cut is talking about protection, he
says, one gives adequate protection,
and the other does not give adequate
protection 1 have stated to the
senator that we were not trying to
give protection to duties on imports
here"
The Senator then entered upon a
detailed argument and demonstrated
that the Underwood bill under which
we are now living is a direct attack
upon the great leading industries of
the United States, compelling the
manufacturers of the nation either to
reduce the compensation paid to their
employees to the standard of Euro
pean working men, or to get out of
business.
That during the first year of its
operation and down to the beginning
of the great European war. it's effect
was to curtail our productions and to
produce a condition of distress in all
the great centers of our population.
He then proceeded to demonstrate
by facts and figures which cannot be
controverted that our present admit
ted prosperity results solely from the
enormously increased expectations Of
war munitions and of supplies COW
ering every class of production in the
United States, particularly of wool
ems, boots and shoes, saddlery goods,
leather goods, metals. horses and
mules, hay. grain, grain of every
kind, particularly wheat, ETC., ETC.
In closing. the Senator sharply
called attention to the entire collapse
of the present business boom under
which our people are prospecting so
marvelously and Unexpectedly, and to
the distress which VIII follow when
they are compelled to do business I'M
der the Underwood bill under normal
conditions.