Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 August 1888 — FACTS FOR THE PEOPLE. [ARTICLE]

FACTS FOR THE PEOPLE.

Comparative W»f a. v FIGURES COM PI i-fel) FROM LATESI* RETURN'S MADE BY LONDON BOARD OF TRADE. New Y«-rk Preaa. Eoglaii'l. t nl’el State*. Book tender* JG 00 > 15 00 to*lß 00 Bnihbnl-kem... 000 15 00 to 20 00 Boileimakera 7 75 10 50 Brick maker* .. ».... 3 54 11 86 Hu kSaver* ' R 00 21 00 BUcksmitha 6 00 13 00 8utcher*................... 6 00 12 00 Baker*., 6 25 12 75 B'aat furnace keeper* r 10 00 18 00 Bloat Inruaee filler*.... 7 50 14 00 Boltmakera.... G 50 16 50 Bolt cutters 300 - 10 00 Coal miner 5 88 13 00 Cottoo-mili hands. ... 4 60 6 72 Carpenters ’ • 7 50 15 ou Coopers , - 6 o 0 13 25 Carriagemakers .’ 6 75 13 00 to 25 00 Ontlerv ’... fi 00 12 00 to 20 00 Chemical* I <5 to 600 13 00 to IB 00 Clockmakers 7 00 IS 00 Cabinetmakers 7 00 is 00 Farm hand* 300 650 to *.t 00 Gla-ablower* 6 to ‘.IOO 25 00 to 30 00 Glass (lanlv skilled) 6 to 7 00 12 00 to 15 00, Glass (unskilled) 2to 400 700 to 10 00 Ulovemskt rs (girls)... 200 600 to 900 Glov,makers (men) .. 4 50 10 00 to :a) 00 Hatters 600 12 00 to 24 00 Heaters and rollers ... Iff to 12 00 20 00 to «0 00 Iron ore miners...... .. 5 50 12 00 Iron moulders 7 50 15 00 Ton per ton. fiuisbi <1 2to 300 531 to 871 Instrument makers... 7 00 IS 00 to 20 00 Laboiera 4 10 8 00 I ongsboremen 800 ' 15 00 Linen thread, m<n. .. 5 00 7 50 Linen thread, women 2 35 5 22 Machinist*..;,., ......... 8 50 18 00 Mason*. 809 * .100 Printers, 1,000 ems. .. 20 <0 Printers, week hands 6 15 13 49 Patternmakers 7 fO 18 00 Painters ............. 7 10 15 00 Pitimbus... 8 00 18 ' 0 Plssteiere '• so 21 00 Pott* rs 8 67 18 30 Po'i-uer* “7 00 18 00 Pareunskers • 350 12 00 to V'4 00 Puddlers. per week ... 8 to in 00 18 00 to 20 00 Qnar/vmen 6 00 12 00 to 15 00 Ropffmakers 525 900 to 12 00 Railway eogineeis ... 10 00 21 00 Riilwav firemen 5 00 12 00 fbipbuilding: Boilermakers ...... 7 00 14 00 Maeninist* 7 00 14 15 ' oppersmiths , 6 50 16 60 Platers 8 00 18 00 Drillers 6 00 12 00 Riveters 8 00 17 40 Riegers 5 50 It 00 Patternmakers 8 00 24 00 SaDm-’ker* 000 -7 oc to 10 50 3i'k. men 5 00 10 0" Bilk, women 2 50 * 6 00 .Servant*, month 5 (X) 15 0i Shremakeris...... 6 00 12 0o Stationary engineers 7 50 15 00 to 18 50 Bojpmikers ... 5 00 10 tO

A Cowardly Pa> ty. Wa hinsrton special. The Washington Post fires its last gun before the change in its management, and thus puts the whole crowd of panicstricken Democrats to shame: “Why should any honest Democrat take fright or offense when he is called a free-trader, or when his party is designated the freetrade party? Is not trade practically free when it is taxed for revenue only? Is not that what is meant by free trade all the world over? No party or faction is in favor of abolishing taxes on imports. The Democratic party, by its National declaration of 1876 ’ and 1880; by the President’s message which is its platform in 1888; by the recent speeches of its leaders in the tariff debate in the House of Representatives; by the President’s Fourth of July letter to Tammany—by all these, and byits traditions, its history, its inspirations and its hopes, the Democratic party is committed to the emancipation of trade from protective taxation; committed to a policy that leads directly to the consummation of Democratic desire—a tariff for revenue only. He who is opposed this does not belong to the Cleveland side in this campaign. He who is rather angered or frightened at the free trade cry should cut loose from the party that aims to set trade free from all taxes imposed for any other purpose than the raising of revenues for the lawful and prudent uses of the Government. As we understand and define free trade, the President’s latest tariff utterance is decidedly in that direction. In his Tammany letter he complains that he and those who are with him in his tariff policy are called free traders; but, in the same letter, he vigorously attacks the protection theory. He says of the protectionists, that ‘they’ advocate a system which benefitscertain classes of our citizens at the expense of every householder in the land, a system which breeds discontent because it permits the duplication of wealth without corresponding additional recompense to labor, which prevents the opportunity to work by stifling production and limiting the area of our markets, and which enhances the cost of living beyond the laborer’s hard earned wages.’ ‘A system?’ What does that mean if if it "does not mean protection, a tariff for protection as opposed to the Democratic system of tariff for revenue—which is just what free trade means in the mind of all intelligent citizens. This ‘system that ‘they advocate,’ the President says, is a very bad‘system.’ Why? Because ‘it benefits certain classes at the expense of every householder;’ because ‘it breeds discontent;’ because ‘it permits duplication of wealth without corresponding recompense to labor;’ because it ‘stifles production’ and ‘enhances the cost of living beyond the laborer’s hard earned wages.’ . “When a President, a candidate for re-election on his own revenue reform plank, makes such a plea as that for the emancipation of trade, and in the same breath complains "f being ‘branded’ as a free-trader,’ he ‘resembles ocean into tempest tossed, to waft a feather or to drown a fly.’ Brace up, Mr. President; you have undertaken to lead your party in a tremendous onslaught on. the citadel of the opposition. Don’t waste your energies on such trifles as the name by which the opposition chooses to call you. Doll’ you profess to aim at the emancipation of trade? If so, don't be scared when vou are ‘branded’ as a free trader. The Nfills bill is, to be sure, only a step in the revenue tariff direction, but its the first stop that counts. The principle is there, and that is why the bill is upheld bv Democrats and fought by Republicans It presents the issues just as clearlv as it would if it went three times as far. But we notice that a great many Democratic organs of more or less influence are doing their best to befog the question and to divert public attention from it by numerous devices, all of which is, as we have said, to be regretted. It wouldateo be surprising if the same organs had not shown equal cowardice eight years ago,” ; . .. Protection Appears »o Be All Right. Minneapolis Tribune. What is the matter with theprotective C has made United States bonds worth to-dav 126 cents on the dollar, when in 1860 they sold with difficulty at 85 cents. It enabled all the soldiers in our great

civil war to go out of the service to steady occupation and good wages, besides making it possible for the 4,000,000 liberated slaves to earn more than a decent livelihood. It has enabled American workingmen to live well, own their own homes, maintain accounts in savings banks and enjoy a hundred per cent, more of the comforts aitd luxuries of life than the workingman of any other country on earth, It has enabled the United States to earn more than 55 per cent, of the increase of wealth of the earth during the past twenty-six years. It has made our internal commerce nine times that of the entire commerce of the rest of the world. It lias developed tremendous manufacturing industries which have given employment and good wages to hundreds of thousands, have developed resources before unthought of, and have created markets for farm products w r hich have been sources of income and profit to the farmer. It has besides stimulated the inventive faculty of our people and has offered such rewards and premiums for laborsaving devices that American machinery surpasses that of any other people. What is the matter with the policy that has dbne all this? To us it appears to be all right.

Wage* of Worker*. New York Sun(Dem.) There is only one country in Europe in which the wages of labor are within a half of what they are in this country. That is Great Britain. Wages in Germany, France, Belgium and Switzerland are not one-third of what they are here. Those Of Italy are not one-quarter. Ohe duty of government is to protect the labor of its citizens. Last yeafclieap foreign labor was imported into the United States in the shape of manufactured goods to the value of $692,419,769, This was a great wrong to American labor. In that immense amount of imports, permitted by our insufficient and defective tariff, the labor of women employed in the Manchester, England, cotton mills, whose wages do not average S6O a year, came into competit ion with the higher-priced labor of our Southern and Northern cotton spinners. In that mass of imports was the labor of German factory workmen averaging less than slls, and that of women averagfng leas than SSO a year. Munich is a gallery and center of art. German women with as many as six children saw wood in its streets for 15c a day. May a merciful God sink the United States 10,000 feet under the sea before the hideous spectacle shall become an incident of our civilization!

Nearly $700,000,000 worth of the starvation labor of Europe in the form of manufactured goods imported into this country last year! That which came from Belgium in bales and boxes represented the wages of 22c a day for women and 43c for men; and the high-est-priced labor in loose cargoes of Belgium steel and iron represented wages less than 80c a day. Compared with these the Wages of Carnegie’s .men at Braddock are the incomes of princes. Italian labor in Italian merchandise was imported into this country last year, in competition with American labor, at prices that should fill sensitive souls with horror and alarm the thoughtful for the future of the human race. The pay in the cotton factories of Naples is 20c a day; of the Neapolitan marble and granite cutters from 40c to 50c a day, according to skill; of coachmen, 30c; of women in lace factories, 10c, and girls, 7c; of soldiers in the army, $2 a month. Of all the workmen in the glass works Of Italy, only the skilled blowers receive as high as $1 a day, and laborers on farms, hoeing or making hay, from 15c to 18c a day. working from sun to sun. God save America from such wages! In the Swiss silk goods which came into our half-protected country last year in those $700,000,000 of imports, was the skilled labor of men at 41c a day and of women at 29c, both competing with the silk weaver of Paterson, New York, Philadelphia and Cheney. Glasgow, in Scotland, is the steamship factory of the world, and its-blast furnace owners and iron rollers howl for free trade day and night. Of the families in that manufacturing Sodom, 41,000 out 100,000 live In one room, and half of the men and women in the city are chronically out of work. That one room for a family of father, mother, daughters and sons tell what wages are in Scotland, and how they drag humanity down into bestiality and misery. Brothers, the Mills bill to t reduce the tariff is the first step to that one room for an American family.* Fight it without delay, and fight it to its death; and then make your tariff so protective as to shut out cheap foreign labor in the formof manufactured goods.

Farm -rH and Protect on. Omaha Republican. The farmer’s chief interest in protection is that it saves him the cost of shipping his goods over long lines of railroad, giving a market near his own door. Every farmer understands this fact: The nearer the producer and the “consumer can be brought together the less is paid for transportation and the less opportunity the middleman has to eat up the profits; and it is a fact that all cost of transportation and profits of the handlers of grain and produce come out of the farmer’s pockets. Another fact: By building up manufactures, protection gives employment, and keeps many out of agriculture who w-ould otherwise be compelled to go into it. There are farmers enough to supply the population if they are properly protected, but destroy our manufactures and a good many thousands who are now employed in the trades would become farmers, glutting the markets and reducing profits. There isno class pf the populatior more benefitted by protection of manufactures than the farmer. The Democratic party in 1884, according to Gen. Bragg, of Wisconsin, loved Cleveland “for the enemies lie had made,” meaning Tammany Hall. Since that time .Cleveland has made friends with Tammany Hall because of his outrageons violation of t.lie civil seraceJaKL and has made enemies of the soldiers by vetoing just and fair pension bills, fortunate circumstances. The Democratic party, therefore, still loves Cleveland ‘Tor the enemies he has made.” The Democratic leaders never did have for Union soldiers. The hugest watermelon raised in Georgia this year weighed seventy pounds.