The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1938-11-03
Excise Tax
CONTINUED From Page One)

ers, these exploited workers should
actually benefit, as surely they are en-
titled to government relief of not less
than 25c and hour for 40 hour work
week!
Yet, while offering this suggestion
to government relief official, one
of those who carries out orders and is
himself just holding a job, l was told
that their success in securing relief
might we'll depend on whether they
were voters and secondly, whether
their votes were needed.
While great sympathy has justly
been expressed for the plight of those
workers deprived of their miserable
jobs by the Wage and Hour law, by
some who have been honored with high
office by the American people, has any
one heard any sympathy expressed for
the millions of Americas workers de-
prived of their jobs by the flooding of
American markets with comparable
products of workers in foreign coun-
tries who are paid even less than the
Wage and Hour law provides for?
Hundreds of thousands of our Amer
ican workers are yearly deprived of
their jobs because our international
Bankers profit through delivering into
our American markets products of
European and Asiatic workers paid
much less than 25c an hour.
The International Labor Office, of
which the United States Government
is part, published last March figures
which show that manufactured goods
imported into the United States from
Belgium, Hungary, Poland, Sweden
and Yugoslavia, to mention but few,
are produced by workers who receive
from 10c to less than 25c an hour Our
government officials are well aware of
the fact that almost all our imports
from Japan are the product of work
ers who receive less than one dollar
per day Hon. Charles X. Moses, chief
of the Far East Section, United States
Department of Commerce, surely an
authority on conditions in Japan, only
recently said; quote:
"For a 10l2 hour day, men
working in Japan receive approx
mately SO cents as an average
daily wage in 50 Japanese indus
tries. Girls and women workers
in the same SO japanese indus
tries surveyed, receive an average
of little more than II cents for
a 9i2 hour day." end of quotation.
Yet, during the year 1887, we i'm
ported almost 100 million of dollars
worth of manufactured and semi
manufactured goods produced by these
virtually slave wage workers Of Japan.
Bear in mind that the valuation of this
100 millions of dollars worth repre-
sents in quantity at least five times
what 100 millions of dollars would
mean in American production.
TO be more specific we find that in
1887 we imported almost 100000
dozen pieces of Earthen Table and
Household Ware from Japan, while in
1929 our imports from Japan of the
same articles were only 100000
dozen pieces In 1887 we imported
from Japan S,226,000 Wool Felt Hat
bodies; while in 1929 we imported only
5,700 bodies. In 1897 we imported
$4,000 Thermostatic Bottles from
Japan while in the so-called boom year
of 1929 we imported only 500 of these
bottles from Japan. In 1929 we inn
ported 2 Opera and Field glasses from
Japan, while in 1887 our imports Of
these glasses from Japan reached the
amazing total of ,449, 600 such glass
eS.
Incidentally, while these slave wage
paid workers receive their pittance of
So cents per day, the employers, ma
ior industries, have been paying divi-
dends Of from l4fd to 47fc yearly.
Now that our own workers are
justly denied jobs unless they receive
minimum wage of 25c an hour, will
our Washington authorities protect
the job opportunities Of those work
ers now employed by prohibiting the
continued dumping into the American
markets Of products Of the low wage,
yes, the slave wage paid workers of
Asiatic and European countries?
Our present Washington authorities
will do nothing. | make that state
ment based on official facts, that,
having misled Congress in delegating
its tax levying power on the allega-
tion that through our entry into Re-
ciprocal Trade Treaties with foreign
nations job opportunities would be Sc
cured for our unemployed while
foreign markets would be opened for
products of American farmers, we are
warranted in believing that such mis-
representation will be continued
Since this authority was granted, we
find that the tariff or customs taxes
imposed on imports have been de-
creased in more than 500 instances,
representing, we understand, re-
duction of some 800 in about 25 81 Of
all our dutiable imports. Figures are
now being compiled which already
show that 1871 Of the items listed in
these Reciprocal Trade Treaties are
below the rates in effect even in the
Tariff Act of 1929.
We realize fully the absolute need
Of protecting the job opportunities Of
our American workers. We further