And this brings me to the consideration of the question. who is an American laborer that requires protection? According to the idea of the protectionists no man is a laborer and an American unless he stands at a Now England spindle. or in a Pennsylvania ironforge. or at some cotton or woolen loom. these are American laborers. and no one else. and those only are entitled to the protection and the fostering care of their Government. The masons. carpenters. joiners. railroadhands. canaldiggers . miners. fellers of the forests. toilers in the cottonfields of the South and in the corn and wheat lands of the West. teamsters. herders. millers. shoemakers. tinaers. tanners. ditchers. smiths. hodcarriers. personal servants. schoolmasters. printers. painters. plasterers. whclwrights. carters. and draymen. these and all other workers. too nunerous to mention. who fill our land with prosperity and furnish seveneighths of our trade with the worldthese. all. so far from receiving any protection. are taxed heavily as inferior beings on everything they eat. drink. and wear. to support the "American laborer" and to prevent his being undersold by a foreign pauper. So in fact and in truth. ifprotection was honestly divided between capital and labor. it would only "protect" a very small portion of "American labor." and that protection would be at the expense of the great remainder. It is therefore a false claim. To show the utter hypocrisy of this cry of the capitalists. let us refer to the manner in which they supply their demand for labor. They do not select from the small protected class of their own countrymen. but they select from the whole laborclass of America and the world. and they pay no more than the market price fixed by this universal competition. There is no restriction. tariff. or duty whatever upon the labor market where they seek their supplies. "Workingrie." says the Senator from Vermont. "including every shipload of emigrants. have found acceptable employment." Why. Mr. President. is not every man who works by the sweat of his brow a laborer?
Keywords matched
foreign pauper emigrants