Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 86, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 February 1912 — BEAUTIES OF OUR “PROTECTIVE TARIFF.” [ARTICLE]

BEAUTIES OF OUR “PROTECTIVE TARIFF.”

Governor Foss has sent a special megsage to the Massachusetts legislature directing its attention to the serious strike conditions at Lawrence. He says: ’

It is’alleged that, for years, the employers have pursued the policy of bringing into their mills the cheapest grade of labor obtainable, in this or in foreign countries, and by fines and other methods, have reduced wages far beotw that decent standard which American citizens should enjoy. The Journal of Commerce (NewYork) says that ‘‘this sounds strange in view of the fact that the woolen industries of Lawrence are afcnong the most highly protected against the products of the ‘pauper labor of Europe.’ ” It is (Sbiange, but no stranger than the revelations of the ■distress of the steel workers that Mr. Brandels and the department of commerce and labor are giving us, of than the recent revelations that alien laborers and their families are. being .imported by the trust for sugar beet growling, and, with their wives and children, are impressed into a bondage as bad as Slavery. It seems to be turning out that in most instances wherein the people of the country have been taxing themselves to maintain American labor on a high standard trusts have pocketed the tax and lowered the status of the laborer. The high protective taxation which has made woolen clothes so costly that many i>eople in this country can not wear them, and has forced others to go u to silk as a eiubstiitute, has not reached the worker! Mr. Joseph J. Ettor, spokesman of the strikers’ subcommittee at the conference in Boston, addressing a mass meeting in Faneuil hall,, said: What is' the strike about? They week. No. The question is not say it is about the fifty-four-hour fifty-four cm .fifty-six hours.. It is the reduction of wages to $5.50, which meant death. This, of course, is the expression of a labor pleader. But he was not far astray on the matter of wages. The government investigation of 30,454 woolen workers in al! mill departments in fourteen states 11.4 per cent, received less than 10 cents an hour, and 56.1 per cent, from 10 to 15 cents, or a total of 66.5 per cent, received less than 16 eents an .hour. Of the women workers 63 per cent, received less dhan 14 cents an hour—most of them 8 to 12 cents. Reduce these figures to nine-hour days. Then deduct the loss of working time from numerous delays, caused by waiting for repairs in machinery—to say nothing of sickness—and then make the further deduction.s for tlhe “fines and other methods’’ by which Governor Foss points out, the actual wage is further reduced. How can men maintain “American 'homes,” or women mia.intaiin eyen themselves.”— Indianapolis News.