women or girls, and five by boys, the wage-earner | will be prepared to appreciate the amazing falseness of the Democratic assertion that the Mills bill" more than covers the difference in wages between this and other countries."

ness, and fortitude which enables them to practise the severest economy makes it possible for them to subsist themselves and supply the necessaries of life to their families. At the very best, the lot of the workingmen of Belgium is hard and unremitting toil, an unceasing battle with most adverse circumstances.- Official

Distressing Conditions of the Laborer's Life Report. in Germany.

From the consular reports on "Labor in Europe," made in 1878, to our State Department, the following items are taken, representing the condition of labor then. It is hardly to be supposed that that condition has since improved in any marked degree.

Barmen.- The condition of the laboring classes of the mining and iron industries is very distressing; the price of iron is so low that nothing can be earned, and coal is 40 per cent below the average of the last twentyfive years, Wages are reduced, and many hands discharged. In this district it is at present difficult, if not impossible, for a workingman to earn more than enough for his individual support; and every member of the family must contribute to the general fund; hence, from their earliest years, each member is inured to incessant toil and privation.-From the report of Consul Stanton.

Bremen. In order to make life possible at this rate, women in the country raise garden produce, and work in the fields; in the towns, they keep shops, peddle, wash, sew, etc. From the report of Consul King. Brunswick. - With steady work, and the assistance of each member of the household, the workingman can "make both ends meet." - From the report of Consul Fox.

Dresden. -The laborers are really part and parcel of the estate. Wages in money are often merely nominal. Consul at Dresden.

Leipsic. -Females are largely employed in business houses, and a person travelling through the country receives the impression that all the work in the fields is done by women. - From the report of Consul Stewart.

Chemnitz. At the present time large numbers are unable to obtain employment; the country is full of tramps, both honest and vagabondish; and almost every dwelling in this city is visited daily by at least half-a-dozen beggars, although begging is prohibited by law. In this district (Saxony) labor is subdivided, giving one man's work to two, in order to employ the largest possible number. As the husband's earnings are not sufficient for the support of his family, the wife and older children must contribute their share of the weekly earnings. This is a general rule, and applies to all families whose support is dependent on labor. From the report of Consul Griggs. Frankfort-on-the-Main. The condition of the laborer is not enviable; his opportunities are few; luxuries are almost unknown to him; and he is even obliged to use frugally the necessaries of life in order to live upon what he can earn. Butter and meat are luxuries. The American people would consider such a life bitterly hard and joyless. From the report of Consul-General Lee.

Sonneberg. -The workingman rarely eats meat at all in any other form than sausage, and his wife and children scarcely know its taste, so little do they get of it. There is poverty in superabundance in the workingman's home, often verging upon squalor; his children are generally barefooted, and his wife looks haggard and weary of her lot. . .

It may be easily imagined from the foregoing figures, showing the wages of the laboring classes of Thuringia, that their daily fare is of the simplest sort, and that their life is, at best, a struggle for existence for themselves and families. Their principal food is rye-bread and potatoes. Consul at Sonneberg.

Mannheim. -The wages paid hardly cover the necessaries of life; many seldom taste meat more than once a week.- Consul at Mannheim.

Condition of the laboring classes in Bel-
gium, "an unceasing battle."
Their lives are continual struggles for meagre sub-

In France "the wife and children must also labor to make ends meet."

The consul at Nice writes:

The laboring man's food consists principally of Indian meal, vegetables, bread and wine. Meat he

seldom cats.

Not only must the (French) husband labor for the support of his family, but the wife and children must also labor for the general fund in order to make ends meet.- Official Report.

In Italy - Miserable fare - Meat only

66

on

great festivals and holidays." Genoa.-The fare of the Italian laborer is usually mush, and ministrone, a substantial soup made of vege very simple, consisting of bread, boiled chestnuts, tables, olive oil, and macaroni. This, with an occasional bottle of ordinary wine, a relish of stockfish or cheese, and, at rare intervals, on great festivals and holidays, a dinner of fresh meat, constitutes the homely fare of the Italian peasant. From the report of Consul Spencer.

Rome. The ordinary laborer's fare is coarse bread and cheese and raw onions in the morning; at midday, a substantial soup of vegetables and macaroni, with fat pork or olive oil, or a dish of polenta (mush); in the evening, bread and cheese, with onions or salad, as the case may be, sometimes varied with stockfish. On very rare occasions mutton or goat's meat and wine are indulged in. From the report of Consul-General McMillan.

Turin. laborer, lives very economically, hardly knows what The agriculturist, both farmer and fresh meat is, except half a dozen times a year, on state and church festivals. Sometimes he eats a little mush, rice-bread, soups of wheat flour paste, rice, and sausage, but his daily food consists of corn-meal sometimes a little lard in the soup by way of luxury, cheese, greens, and chestnuts in their season. - From the report of Consul Noble.

Messina. The laboring classes are frugal and industrious. Contented with little, and living on what our workmen would despise, there is very little destitution among them." - From the report of Consul Owen.

In Switzerland - Pernicious anæmia common among the poor.

Representative Kelley of Pennsylvania, in his speech in the House (1884) on the Morrison Tariff Bill, said:

Florence Kelley, says: "Our countryman, Dr.
In a recent letter from Zurich, my daughter, Miss
informed us last evening, that though for fifteen years
he had been official physician to the poor in some of
the worst wards of New York, he had never seen in
America a case of pernicious anæmia which is the
shrinking and decay of the bones of a human being as
the result of insufficient food during childhood and
youth-a disease which, when it has once attacked the
subsequently be taken.
system, cannot be eradicated by any diet that may
Unfamiliar as this disease is
at home,' said the doctor, it is so common here that
the frequent cases exposed at the clinics attract no
special attention.""

Are our Democratic associates in their mad pursuit of cheap goods willing to add pernicious anæmia to the list of diseases with which our working people are already familiar?

In the Netherlands-Fresh meat a luxury-
Hard work to live.

The consul at Rotterdam, speaking of the

Meat, excepting sausage and chipped beef, is regarded by the mechanic and laboring man as a luxury, and is rarely indulged in. Bread, rice, fish, potatoes and other vegetables, constitute the staple articles of food for the laboring classes of the Netherlands. With all his patient frugality and practised economy, the Dutch workingman has all he can do to maintain himself and family.

The farm laborers of Andalusia, fed by their em. ployers, are allowed daily three pounds of bread, some oil, and a little vinegar. A portion of the bread is set aside, with the oil and vinegar, to form the two meals of the gaspacho served to the farm hands. It consists of bread soaked in water, to which the oil and vinegar are added. It is served hot in winter and cold in summer. Any additions, gener ally of vegetables, are supplied by the laborer at his A miserable own cost. This cheap ration is generally adopted by the working classes that pay their own board. The consul at Malaga says:

The consul at Barcelona reports that:

The Catalonia working people live mostly on greens, beans, potatoes, onions, garlic, codfish (dried), and wine.... Boots or shoes are very seldom seen worn by laborers (men), the sandal (made of twine or grass) being the common foot cover. The consul at Cadiz says:

The laborer in the south of Spain is the most frugal of beings. He rarely or never eats meat. Indeed, it would be impossible for him to do so and live on his earnings, as meat is extremely dear; common fresh meat being worth twenty cents and beefsteak thirty cents per pound. The laborer here generally subsists on fish, rice, beans and other veg. etables. ...

CHAPTER VIII.

The Chinese Question.

The Democratic Record for nearly Forty Years, showing the Friendship of Democratic Leaders for the Cheap Labor of the Asiatic Coolie. - The falsity of their charges against General Harrison.

PART I.

Koopmanschap Servile-Labor Contracts -The Morey Letter-The Early History in California of Democratic Love for the Chinese Coolie Laborer.

Of late years the Democratic party has made strenuous efforts to have it appear that theirs is the party that favors the free laborer, and in his interest is opposed to coolie labor. The reverse is the case. Democratic statements are notoriously unworthy of credence. It is not very many years ago that certain Democrats of the South made contracts through Koopmanschap & Co. for Chinese labor. Hundreds of Chinese coolies were imported for them, and, but for the fact that the Chinese ran away, and they could not hold them to their servile-labor contracts, the Southern States would to-day be overrun by the Mongolian cheap laborers, and no cordon could have kept them out of the Northern States. Nor is it long ago since the following base forgery was indorsed by Democratic leaders as true, although "its stupid and brutal sentiments" were denounced as a "bold forgery" by the lamented Garfield:

[Personal and Confidential.]

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
WASHINGTON, D.C., January 23, 1880.

I take it that the question of employees is only question of private and corporate economy, and in.

dividuals or companies have the right to buy labor

where they can get it cheapest.

We have a treaty with the Chinese Government, which should be religiously kept until its provisions are abrogated by the action of the General Govern. ment, and I am not prepared to say that it should be abrogated until our great manufacturing and corporate interests are conserved in the matter of labor. Very truly yours,

J. A. GARfield. H. L. MOREY, Employers' Union, Lynn, Mass. Democratic record in California in 1852 Democracy enforcing encouraging Chinese labor contracts and opposing Chinese taxation.

and

To understand the true relations of Democracy to the Chinese question a period of over thirty years must be traversed. It was in California in 1852 that the Chinese problem first obtruded itself, and a brief review of its history from that time down will show clearly that the Democratic Party was always the open friend of Chinese cheap labor until quite recently, when it finds itself forced to disguise its real love for the Asiatic. Here are some "facts and figures" crystallized into history-for the American workingman to ponder over, and see who is his friend and who is his enemy:

In March, 1852, a bill was introduced in the California Legislature (Democratic) to Dear Sir,-Yours in relation to the Chinese problem legalize contracts for labor made in China,

be good for five years and might be made | tressed, there was pending before the Demoassignable. Any laborer brought under con- cratic legislature of the State a bill granting tract who should attempt to leave his master a large body of tide lands to a railroad corcould be arrested and then compelled to poration. To this an amendment was offered work out his term of service. This measure, prohibiting the employment of Chinese by the known as the Peachy bill, passed the lower beneficiary. Of the forty-two votes recorded House. It was supported by the author, Mr. against that amendment thirty-two were cast Peachy, and by Mr. Roach and Mr. Hager, by Democrats. all distinguished Democrats.

Mr. Hager also introduced the following In Congress-Republican anti - Coolie

In Spain - Rarity of meat- A miserable own cost. This cheap ration is generally adopted by mess to live on!

CHAPTER VIII.

The Chinese Question.

The Democratic Record for nearly Forty Years, showing the Friendship of Democratic Leaders for the Cheap Labor of the Asiatic Coolie. The falsity of their charges against General Harrison.

In 1856 there were 30,000 Chinese in Cal- Sumner (Republican) secured the passage of On January 16, 1867, Senator Charles ifornia. Labor demanded their exclusion. a resolution asking other nations to join us The Democratic legislature appointed a Dem-in attempts to suppress the coolie traffic, and ocratic committee of inquiry, which reported in May, 1868, he secured the passage of a bill as follows: extending the provisions of the Elliott act to all Oriental nations.