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Show THE CITIZEN 4 activity, which has lately set in, must be checked if labor, and especially union labor, is to be dealt with according to the hopes and aspirations of the big employers. If the railroad executives are impervious to public opinion in the matter of the threatened strike, so are the employes; only the public seems to be alarmed and this alarm is predicated upon the full knowledge, from past experiences, that it must pay the strike bill to the last bitter penny. The strike in the bituminous coal mine region is directly attributable to the refusal of the coal operators of the east to abide by agreements. entered into with their union workers two years ago. Wage reductions are not, as the rail labor board would have us believe, merely modified and relatively higher than five years ago. The facts are that the standard is far lower as represented by recent wage reductions, the purchasing power of the wage earners dollar years. being the lowest in twenty-eigWhat we think the public will gradually realize is that the present situation, with its ominous cloud of unrest, unemployment and mayhap bolshevism hanging over the horizon, is due to the demand of the employer that the labor unions be smashed and that it preWeaksents a situation fraught with insincerity and double-dealinness at the national capitol will see it indefinitely prolonged. This country with a public debt and with foreign creditors both unable and unwilling to pay their portion, can no longer afford to 'finance costly disputes between capital and labor, such as controversies now present. the It is high time for the government to do something and to do that something with proper appreciation of the publics rights in the premises. ht g. 25-billi- on coal-railroad-la- bor THE TRUTH ABOUT THE TARIFF. trend of national affairs when the associated dry goods interests of the nation conclude that it is necessary to come out into the open to defend importaion of It is indeed a sad commentary upon the foreign made goods. When Senator McCumber, chairman of the senate finance committee, showed up the profiteering stunts of large importers of foreign wares, he most certainly selected the most glaring examples, where the profits accruing to the importers ranged all the way from 200 to 5,000 per cent. And when the National and Dry Goods Association decided to take a wholly damnable foreign stand as against home manufacturers, it very naturally decided to select examples showing the most infinitesimal profits to members of this gigantic organization. If is the old story of smudge justification of exploitation of American factory workers in the interest of foreign nations and those who profit from cheap foreign labor. In proportion to the extent that importers of foreign made goods are able to shut out American made goods, just to that extent is the opportunity for the home manufacturer to prosper and to employ American factory workers, at an American scale of wages, denied. And just to that same extent is the home market rendered worthless to the American farmer, the American cattleman and the American sheep grower. Evidently .the predatory importing interests, representing a combined capital of billions and with ramifications reaching from coast to coast and from Canada to the gulf, are out to Chinafy the country to reduce it to complete industrial impotency to make it the dumping ground for all the cheap and indifferently made foreign wares that they can import and turn over at big profits to destroy the home market for themselves, and all others, by the process of driving American industry out of business and adding more millions to the already dwindling ranks of labor. There appears to be no question about the allegiance of these men who stand at the head of the National Dry Goods Association. attitude in home They have chosen to take an entirely trade affairs. To be consistent they must carry, it out even if the success of their scheme to glut the home market with foreign goods, of the wage made by workers receiving not more than one-tenun-Ameri- can anti-Americ- an th scales that obtain in this country, wrecks our much vaunted superior industrial structure and inaugurates national decay The National Dry Goods Association should consider that ant work for labor and unhampered opportunities for the.pr, investment of capital in home industries, together generate t buying capacity of the people; that these conditions constitj American standard of living, which help to raise prices in uniso k cost of production; that such conditions are the of a ch th ,c ah hall-mar- prosperity. Obviously under a low tariff, with the home market foreign made goods, these conditions cannot obtain. glu Scarcity of work for labor, and slack opportunity for invt of capital in profitable industrial channels, together decrea volume of production, curtail the buying capacity of the and lower the American standard of living. Such conditions; heritage of hard times they have always accompanied an inad tariff law, as the indisputable history of the nation discloses, counteracted by conditions that blot out foreign competition, h great world war. on the The farmer has long been fed-u- p pen of the facts that he derives no benefit from a stabilizing tariff same tariff that fully protects industrial prosperity also protec makes the home market for the farmer. When Coxeys army made its quixotic march from the west on to Washington, the farmers corn was selling for a bushel and other farm products at proportional prices. With facts staring them in the face, can the National Dry Goods A tion directors still lay claim to the mouldy Democratic sophisti a low tariff benefits the farmer? At that particular timet tion was operating under a tariff schedule designed to "bn trusts and history tells us that there were 57,000 varieties o ness failures during that disastrous Cleveland administration. There is hardly an intelligent person, in or out of office who believes that foreign competition in the home market best policy for the country. Aside from those predatory in that sense an unholy opportunity to profiteer at about the sam and with the same comparative abandon, which obtained duri war period, few, if any true Americans want the home market over to the exploitation of the importing classes. Many, ho while favoring adequate protection for their own industries, vance their own selfish interests, demand low tariff, or no tar all other industries. This unreasonable practice is the position taken by the K Dry Goods Association and stamps it as not only willing to all other industries to its own selfish purposes, but also to the great home market, that very thing which it hopes to do with cheap foreign wares so that it may reap the profits accrum illy paid foreign labor and from financial exchange conditioi make it possible for foreign manufacturers to undersell the manufacturers, in some instances, more than a thousand per Two effificient tariff laws, those of 1824 and 1828, firmly lished the textile manufacturing industry in the United Stat has progressed and grown strong under favorable tariff kp Ad It employes fully d of the great army of well paid workers. And now the National Dry Goods Association would this great textile industry simply because it can buy cl$ a foreign markets than at home ; because it can accumulate profits while the orgy last, for let it be understood by eveT ican citizen, that while foreign goods arc bought according! valuation, they are always sold according to standard valuation. The Citizen does not believe that the Republican Pa intelligent, loyal American business man, wants n prohibitrev But they do want one that will pay the largest possible the government, which at one stroke, will help t l"er curb inordinate profiteering by importers of foreign & A home industry a decided advantage in its own mar set an nation again in the van of all the other industrial enti1 oft-repeat- sti ita itr ct: a! ed . e an i 10 sa d one-thir- world. SI tl Pr E si i rei m ne inj he 10! rv f ES es lal lei )lu mi Ihi ns cu m I :q ire at b Dr si th es it Si r in St of ty |