6 NORTH SHORE BREEZE 
HFruitinn in the Cwentieth Century of Andrem 
Nacksows Ideas of a Protective Cariff 
By Bronx 
The world-wide discussion of the problem of the 
higher cost of living has developed facts that, were he 
here now, would be both interesting and gratifying to 
General Andrew Jackson, who nearly one hundred years 
ago recommended the immediate enactment of such a 
protective tariff law as would benefit the whole country. 
He proposed to do this by drawing from the farm to the 
factory the: superabundant farm labor. in order to give 
‘‘a home market for more breadstuffs (to quote the Gen- 
eral in 1824) than all Europe now furnishes us.’’ The 
Payne-Aldrich tariff act, with the Dingley and McKin- 
ley acts that preceded it, embodying General Jackson’s 
views, have most effectually drawn the superabundant 
labor from the farm into the factory, so much so that 
the American farmer now finds a market at home for al- 
most 95 per cent. of his breadstuffs, the surplus, not 
much exceeding 5 per cent., being all that is now ex- 
ported. 
Farmers have improved their lands and buildings, 
have increased their stock of implements, and thousands 
of them within the past twenty years have paid off mort- 
gaces. Many of them have a surplus in the banks. The 
free use of automobiles is not at all unusual. As a class, 
they have reaped such rich reward under the protective 
tariff policy, put into operation by McKinley and Ding- 
ley and as urged by General Jackson, that there is to- 
day a public movement endeavoring to turn back the 
tide of labor to the farm which General Jackson in his 
time tried to turn away from it. 
In a letter to L. H. Colman of Virginia, dated Wash- 
ington City, April 26th, 1824, replying to a question as 
to his views of a protective tariff, General Jackson said 
in part: 
‘‘There is too much labor employed in agricul- 
ture. The channels of labor should be multiplied. 
Common sense at once points out the remedy. 
Drawn from agriculture the superabundant labor, 
employ it in mechanism and manufacture, thereby 
creating a home market for our bread-stuffs, dis- 
tributing labor to a most profitable account, and 
benefits to the country will result. Take from agri- 
culture 600,000 men, women and children, and you 
at once create a home market for more breadstuffs 
than all Europe now furnishes us.’’ 
This was General Jackson’s idea of diversifying in- 
dustries that in the twentieth century has reached its 
perfection, for labor now receives from 100 to 509 per 
cent. more pay than is received for similar service in 
Europe. 
the beneficient influence of our protective tariff cannot 
be bought today for fewer hours of service than any- 
where else on this globe. If labor would consent to 
live here in the same way as in Europe, it could do so 
for the same cost. Sixteen staple articles, in November 
1910, were found to be dearer in France than in the 
United States. Labor in the United States lives better 
than the so-called middle classes in Europe. <A work- 
ing man in the United States for the proceeds of one 
week’s labor can buy a fashionable eut, well tailored, 
all wool suit, which could not be bought for two weeks’ 
There is nothing that labor buys that under | 
labor in Great Britain, for three weeks’ labor in France 
or Germany, or for five weeks’ labor in Southern Europe. 
The protective tariff, that is now blamed for the 
higher cost of living, has more than worked out in this 
generation the blessings for the country that General 
Jackson’s foresight indicated nearly a century ago. It 
has not only made the home market the best in the world 
but it has cheapened to the consumer everything but 
food. The better prices for foodstuffs that General 
Jackson had in mind as so desirable have been achieved 
by the agriculturist. The General did not foresee that 
while a protective tariff would enlarge the market for 
agricultural products, it would within twenty years 
lower the cost of everything produced in factories, and 
at the same time increase the per hour wage almost 
40 per cent. (See the July Report of Commerce and 
Labor). 
While the higher cost of living is world-wide, it is 
only the American wage-earner who today is able to 
earn the wages necessary to maintain the higher stand- 
ard of living for labor, which exists nowhere outside of 
the United States. The average daily compensation 
here is from two to three times as great as that of our ~ 
severest European competitors. As an example, the 
average daily compensation of railway employees of all 
classes for the year 1910 in the United States was 
¢2.23 in the United Kingdom of Great Britain $1.05, and 
in Prussia 81 cents, showing that the pay in the United 
States was more than double that of Great Britain and 
almost three times that of Prussia; and the pay of rail- 
way employees is a fair sample of the average differ- 
ence in all other occupations. A recent report of the 
English Board of Trade on railway wages showed that 
the average weekly pay of engineers in the United 
Kingdom was $11.17, as against $25.80 in the United 
States. It is well within the truth to estimate in a broad 
and general way that while the cost of a much higher 
standard of living of the railway employee in the United 
States is not 50 per cent. higher than that of the cor- 
responding employee in Great Britain, his compensation 
averages more than twice as much. 
The protective tariff, as has been stated, has cheap- 
ened to the consumer everything made in factories (in 
the protected industries) that the consumer buys; as 
an illustration, steel rails, which in 1869 cost $160 per 
ton, now sell for $28 per ton, and the result has been 
that transportation in the United States costs 7 1-2 
mills per ton mile as against 3 cents in free trade Hng- 
land. It is really incredible that so great a decrease 
could have. oceurred.under the influence of a protective 
tariff. The same thing relates to books, tin plate and 
many other things. The United States is now not only 
supplying its entire wants, but exports tin plate, and 
it was only so late as in 1890 that Col. McClure, the 
brilliant advocate of ‘‘a tariff for revenue only,’’ in a 
public address at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, 
waved a sheet of tin plate above his head and asserted 
that ‘‘this could never be produced profitably in the 
United States.”’ 
The charge that is being made that the tariff is 
