Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 May 1892 — Theory and Practice of MoKinleytsm. [ARTICLE]

Theory and Practice of MoKinleytsm.

The theory upon which the McKinley tariff bill was constructed is that, by shutting out foreign competition, we can Increase our home industries, provide more employment for labor, at higher wages, and by increasing the competitors in each industry, reduce prices. Time may prove the correctness of this theory, but up to date the outlook for it is far from encouraging. Trusts having an apparent connection with the tariff, are preventing competition, raising prices, reducing wages, and in other ways showing great disregard for the fundamental theories of the McKinley law which nourishes them. The extremely high duty on window?;lasß (about 100 per cent) maintained or a quarter of a century, and increased by McKinley, ought by this titne to have given us plenty of home-made windowglass, at the lowest possible prices, and to have given constant employment to labor. This would have been little enough to expect from the more than $100,000,000 invested in this experiment by consumers. But instead, the price of flass here is double what it is in urope; we have to purchase one-third of our supply abroad, and, as is seen in the following quotation from Brad-

street's for April 10,1892, the windowglass trust, to limit the supply and sustain prices, keeps the few men employed in the Industry Idle one-third ol the year. “The Eastern window-glass manufacturers, it is reported in a press telegram, Indorse the action of the Western Mannfacturers’ Association, which, In Chicago last week, decided to shut down all factories on May 31, and remain idle until October 15. If the rule to shut down from May 31, to October 15, is enforced it will be the longest window-glass shutdown since the long strike of 1883."