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Image provided by: Kansas State Historical Society; Topeka, KS
Newspaper Page Text
THE ADVOOATB. LABOR DAY POLITICS. Continued from page it. other it is afforded in the form of a world-open market to the home buyer of the raw material. There can be no question as to the attitude of the democratic party upon the subject of free raw materials. Said President Cleveland in his recent let ter to Congressmen Wilson, the author of the house tariff bill: "It must be admitted that no tariff measure can accord with democratic principles and promises, or bear a genuine demo cratic badge, that does not provide for free raw materials." Elsewhere in the same letter, and in the same connec tion, he wrote: "It is quite apparent that this question of free raw materi als does not admit of adjustment on any middle ground, since their subjec tion to any rate of tariff taxation, great or small, is alike violative of demo cratic principle and democratic good faith." Senator Hill, the leader of the demo cratic faction supposed to be at issue with the president on other points of democratic doctrine, concurs with him on this, and defending him from his seat in the senate reiterated in phrase quite similar to that of the president that free raw materials to our manu facturers was a cardinal demand of the democratic party. The democratic idea of tariff, then, is protection from the home producer of raw material, as against the republican idea of protec tion from the foreign seller of finished products. The democratic party would protect the manufacturer from the producer by enlarging the list of com petitive sellers of the native product, while it, at the same time, protects the manufacturer from the home con sumer by the levy of a tariff tax upon the foreigner seller of the finished arti cle. I speak of this last form of pro tection because it exists in marked distinctness in some parts of the sched ule of the democratic tariff bill which has just gone into effect, the rate in some instances being higher than un der the republican measure which it superseded. The democratic party would, therefore, for example, protect the manufacturer of leathern good3 from the home producer of the raw article by opening the home market to the hides of South America and Mex ico, while at the same time protecting him from the competition of foreign sellers of tanned leather and boot's and shoes by the levy of an importa tion tax; and it would, for another ex ample, protect the manufacturer of woolen goods from the sheep grower of his own country by opening his market to the competition of Australian wool, while at the same time it main tains, though in a modified degree, for the manufacturers' benefit, the repub lican protective charges upon English woolen cloth and English woolen clothes. Between republican protection in the sale of manufactured articles and democratic protection in the purchase of raw material, the American laborer, the producer, and likewise chief con sumer, finds himself as between an up per and nether millstone. The one party taxes the laborer with the added price of what he buys upon the pre tense of maintaining for him a higher market for what he sells; the other party depresses the price of what he sells upon the pretense of cheapening to him the cost of what he buys. The one first mentioned is a known im postor proved to b such by its utter failure to maintain either a market for ' the American producer, or employ ment even, much less wages, to the American laborer. The benefits of the other policy exist in theory and prom ise only a theory which has shown no good results to the laborer elsewhere it has been tried; a promise to enforce which no law exists or can be framed, but which every instinct of cupidity and greed inspires to break. Think of a democratic mill owner or manufac turer magnanimously sharing with the American labor consumer the fruits of a good bargain he has just struck in the purchase of raw material. The possibility of such generous action is, I admit, within the bounds of concep tion, but its probability is as remote and as little to be expected as that a republican factory owner will advance his scale of wages out of the profits accruing to him from the exclusive market in which he sells. There is a fatal mental inability in both democratic and republican parties to comprehend the new and strange conditions of our modern industrial and social life, an utter inability to cope with the new and vexing prob lems which have arisen out of the civ ilization of this latter day. Out of these and the necessary re-adjustments to be made in consequence of the same, grow the ills, in large part at least, from which we suffer. It was my for tune not long since to have traveled through a considerable portion of the republic of Mexico. I saw men there engaged in various agricultural opera tions by the use of tools and methods as primitive as any that were ever used at any period in the industrial history of man. I saw men plowing with forked sticks of wood. I saw them carting grain and merchandise over the highways in a rude wooden vehicle of two wheels wheels not spoked, but made of solid circular blocks of wood. I saw them reaping wheat with the old style hand sickle reaping hook, an in vention of Adam, I believe. I saw them threshing grain by laying it on the hard ground while a little Mexican boy chased a pack of goats or burros around on it. You say to yourselves those are surely old-fashioned and pri mitive ways of work, and so they are; but do you realize, ladies and gentle men, that you, yourselves, are not 100 years away from the use of just such old-time devices and awkward methods as those I have tried to describe, un less it be the stick for a plow. It is within the memory of the old men of this audience when all agricultural labor was carried on by the use of the most primitive kind of tools, and when the only combination of capital known to the average citizen was the partner ship of a couple of his neighbors at the village store. It is no exaggeration to say that the man of those times lived in a little world of his own, and with the neigh bors of his school district could have separated himself from the balance of the hemisphere and yet maintained himself in health and comfort. Each community had within itself all the elements and resources and simple but varied industries necessary to inde pendent living. Now we have begun a new life; we are living in a new world as it were, so radical and complete has been the revolution in our ways of working. I need not describe to you the changes from the simple ways of olden time, changes from the simple mechanical devices which everybody because of their simplicity andinex pensiveness could both use and own to the complicated and expensive engines and institutions of modern industrial life. Neither need I do more than advert to the fact that these changes have in volved us in a world of inter-relations, have begotten a condition of depend ence one upon another the like of which wa3 undreamed of before. No man can live independent of his fellows now. Formerly his dependence was alone upon his neighbor, and upon him only for those little acts of neighborly kindness which were rendered without money or price; now his dependence is more upon the man who lives hundreds, perhaps thousands of miles away, than upon his nearest neighbor or closest friend. Everything whichgoes to sustain his physical life, which enables him to conduct his daily toil, which makes ex istence possible in this fierce competi tive strife have become the monopoly of others others to whom he sustains only the harshest and most exacting kind of contract relations. Formerly the tools of agriculture were the wagon and the plow; the tools of the worker in wood his plana and chisel and saw; the tools of the worker in iron his ham mer and anvil and forge, and they were sufficient for all the purposes of industrial life. Now the terrible ele ments of physical nature which the gods can scarce bridle or control, steam, electricity, compressed air, are utilized to do the work of man. But these.the common property of all, have been made the monopoly of the few, have been turned aside from the benef icent ends for which designed, to serve the selfish purposes of avarice and greed. In the face of the power ex erted by the monopolists of these tre mendous engines of industry and com merce the republican and democratic parties stand paralyzed, hypnotized, as it were, unable to control it or givo it direction and shape for common good. Against the tyrannical exercise of this power the People's party in be half of the laborers of the land pro tests. The failure to adapt the legis lation of the country to the strange conditions which this new life has forced upon us is the cause in greater part of our industrial ills. A recogni tion of this fact I make the supreme test of intelligence in the discernment of causes and cures. The .republican party would blind itself to the situa tion and make itself oblivious to the fact, but if forced to awaken to a real izing sensa of the maladjustments of the time proposes for the improvement of the same nothing but the public pol icies which have been tested over and over again and utterly failed. The propositions of relief made by the dem ocratic party reduced to their final analysis, are, let things alone, hands off, conditions will right themselves. The Populist party proposes as the only means to the desired end to utilize the power of the combined whole, to bring the power of the social mass to bear upon the rebellious indi viduals who thus menace the peace and safety of the state. It snysti'.' the subjects of those monopolies Ci ' trusts are public in their nature, wi that the powers exercised through tt:;.1 are in reality the functions and son des of government itself. It woul 1 have the government, that is, tl z people, assert their rightful dominion over the same, and as the philosopL'oi bases of its claim it prescribes at lea:; two political formula?: One that it h the business of the government to o that for the individual which hec-:i not successfully do for himself, an which other individuals will not do for him upon just or equitable terms; tho other, that the industrial system of a nation, like its political system, should be a government of and for and by tto people alone. Cattle and Hoss Advancing. We call the attention of our rcad::i to the advertisement in this issue of &3 Larimer-Bridjef or d Live Stock Coraicb fion company, of the Kansas City 6c:lr yards. The gentleman comprising this firra have been in business at the Kaa:n City stock yarda for nearly eight jzzzv and are qualified La every way to hasli stock consigned to them by the farmers and stockmen of Kansas. They era c'.I advertisers in the Advocate and we c:.?. , cheerfully recommend them to acycus needing the services of good comxaiuicn , house. Give them a trial shipment and yon will not regret it People's Party Pin-Badge and Batten. The league of this city offers the Pe" -pie's party a fine pin-badge mia L. oreide and aluminum. The word "Lev elling" is on the pin, and "We are proud of Kansas" is on the pendant Thf i badge is sent by mail for 25 cents, ' per dczen. They are also sole rccr's for a button which can be worn in Ik of the coat or aa a sleeve button. It h: 3 on it the photograph of Governor LexcJ ling. Price 10 cents, 75 cents per izzcT, These are just the thing, and every vet: r should wear cse and show his colcrj. Address, People's Party Lsaqux, , 118 East Eighth it, Topeka, Ks.j. THE MARKETS HOBBKa. W. S. Tough & Son, managers of the Kanrs City Stock Yards horse and mule department, report: Extra draft f 75 CO $100 CO Good draft 50 00 75 CI Extra drivers 100 00 140 1 3 Good drivers 60 00 " 85 O Saddle good to extra 75CO- 1(55 CO Southern mares and geldings. . 25 00 65 CI Western range, unbroken, 15 00 " 83 CI Western ponies 10 CO " 15 W HULXS. CO 0) 15 " " 60 00" WCX) 15 " " " 85 00" 106 C) 16 to 15)4," " WOO- 135 CJ CHICAGO 8HXXP PILT HI EX IT. P. C. Porter, 123 Michigan street, Chicago re ports as follows : Best green, salted full wool butch r (estimated for the wool) He to ICo Fine and country take off 13c to 1 Vo Shearlings, each JOo to ? a Lamb skins, each liotoiWj Best dry flint butcher western wool skins fie to 8a Good average lots, per n 6c to 6 s Coarse bright wool, 10c to Mo Coarse bright wool, western 8o to 10c Quarter and three-eighths bright wooll3o to 1,' 3 Quarter and three-eighths bright wool western lie to Ho Fine and one-half bright wool 9o to 143 Fine and one-half bright wool, west ern 8c to 12) Demand fair and Improving. 14 hands 4 to 7 years $30 00" 40 i 14$ - - J 40 00 Mi Latest scientific treatment for diseases of the K! ner, liladder and Reproductive Organs; ft! : for Female Complaints aud Irreg-uLaritW, i'lles and Rapture Carel (palnlesnly) without - knife. Bkllledfcfpeclallsta. 08 Page I look -. Address THE HOWE MED. CO., 195 FRANKLIN ST., BUFFALO, fi. V. WC1C1I e?3$293$fi9S38n3C3J3n3 t3C39333$3SS0J52C3w3j53T!!'I;; ftAOni DAY aud GEUain u w o'ua tuAfdUii.iatnis auuwitu. w w vjsJ very el 25 years experience on the market enables as to got highest prices for oar shippers. WE WILL Ij HAKE PROMPT RETURNS. SACKS FREE TO WOOL SHIPPERS. Our references are ) v! n' 'l V09' M. D, Heltzoll Commission Co, fi Karl Bank Commerce; E. 0. Stannard, Pres. . . , , t O E. a Sunnard Milling Co., all of St. Louis. 224 MarKOt St., St. LOUIS. F.IO. mm. mmm mmm mm mm mm mm mrmnmt mm'm m. m mm mm m mmmi