Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 November 1888 — The Sentinel and Workingmen. [ARTICLE]

The Sentinel and Workingmen.

Indianapolis Sentinel. May 21,1873. “High wages, high prices and a constant effort to make them all higher, is the mistake of the times. A rebellion against Chinese labor is impending in California, because the Chinamen can learn the trade and make shoes, or anything else, at half price, and get rich into the bargain. What is the secret of this? The Chinamen’s policy is to live on next to nothing, He outflanks the American by cheap living. But the idea of anything cheap is repudiated by your American laborer. He looks at the style and luxury of the rich and works himself into a. fury to live the same way. You can not sell any but the choicest of beef, the superfine flour and the choicest coffee to a miner or mechanic. He will not have the best in reality, but the most costly. He calls constantly for higher wages, and does not see that his high wages increases the cost of everyjjring, lifting everybody higher and higher above ground to fall further at the crash by and by. * * * The American laborer would do well to study the policy of the Chinamen in his policy of economy as well as of cheap labor.