Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 April 1892 — WAGES AND THETARIFF [ARTICLE]

WAGES AND THETARIFF

PROTECTION THAT DOES NOT PROTECT. Pianos and the McKinley Tariff—Under This Glorious (?) Protection System the Sugar Trust Will Make a Profit of 825.0<X),000 Per Year. Workings ot the Tariff. John De Witt Warner represents in Congress one of the largest manufacturing districts in the country, the Eleventh New York City District. The workmen employed in the factories are intelligent, and understand the effect of the tariff on wages. During .the debate on the Springer bill, Mr. Warner thus described the labor question as his constituents understand it. The labor question, Mr. Speaker, is one in which I feel a peculiar interest. In the first place, sir, I come from' a district which, in the amount of wages paid for skilled labor each year, and in the extent and variety of its industries, Is perhaps the greatest manufacturing district in the United States; more than that, I come from a district where there is perhaps a more thorough organization of skilled labor on an intelligent and independent basis than in any other district in the United States. The wage-earners there, sir, are perfectly aware of what there is in this tariff matter. They know perfectly well what it means. They see a ship coming in opposite the street in which they live and from it coming, without any duty, the men whom their employers can hire to take their places—free trade in flesh and blood. At the same time they see on the decks of that ship goods they want, but are not allowed to buy Until they have been through the customhouse, in order to make them take the alternative of buying foreign goods at higher prices or paying an additional bonus to their employers. And they have sent me here by a majority of between 8,000 and 9,000 to say to my colleagues in Congress and to wage-earners all over the land that they do not want any protection. All thej’ want is a free field and no favor and the same right and privilege to buy whatever they need wherever they can get it cheapest, as their employer now has to buj’ the labor that crowds hither duty-free from foreign nations. They are not afraid of fair competition, sir. They are ready to meet it from any quarter. What th: y demand, however, is fair treatment. Thej- demand, sir, the chance to get the full value for their wages, and not to bo compelled to expend them at the great national pluck-me-store of the protected industries that our tariff has built to fleece them. It is fair, too, that on b .‘half of the manufacturing employers in my district I should make a brief statement. Many, 1& not the majority of them, are engaged in what are known as protected industries. A large proportion of them are enthusiastic Democratic reformers or free-traders. And of the small minority who still vote With the Republican party and who profess allegiance to the doctrine of protection, there is but an insignificant number who do not frankly admit that, so far as their own business is concerned, thej’ would be better off were there no tariff whatever.