Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 November 1891 — Protection and Immigration. [ARTICLE]

Protection and Immigration.

“Yes, men are on the free list They cost us not even freight We promote free trade in men. and it is the only free trade I am prepared to promote," said William D. Kelley, of Pennsylvania, the leader of the protectionists In Congress in 1873. For the past thirty years this has been the keynote of the high tariff policy. Ever since the contract labor law of 1864, which provided for the establishment of a national immigration bureau, the purpose of which was to encourage immigration and which went so far as to give the manufacturer who imported his workmen a first lien upon their wages to reimburse him for his expenditures in bringing them over, was sandwiched In between the internal revenue law of 1862 and the high tariff of 1864, we have had high and prohibitive tariffs upon everything the workman has to buy, and free trade in the only thing he has to sell—his labor. This policy has been so successful that in many of the mills and mines of Pennsylvania, the hot-bed of high protectionism, no record is kept of the names of the workmen employed, but they are noted in the pay rolls by numbers alone. That the beneficiaries of our high tariffs will see to it that this good thing—for themselves a'one—is not changed, may be illustrated by the statement which was made a few days ago by Andrew Carnegie just before he sailed from Liverpool To a Herald reporter he said in answer to the question: “And what do you tnink, Mr Carnegie, of the unchecked flood of undesirab e immigration Inte America?” “I say, don’t touch immigration; let it flow on. W’e are getting the cream of Europe. I want to see America great, really great. We need all the population we can got. We have only seventeen persons to the square mile, and there are hundreds of millions of acres of land where the sod has never been turned. I say, hands off immigration. ” Only a few days ago Mr. Carnegie cut down the wages of his workmen, in many cases 50 per cent. The workmen had to submit because they saw others ready and willing to take their places. The labor market is already drugged, say the protectionists, and wo need a higher tariff to give employment The production of farm products, according to the same high authorities, is already in excess of the demand, and we need a high tariff upon manufactures to create a “home market” for them, and to prevent those employed in our factories from becoming farmers. And yet the chief beneficiaries of our high tariffs are doing all in their power to aggravate these evils which they seem to deplore By the formation of trusts, under the benign influences of the tariff, they are enabled to exact higher prices for their products, and by “Keeping” the people’s hands off immigration they are able to have a constantly congested labor market and to Keep down the prices of farm products. How long will it be before the farmers and workmen will see through this hypocritical tariff policy, the two maxims of which are “free trade in labor” and “overproduction of farm products? 1 *