Whenever it can be shown, in the future, that in any foreign country the wages of labor and the prosperity of the people are as high as in our own, then free trade with that people is decreed.  But whenever the people of another country are in greater poverty, or working at a lower rate of wages than our own, then all commercial intercourse with them shall be totally interdicted.  For impoverished labor on one side of a line, unless walled out, must inevitably drag down labor on the other side of the line to a like condition.  Neither is the device of a tariff sufficient; for, although it is better than free trade, yet, while it tends to keep up the price of goods, it lets in the products of foreign labor; this diminishes the wages of our own laborers by decreasing the demand for their productions to the extent of the goods imported; and thus, while the price of commodities is held up for the benefit of the manufacturers, the price of labor falls.  There can be no equitable commerce between two peoples representing two different stages of civilization, and both engaged in producing the same commodities.  Thus the freest nations are constantly pulled down to ruin by the most oppressed.  What would happen to heaven if you took down the fence between it and hell?  We are resolved that our republic shall be of itself, by itself—­“in a great pool, a swan’s nest.”

As a corollary to these propositions, we decree that our Congress shall have the right to fix the rate of compensation for all forms of labor, so that wages shall never fall below a rate that will afford the laborer a comfortable living, with a margin that will enable him to provide for his old age.  It is simply a question of the adjustment of values.  This experiment has been tried before by different countries, but it was always tried in the interest of the employers; the laborers had no voice in the matter; and it was the interest of the upper class to cheapen labor; and hence Muscle became a drug and Cunning invaluable and masterful; and the process was continued indefinitely until the catastrophe came.  Now labor has its own branch of our Congress, and can defend its rights and explain its necessities.

In the comparison of views between the three classes some reasonable ground of compromise will generally be found; and if error is committed we prefer that it should enure to the benefit of the many, instead of, as heretofore, to the benefit of the few.

We declare in the preamble to our constitution that “this government is intended to be merely a plain and simple instrument, to insure to every industrious citizen not only liberty, but an educated mind, a comfortable home, an abundant supply of food and clothing, and a pleasant, happy life.”

Are not these the highest objects for which governments can exist?  And if government, on the old lines, did not yield these results, should it not have been so reformed as to do so?