Jasper County Democrat, Volume 13, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 April 1910 — A ONE SIDED PURER. [ARTICLE]

A ONE SIDED PURER.

Protection For Workers Shocks New York Tribune. THE IDEA IS UNAMERICAN. But the Great Advocate of High Protection Sees No Wrong in the Government Providing High Dividends For Selfish Manufacturers.

The New York Tribune of Feb. 17 has a funny editorial on the subject of the “Right to Work.” It is not, of course, intended to be funny, but it is a funny editorial for such a paper to print, for the Tribune is a high protectionist paper and a thick and thin supporter of the Payne-Aldrich tariff. Yet, here is what it says about the demand made by the English labor party that work shall be provided at the public expense for every man who wants it: • . ; “The theory is that the world owes every man a living and if one cannot find a private employer who wants his labor and will pay him wages he may deman/ employment of the state as a natural and inalienable right and the state will have to give it whether it needs his services or not.” If that is a fair description, of the demands of organized labor, wherein does it differ from the demand of an American protectionist capitalist who goes to Washington and says: “Mr.. Aldrich. 1 am in the manufacturing business, and I can’t make it pay. The Germans are getting all the contracts, and 1 can’t get one. So 1 want a tariff that Will enable me to put up my prices 40 or 50 per cent and thus continue in business?" 1 Speaking of the effect of thus sub: sidizing labor in the city of Manchester by means of public works to relieve unemployment, it goes on to say: “We are informed that $75,135 was paid for work which? under normal conditions would have cost $22,600 that is to say, the work cost the taxpayer more than thrice times as much as it should have cost.” Is it necessary to go all the way to Manchester to find a parallel case to this? Surely not Is not the American consumer always paying out money to the trusts that he would never need to pay if the government did not put into their hands a legal weapon with which to raise prices? Ex-Gov-ernor Douglas of Massachusetts has shown that To put $2,500,000 into the United States treasury as a-result of our former duty on hides we put $7,000,000 bf unnecessary profits into th®

hands of the beef and leatlier trusts. And the same rule appliies to other protected articles. | If it is right to protect the unemployed capitalists, why is it wrong to protect the unemployed laborers? The truth is that’ we have too much pro- ' tection and too little economic freedom for both labor and capital.