Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 July 1889 — HOLDING THEM TO IT. [ARTICLE]

HOLDING THEM TO IT.

“A good many iron works are at the verge of suspension. New establishments, in a region where labor is cheap, and new competition at a time of diminished demand for rails and stome other iron products, have cut down profits or cut them oft entirely. In works so situated the only possible question is whether lower w ages shall be paid or no w ages. That this is the naked fact, without varnish or exaggeration, the Tribune knows with certainty, and so do many iron manufacturers and workers. Nobody has pretended that the protective system or any other can at all times secure equal prosperity to all industries, or to every establishment of auv industry, w hether favorably or unfavorably iocated.”— New York Tribune. What rank treason to the holy and immaculate creed of “protection,” and from one of the high priests of the synagogue, too! “Nobody has pretended,” etc. Well, well! Why, it has only been a few months ago that the Tribune and its colleagues were laboriu„, with all their might, in reckless defiance alike of common sense, history, and statistics, to make the credulous believe “protection” to be everywhere and at all times synonymous with national and individual prosperity; that the blessings of a high tariff, like heaven’s own dew, could not help descending continually upon the just and upon the unjust; that all industries and qll people must necessarily come in for a share of these blessings; that if the tariff were cut down and raw materials put on the free list the country would go to destruction, its inhabitants become impoverished, manufactories close, grass grow in the streets of the metropolis, crops fail, rivers cease to flow, and starvation and destruction stalk all over the land. And now w e are told that “new establishments in a region where labor is cheap, and new competition at a time of diminished demand for rails aud some other iron products” have forced upon proprietors of other iion works the alternate of cutting down wages or closing their mills. Is this in keeping with the ante-election promises made to deluded workingmen? Did the Tribune say: “Vote for Harrison and high tariff and lower Avages ?” And how comes labor to be “cheap” under a “protective” system? We doubt the assertion that wages are lower where the industries are new, hut, suppose they are, is uotAlabama “protected” by precisely the same tariff as Pennsylvania ? And have we not been told day in and day out, month after month, and year after year, that high tariffs make high xvages? Then, too, why tire “diminished demand ?” Wliat* is the matter Avith that best home market the Avorld ever saw which, has been built up under the glorious Republican policy of “protection to American industry?” Wilmington (Del.) Every Evening.