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Show H ! SALT LAKE TRIBUNE'S DENUNCIATION OF MISAPPLIED 1 1 PROTECTION. H Verc it not for the fact that the Tribune is supporting William H H. Taft for President more vigorously than any other paper in Utah, H we would be inclined to view the Salt Lake paper with much favor H as an advocate of Progressive doctrines and a mighty defender oi! 1 the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But preach- H ing the gospel of political righteousness and at the same time up- M i holding tho hands of the man who upholds Ballinger in his attacks m j on Pinchot, Wiekershani in his collusion with the trusts, and "Wilson H ! in his pursuit of Dr. "Wiley are irreconcilable attitudes. H No Progressive paper could more illumiuatingly show up the j Standpat inconsistencies of demanding protection in the namp of H i the Laboring people of the country while bestowing the benefits of H protection exclusively on the powerful manufacturers than does the H j Tribune In tho Jtullowing editorial taken from this morning's issue H of that paper: Hl "The stTikq which has been going on for nine weeks at Law- H rence, Massachusetts, is finally settlpd. The result of it will be an LjM increase of wages, which is reckoned in-the dispatches at more than H $10,000,000, to the textile workers of 2sTew England in the next H twelve months. And yet the increase to each worker is small, an H increase upon a wage scale of $5 to.$6 a week, that increase amount- Hl ( ing to from five to twenty-five per cent, surely is not calculated Hl to attract American workers in any great growds. The field will be Hl left to the low-priced European labor which drifts in and is em- H ployed on that low scale as heretofore. H "The necessities of the situation, however, required a settle- Hj jment of thus strike, for it was shown so plainly that the lesson could Hj f -not be obscured, that the protective tariff, so far as the mills in- Hj volved are concerned, does not in any way protect American labor. H 'First of all, very little American labor is employed in those mills; H .it is mostly European labor, and it has been paid heretofore on the m lowest scaje of European pauper wages. And second, the amount M which the tariff was supposed to guarantee to American labor was H iiot paid to any labor at all by the manufacturers' combine, but the H lowest possible wage scale was put into effect and the difference H between that and what would be the fair American wage was 1 pocketed by the manufacturers. This pocketing, it appears, is con- H fessed to amount to $10,000,000 a year. . It-' would amount to far H more than that if a fair American wage scale were paid. But, H since no such wage scale has been in use and as no such scale will H - he in use, even under the small increases granted, the argument for Hj tariff protection to the woolenand cotton manufacturers fails by fl that much. j i "It was a sad mistake for the manufacturers' combine to allow Hj i this sort of an exhibit to bo made during this Presidential year. H I .and just when the tariff question is up in congress ami is before H the country in its most virulent form. The strike position was in- ' sufferablc from the manufacturers' standpoint, and they were1 obliged to give way. If it had been any other year than a Presidential Presi-dential year, and some time when the tariff was not prominently up, they jnight have held out; but it being bolh the Presidential year and a tariff dispussion year they had to 3ield, though they yielded, as-little as possible. Thd' Argument was so squarely against them'' hat there was no defenbe which they could interpose. . "One would naturally be inclined to congratulate the mill workers on their victory, but thai, victory is so very small to each worker that it scorns hardly worth while. Still, 'so far as1 if goes, it is a subject for congratulation, 'and "The Tribune joins .therein as heartily as the small raise justifies." - ' '' -- , w I.J -! ' |