The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1931-03-19
THE HAND OF ESAU

AT the recent conference oI proS-
ressive" politicians in Washington,
the one thing on which there seemed
to be general agreement is that the
remedy for unemployment and de-
preston in the United States is
lowering of tariffs, in order that more
foreign goods produced abroad by
cheaper labor may G;5place more pro-
duction and employment in the United
States.
It may or may not be significant
that in this theory the so-called
"progressives" of this conference are
sounding a cry that has been going
from the biggest branches of inter-
nationalized big business, including
those which have planted hundreds
of factories abroad in order to pro-
cure the advantage of cheaper labor.
Oil producers of the West have dis
covered that in keeping tariff off Of
crude oil and oil products the big in
ternational oil companies provided
themselves with a weapon to stifle in
dependent competition in the United
States while flooding the American
market with the output of foreign
fields in which labor and production
costs are cheaper. These interna-
tional oil companies, along with many
other branches of internationalized
big business, were able to prevent
adequate protective tariffs on comnlo-
dities involving the employment of
millions of American workmen, while
at the same time substituting high
power propaganda to lead the people
to believe that to protect American
enterprise and labor in these fields
would be injurious to the American
people.
One of the prominent figures inothe
conference is a Middle West million
aire who has industrial plants in
many foreign cheap labor markets,
desires also cheap raw materials in
the United States, and who has been
for years in battle with organized
labor because of his extreme antago-
nism to the principle of collective
bargaining. This same millionaire
finances much of the activity in be-
half of that brand of progressivism
which helps him along in his policy
of seeking cheap labor markets
aborad. This millionaire financed the
survey made by professors of the Uni
versity of Wisconsin which was liber-
ally used in the fight against adequate
tariff rates when the present law was
under discussion.
These progressive leaders profess
to be interested in the welfare of
American labor. They would shorten
the work day in the United States,
they woulu greatly increase taxes on
productive industry, and at the same
time they would expose the industries
whose costs have thus been raised, to
the unequal and destructive competi-
ton of the cheap labor production
system of Japan, Czecho-Slovakia,
Soviet Russia, Germany, and other
cheap labor markets.
1t is not surprising that in view of
these facts many Americans view
with me>skepticism the pofessed de-
votion of these leaders to the welfare
of the American worker and farmer.
Those who say they wish to improve
conditions for workers and farmers
in the United States, and at the same
time help put them ont of business, as
in the case of oil, by encouraging for
eign and international exploiters of
cheap labor in the work of creating
unemployment and depression in the
United States, surely must expect to
have their professions taken with a
grain of salt.