Speech #620008852

The "infantindustries " theory finally grew to be a national joke and had to be abandoned. A new watchword had to be found. and the infant was pushed behind the curtain. where he was kept temporarily out of sight but by no means out of mind. Its beneficiaries then insisted that protection was not for the benefit of the- infant prodigy at all. that the real purpose of it had always been to. protect the American laboring man against competition with the pauper labor of Europe. "We can not bear it." said the beneficiaries of protection at election time. "it makes our hearts bleed to. see the American laboring men competing with the pauper labor of Europe." And the laboring men heard them and believed. and on this cry. aided by unpatriotic appeals to passions engendered during the Civil War. protection again triumphed at the polls. But when the workingman. after the victory. insisted on getting his share of the protection pap In the form of higher wages. he was coldly ignored. Protection emissaries went to Europe and brought what they had been .calling "pauper labor" right to the door of the American workingman to compete with him at close range and thus keep wages down. regardless of campaign promises. The workingman soon saw that if his wages were to be increased he must attend to the matter himself. He then went to work organizing labor unions. and in that work he had to overcome bitter opposition from those protected interests which pretended such solicitude for his welfare.