Due regard should be also accorded in any proposed readjustment to the
interests of American labor so far as they are involved. We congratulate
ourselves that there is among us no laboring class fixed within
unyielding bounds and doomed under all conditions to the inexorable fate
of daily toil. We recognize in labor a chief factor in the wealth of the
Republic, and we treat those who have it in their keeping as citizens
entitled to the most careful regard and thoughtful attention. This
regard and attention should be awarded them, not only because labor is
the capital of our workingmen, justly entitled to its share of
Government favor, but for the further and not less important reason that
the laboring man, surrounded by his family in his humble home, as a
consumer is vitally interested in all that cheapens the cost of living
and enables him to bring within his domestic circle additional comforts
and advantages.
This relation of the workingman to the revenue laws of the country and
the manner in which it palpably influences the question of wages should
not be forgotten in the justifiable prominence given to the proper
maintenance of the supply and protection of well-paid labor. And these
considerations suggest such an arrangement of Government revenues as
shall reduce the expense of living, while it does not curtail the
opportunity for work nor reduce the compensation of American labor and
injuriously affect its condition and the dignified place it holds in the
estimation of our people.
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