650
AN GAOḊAL
THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY and the WAGE
WORKERS.
Mr. Frank G. Carpenter who has lately travel
the British Isles gives the current wages as fo¬
lows in the Cleveland Leader.
',Skilled labor and mechanics $1 to $2 a day; it is
a good man, indeed, that gets the latter. A news¬
paper reporter in Dublin gets from $5 to $7 a
week. I saw men breaking stone on the road at
25 cents a day, and many of the women working
in the Belfast factories from 6 A. M. to 9 P M.,
get no more. Here laborers get $4.50 to $5 a
week, and board themselves, carpenters, coopers
painters, and masons get $7.50 a week and shoe¬
makers the same. Plumbers receive only $7.5 a
week in Glasgow, and tailors $7.25. Many boys
and little girls are employed in the factories and
the whole family work to keep the wolf from the
door."
We, Democrats, claim to be the party of the peo¬
ple. We are the party of the people, but our kid
gloved leaders are our enemies, and it is our duty
to prevent them from acting inimical to us when
we have the means in our hands. Any man spend¬
ing a while in the British Isles must admit that
Mr. Carpenter's scale of labor is more beyond than
under the mark. We saw men break stone on the
road at 16 cents a day, and masons work for 75
cents a day, so that Mr. Carpenter is not at any
rate under the mark.
Now, some of our Democratic leaders are work¬
ing tooth and nail to bring that scale of wages to
this country by removing the protective barrier.
We do not know, within the range of our acquain¬
tances, a single man who has to earn his bread by
labor, but protests against Free Trade, and yet the
Democratic party is called the Free Trade party.
It is not a Free Trade party, but a few of its lead¬
ers — good talkers and expert parliamentarians are
in the pay of the Cobden Club to push the English
Free Trade scheme. When the railway people in
New York City could pay five hundred thousand
dollars to a majority of the Board of Aldermen to
get the privilege of building seven or eight miles
of a street railroad
Morrison, Carlisle, Hurd, Collins, Beecher, and
the Mugwump leaders could get a hundred mil¬
lion dollars from the Cobden Club, for opening our
ports to the free import of English goods. If Free
Trade were adopted here, no man or woman could
get higher wages here than that paid in England,
Ireland and Scotland because English goods can
be shipped from Liverpool to New York as cheap¬
yas they can be shipped from Chicago to New
Yrk.
The Democratic leaders and Mugwumps, as be¬
fore indicated by us, have joined to get the Cobden
boodle and if the real Democracy (the wageworkers)
permit them, they need expect no sympathy if they
too, have to work for 75 cents a day. What do
the leaders care, like the New York boodle Alder¬
men, what becomes of the people, when they can
pocket some half million dollars each. These
leaders did not care if the rank and file of the
party were in sheol if they could line their pock¬
ets — and that is what they are working for — the
boodle. — These are the party who are now trying
to get American women to organize and pay their
help no more than $5 a month. The Atlantic
Monthly, a mugwump — Morrison — Collins organ —
insists on this being done.
It says — "The ignorant Irish girl who is glad to
work in Dublin at $4 a month will not be satisfied
here unless she gets $16. More than any class
of women in the world, if we except the indolent
Asiatic, do American women need servants. We
have not the robust frame nor the sturdy strength
of the British matron or the German hausfrau. Our
climate is exhausting, our lives are varied and ex¬
citing, our frames are slight and our nerves weak.
We can do much with our heads — much planning
and thinking, much arranging and directing, To
supplement this we need the strong arms, the tire¬
less backs of the peasants of the Old World. If
we were wise and sensible enough to pay them
moderately but fairly, to make them dress suitably
and live plainly, in every case where we have now
but one pair of hands to assist in the household
work, while we make shift to do the rest, we might
have two. Yes, there is no question that if the
the maid of all work; who now receives $16
and is fed like one of the family, were to receive
the same wages that an English housekeeper would
pay, to eat what English servants are given to
eat, instead of broils and roasts and dainty luxur¬
ies in the way of desserts, the jaded female head
of our small American households would find that
she could keep two girls without adding a dollar
to her yearly expenses."
Here is where the cloven foot of Free Tradism
manifests itself. But as men have votes to protect
themselves, if they have only the perception, they
have not yet been brought under review.
The next possible step will be to urge employers
to pay only $5 a week where they now pay $10. —
That will be the inevitable result if the Free Trade
boodlers be successful and and let no one forget
it.
As the street strumpet challenges criticism by
making faces at the passers by, so does the Atlan¬
tic Monthly challenge criticism on his exciting,
weak-nerved American women (we shall call them
the mugwump yankee element of American wom¬
en — and cannot be confounded with our noble
minded, stalwarth American ladies). — Mr. Atlantic
Monthly, what is the cause of the slight frame, the
exciting lives and the weak nerves of the ladies of
your circle? which we call the mugwump Yankee
circle. Is it not to be found in the unnatural and
debasing practice of opposing the course of nature ?
which diabolical course will weed the last Yankee
fossil out of the country in half a century.
A word more. Those who have to labor for their
bread must be on the alert and not permit them¬
selves to be sold for British gold.
Let no Morrison or Carlisle become millionaires
on the miseries of the masses. Morrison knows as
well as we do, that if the port of New York were
thrown open to Free Trade, the New York tailor
and shoemaker, &c. could not pay $15 a week to
their workmen, and compete with their Dublin or
Liverpool rivals who pay their workmen less than
one half that sum — they could not do it, but the
Morrisons do not care if they can line their pock¬
ets, as the New York boodle aldermen did.
DONAHOE'S MONTHLY MAGAZINE commences
its eighth year with the January issue. The
leading article is a brief history of the Irish
Element in the Southern Confederacy, including
a letter from Jefferson Davis (with a portrait).
The Magazine contains one hundred large pa¬
ges a month, making a volume of twelve hun¬
dred pages a year. Price, $2 ; $1 for six months.
No Irish family should be without this maga¬
zine. Address Donahoe's Magazine, Boston, Mass.
