The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1924-10-30
SOMETHING TO THINK
ABOUT.

The steamer Colorado is approach
ing this country with a varied cargo.
including 1926 packages of tea taken
aboard at Keeling.
Did it ever occur to you that we in
the United States buy tea freely. and
at relatively cheap price, because it
is planted, gathered and processed by
human labor that is paid wages so
small that pound of tea can be re-
tailed here to the ordinary citizen? A
tea field worker gets cents a day, or
maybe less.
If the workers in the tea fields of
Oriental countries were paid the Uni
ted States scale Of wages for their la
Dor tea would be a luxury that but
few among US could afford.
In some degree the same thing
might be said concerning silk. The
countries which produce raw silk pay
low wages to the people who care for
the worms and process the cocoons.
1t is a common practice among those
who unwind the cocoons to eat the
encased caterpillars which have been
cooked in the steaming process neces-
sary to free the silk threads from the
gum that binds them together. They
must do that to exc out their scanty
wages.
The people whose labor gives US
our silk and tea do not eat meat.
They cannot afford it. They do not
live in good houses equipped with
open work plumbing, and they are
always on the verge of starvation.
If it were possible for the tea and
silk workers to command the wages
of the average American worker they
would consider themselves the most
fortunate people in the world. Under
such circumstances they might wear
good clothing, eat good food of vari-
Gus kinds and live in houses fit to
shelter human beings properly just
as do the great bulk of the people in
this country.
How well off are the masses of the
United States is indicated by con-
trasting their living and working con-
ditions with those people in foreign
countries.
Why are our people better off than
those of other lands? Because here
we have developed an industrial sys-
tenn which is the wonder, envy and
despair of the rest of the world. 1t
is the same system that demagogues
of the La Toilette breed damn and
condemn.
In the lands where tea grows there
are not great combinations of capital
using modern machinery and employ
ing workers at high wages. There
are no great railway systems in Chi
ma operated as efficiently as are those
with which we are familiar. Because
such industrial activities as are to be
found in all our states are missing
there, the peasantry live meanly on
starvation wages paid to them for
IIlllSS IlldI we III IIlS y III
ted States can buy because we get
enough money for our toll to enable
us to purchase good food, clothing
and the many Injuries common. to
the great bulk of our inhabitants.
The United States is unique among
all the countries of the world in that
it is the only place where the ordina-
ry man has what only the rich man
elsewhere can possess. 1t is the only
country where all grades of society
have approximately the same sort of
food and clothing and housing facili-
ties.
Any time that a demagogue ap-
peals to you to vote for him that he
may put into practice here the theo-
ries of government that he has i'm
ported from abroad where people
have very little when compared with
what everybody has in this fortunate
republic, think of the workers of the
tea fields of China or Japan, or the
girls eating boiled silkworms, and
then tell him to go to - well, the
place where such creatures properly
belong. After doing that, go out and
vote for AN AMERICAN WHO