The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1922-03-16
Why America Leads the World.

Why America Leads the World. I.
Forbes Magazine, which is opposed
to the American protective policy,
says: ,>.. IL: aa4sJ
|'The United States leads the world
in wages and in purchasing power Of
wages, because we lead the world in
production per man. To continue to
lead in wages and in comforts of life
we must hold our lead in production.
To do this we must keep our home
market for our home industries, and
get and hold our share of the foreign
market for the products Of our fac
tories, farms, mills and mines. For
eign wages are low, raw materials are
comparatively cheap, and the scale of
living is low. We cannot maintain
our high wages as against low foreign
wages unless we increase and main
tain production per man high enough
to offset the wage difference"
The United States leads the world
in wages because the American home
market is the best market in the world
made so in the years of republican
control of the government, during
which the protective policy was in ef-
feet and the great industrial power of
CHS country was developed.
TO continue to lead in wages and in
comforts Of life for the everyday man
the American home market must be
guarded, through the application of
the protective policy, against invasion
by the cheap money, cheap labor prod
ucts of foreign lands in which wages
and standards Of living are lower than
they are in America.
There never was substantial basis
for the theory that the higher scale of
wages and living in the United States
was due to higher productive power
per man in America as compared with
foreign lands. The American wage
Garner is not more Industrious or more
efficient, on the whole, than the Ger
man or French wage Garner. The
productive power of Chinese wage
Garner in the twelve hours of his en-
ployment in a Hankow steel mill is
not greater than that of an American
wage Garner during an eight hour
shift in Pennsylvania steel plant.
The pretense that the facts are other
wise is just plain bunk.
The enemy of the American protec-
tive policy is ready to suggest any
remedy but the only real and practical
one for the defense of American pre-
ducers against the destructive effects
of competition based upon the cheap
labor and cheap materials of foreign
lands. The pretense that American
productive industry can be kept going
in open and direct competition with
the output of plants in foreign lands,
where labor costs are but a fraction
of the same costs here, is too prepos-
ferrous to command serious considera-
ton by people of common sense.
Today American markets are flood
ed with products, cheap to the for
eign producer and to the American i'm
porter and distributor, but not cheap
to the American consumer. This glut
Of foreign merchandise represents a
displacement Of. just that quantity of
domestic production. Because of this
displacement American production is
deranged, and we will have with us
huge army of the unemployed with
consequent depression in all lines of
business until a tariff law has been
placed on the statute books represent
ing a fulillment Of the republican
pledge of protective legislation.
There is no basis whatever for the
belief that we can or will increase
"production per man. sufficiently to
overcome the handicap placed upon
American industry in world and do
nestle competition by foreign pauper
wage scales and inflated currency.
That solution of the difficulty is fan
tastic. The free trader who tells US
that, unless we can accomplish this
impossible feat, it is our duty to per-
nit our mills to be closed and our
farms abandoned, and to sink our en-
tire population to the level of pau
perism merely because he cannot pro-
duce several times as much per man
as the foreigner, is not seriously look
ing for remedy for what ails Ameri-
can Observation-Disclosures Republican.
Kellogg for All the People.