Rensselaer Journal, Volume 12, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 October 1902 — RECORDS COMPARED [ARTICLE]

RECORDS COMPARED

What the Great Parties Have Done In Behalf of the Wage Earner. HISTORY FEDERAL LEGISLATION In the Interests of Labor—Statistics Concerning Legislation In Various States—Republican Commonwealths Have Led in the Matter of Reform Labor Laws. The Republican party was brought into being by the cause of free labor, and the earlier years of its history were spent in giving to toil a new dignity by the overthrow of slavery. In all the years which have succeeded the civil war, the Republican party has gone on in the fulfillment of its mission as the champion of those conditions in the industrial world under which American labor is more profitably employed, more guarded by favoring legislation, in a greater degree blessed with the comforts and luxuries of life than the labor of any other country In the world. That ideal conditions have not yet been attained goes without saying, but the history of this country during the past 40 years has been characterized by a steady advance toward better conditions for the wage-earner. Since the close of the civil war Republican congresses are to be credited with most of the important enactments in the interests of labor; the abolition of peonage, the prohibition of cooley trade, the protection of seamen, the abrogation of involuntary servitude of foreigners, the prohibition of alien contract labor, the incorporation of national trades unions, the prohibition of the contract labor system for United States convicts, the arbitration law, the creation of a department of labor, the prohibition of contract labor are measures against which only Democratic votes were cast in the congress of the United States. The homestead laws, under which thousands of free homes have gone to the landless, were Republican legislation.

State Labor Legislation. Nearly all labor protective legislation in the United States was first enacted by legislatures in Republican states, and this example has not spread to Southern states where Democratic leadership holds a sway undisputed. In the United States there are at present thirty-one labor bureaus; twentyone of these are in Republican and ten in Democratic states. Nineteen out of twenty-seven Republican states have established a factory inspection service, while three out of eighteen Democratic states have taken this forward step, so necessary for the enforcement of protective labor laws. Of the twenty-two states in the Union in which legislation has been had prohibiting labor employed on public contracts from working over eight hours a day, sixteen are Republican. Of the twelve states which have enacted sweat-shop legislation, ten are Republican and two are Democratic. Of the twenty-six states which hove enacted laws prohibiting the employment of children under twelve rears ot

in factories, twenty are Republican and six Democratic. Of the twentynine states which have .passed laws regulating the employment of women, twenty-two are Republican and seven,. Democratic. In twenty-five states law 3 have been passed which require employes to provide seats for females employed in shops or stores; of these states all but eight are Republican. Fourteen of the seventeen states in which the sale of convict-made goods is regulated by law are Republican. Performance and Profession. Political leadership is to be Judged by performance rather than by profession. The statistics show that in most states where Democracy is dominant, particularly those states where the supremacy of Democratic leadership is undisputed, labor, reform legislation is absent from the statute books; while the typically Republican states of Massachusetts, New York Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Minnesota have set an example for the rest of the Union in the matter of laws in the interests of the wage-earn-er. PARITIES, LIKE INDIVIDUALS, i ARE TO BE JUDGED BY PERFORMANCE RATHER THAN PROFESSION.