THE WORKING-MAN.
It seems to us the working-man of America, be he native or foreign, should have tact enough to comprehend how free trade must necessarily deprive him of all the benefits to be derived from free labor, the profits of labor, and the superior resources of this country.
The questions which the working-man should solve are these:— Shall I vote for free competition with the cheap labor and labor-saving machinery of Europe, and necessarily bring down the standard of my wages to the starvation prices of the Old World, by allowing them to sell their goods in my markets in open competi tion with my own? I sell my labor to make iron; and if the products of my labor sell cheap, I must necessarily work cheap. The English manufacturer can convey his iron from England to New York as cheap as ours can be sent to the same point or to market generally. He has more capital than my employers have, and more machinery, and can get as many hands as he may want at fifty cents per day. Now, it is clear to my mind that he can undersell my employer unless I work for English prices. Free trade, therefore, is dead against my best interests. I do not want many foreign goods. Ten cents per day will buy all the foreign manufactures I need. It will be a bad trade indeed to reduce my pay from two dollars per day to the miserable pittance of fifty cents in order to save forty per cent. duty on TEN CENTS' worth of goods.
On the contrary, if I protect my labor and prevent my old taskmasters from selling in our markets, I shall not only have plenty of work to supply a growing demand and what they would otherwise sell, but I shall have good wages, because here I have part of the profits of my labor, can choose my own occupation, change it when I please, and enjoy all the advantages to be derived from the superior resources of this magnifi cent country.
Of what avail will all these advantages be,—these productive soils, these vast fields of coal and mountains of ore, these wonderful provisions of bountiful Nature, these blessings of Providence, if we allow the nobles, kings, emperors, and all the other drones of the Old World, who have devoured the fruits of the poor and grown fat on the sweat and tears of millions, to fill their coffers at will from our mineral and agri cultural treasures, by their ability to buy from us cheap and sell to us dear, as long as they can make slaves of the working-man and compel him to labor for his miserable fare of black bread and peasant's "blouse"? We do not wish, however, to monopolize the gifts of God, or to prevent the oppressed and poor of the world from sharing our blessings, our comfort, and our independence; but we do most seriously, manfully, resolutely determine that our brethren in the Old World shall not make our wealth the means of further increasing the power of their taskmasters and our enemies,—the enemies of all free institutions. They shall not drag us down to their pitiful level while increasing their own burdens and riveting their own chains.
We cordially invite them, however, to come to us and share our liberties and our happiness; but they must leave their masters, their bondage, and their burdens behind: we will have none of them. Here there is room enough for the poor and oppressed of the world; but there is not space for one of its patent nobility. Here all men may aspire to the highest nobility of Nature; but none can claim their greatness from the prerogatives of blood and birth. America for all men, with equal rights, equal oppor tunities, and equal inducements; but even here, ignorance is the slave of intelligence.