The thread-mill, therefore, is not an institution for getting thread
for the American people, but for making thread harder to get than it
would be if there were no such institution.

In justification, now, of an arrangement so monstrously unjust and out
of place in a free country, it is said that the employés in the
thread-mill get high wages, and that, but for the tax, American
laborers must come down to the low wages of foreign thread-makers. It
is not true that American thread-makers get any more than the market
rate of wages, and they would not get less if the tax were entirely
removed, because the market rate of wages in the United States would be
controlled then, as it is now, by the supply and demand of laborers
under the natural advantages and opportunities of industry in this
country. It makes a great impression on the imagination, however, to go
to a manufacturing town and see great mills and a crowd of operatives;
and such a sight is put forward, _under the special allegation that it
would not exist but for a protective tax_, as a proof that protective
taxes are wise. But if it be true that the thread-mill would not exist
but for the tax, or that the operatives would not get such good wages
but for the tax, then how can we form a judgment as to whether the
protective system is wise or not unless we call to mind all the
seamstresses, washer-women, servants, factory-hands, saleswomen,
teachers, and laborers' wives and daughters, scattered in the garrets
and tenements of great cities and in cottages all over the country, who
are paying the tax which keeps the mill going and pays the extra wages?
If the sewing-women, teachers, servants, and washer-women could once be
collected over against the thread-mill, then some inferences could be
drawn which would be worth something. Then some light might be thrown
upon the obstinate fallacy of "creating an industry," and we might
begin to understand the difference between wanting thread and wanting a