Newspaper Page Text
THE LABOR WORLD. I'UBMSHKI) EVMIV SATURDAY. Office: 2I5 Woo.lbridjfe Bldg., Duluth. Telephone, 280. Printing Plant: 1915 vv- Superior St. Telephone, 276. SUBSCRIPTION: Onovcar, in ijilvnnri-, Six Months. Tliri'.- months, §1.00 .50 Single copit'H, cents. ArtvertiHiMff rat« mn]! known on application TRADES COUNCIL tUTH SABRIEG. AKI', Editor and Publisher. THOMAS E. HILL, Aesociate Editor. letters and articles relating to the social problem are solicited. Kntered at the postofllce at Duluth, Minn., a*• second class matter. AliD"W IN VS. SEARL.E. A lively interest is taken in the contest for senator in the Fifty-lirst district. In this dis trict C. O. Baldwin is pitted against F. K. Searle. From whatever standpoint Mr. Bald win is pre-eminently the best man for the position. He is one of the qnost able attorneys in the northwest is familiar with the present laws and fully realizes what changes and amendments are needed for the benefit of this county and the state generally. There is no one who bears a more enviable reputation for, integrity than does Mr. Baldwin and in his profession he stands at the head. His opponent, Mr. Searlef is a sort of a lawyer, a banker, money shark and would-be politician of the silk-stocking variety, whose environments are such that he is entirely aloof from the common masses, and consequently is unfit to make laws that would do jus tice as between the people and the schemer. His nomination was secured by the tax-dodging corporations that control the Range railroads and mines of this section, and if he is elected he will be their willing tool ready to engineer through any law that they may dictate. He is practically a new man in Duluth although during his brief sojourn here he manipu lated the affairs of the Marine bank so that it went to the wall and paid the depositors a small percentage on their deposits. Many poor people lost their money in this institution the county has a nice balance there that it will never see again. In the face of all this Mr. Searle lives in a lordly mansion on the money he did not lose when ftiis bank busted. Just why a ,maii of Mr. Searle's calibre and make-up should be pushed for ward forso important a position at this time seems strange, and if he is not the candidate of the corporations there never was one before the people asking \their suffrage. SENDS WORK OUT OF TOWN. "There is a lively three hand ed fight in progress for the of fice of judge of probate in this county. J. B. Middlecoff, re publican Geo. Wasgatt, fusion ist and Phineas'Ayer, indepen dent. As between Mr. Middle coff and Mr. Wasgatt the result is not anywise certain, and with Judge Ayer in the field the situation is still more com plicated. Just why Judge Ayer should insist on running no one seems to know, unless he thinks that he has a life lease of the office. For twelve years he has filled the office by the grace of the republicans of this county. For the past eight years he has received a salary of $3,000 per year which amounts to $24,000 besides this, Mrs. Ayer, who fills the position of clerk, re- DULUTH ceives an annual stipend of $4S0 amounting to $3,840. Pre vious to eight 3'ears ago the of/ice was a fee office and the judge had the emoluments for four years under that arrange ment. Truly, it seems as if the judge had received enough at the hands of the people of St, Louis county and that lie should be turned down goes without saying. He has re ceived from the treasury of this county over $30,000 and yet is not satisfied. Probably the above is not sufficient reason for opposing the re-election of the judge. There are other reasons why he should not receive the votes of any one who believes in Du luth and desires to see its in dustries prosper and grow. The Labor World is informed that the blank books, blanks and printed matter for the office of judge of probate are supplied from St. Paul or St. Louis and that Judge Ayer himself attends to the ordering of these sup plies. The business men, man ufacturers and laborers are spending money to encourage patronage of home industries. How does Judge Ayer's busi ness methods coincide with their views? We don't think they are in harmony with the views of the average business man or laborer of this city. The judge should be retired and some one else given a chance. THE INDIAN WAR. Again, and probably for the It.3t time in the history of the United States there is talk of an uprising among the In dians and the rumors of bloody massacrefc and grim visaged war fills the columns of many a metropolitan newspaper. The space might be devoted to a much nobler cause. It is true there was a little scrimmage between a few members of a company of the regular army and probably not to exceed a half dozen lawless Indians. Colonel Wilkinson and five other soldiers were killed. From this unfortunate episode the newspaper corres pondents and the deputy mar shals and Indian agents ate using every effort to work up a war scare. It is a notorious fact that every time a conscienceless lot of white men want to intrude on the domain of the Indian, he has been aggravated to com mit some lawless act and the whole race is condemned, killed by the troops of Uncle Sam, their territory. confiscated and themselves driven farther into the wilderness. The building ,of a couple of railroads has made the timber on these reservations available and the avaricious lumber syn dicates see an opportunity to enrich themselves at the ex pense of the unfortunate red man. Hence, there is no limit to the deviltry to whicii they will resort to become possessed of something they are not en titled to. It is a peculiar cir cumstance that T. B. Walker and the Weyerhauser syndicate have recently built railroads up to and partially surrounding some of these Indian reserva tions. Were these roads built for the transportation of the products of the farm? No, in deed, for there is nothing grown to be transported. The one commodity is the pine on the reservations, and to this one item can this war scare be traced. The whole outrageous con spiracy is damnable—a blot on IMPERIAL HAS NO EQUAL FOR PRODUCING THE BEST BREAD. MADE IN DULUTH FLOUR Masaas Suggestions About Voting. As the elections are near at band we have had prepared in our "School of Instruction" the form of naturalization. The following suggestions should be understood by foreigners: Naturalization Papers, as Issued by the County Court. According to the letter of the law, "no alien shall be admitted to become a eitiz-u who has not, for the continued term of five years next preceding his admission, resided with the United States." Any ii lien over eighteen years of age at the time of his arrival in the United Slates, who appli?s for admission as a citizen, must appear twice before a circuit or dis trict court, or other suitable court of rec ord, first, to declare his intention to becuine a citizen, and again, at least two years afterward, to take his oath of allegiance and receive his final naturalization paper. He may declare his intention, and receive his first document, at any time alter his arrival in the United S ates, and "in this first step his own testimony will be consid ered sufiicient. But when he applies for his second paper he mrgt be accompanied by a witness, who shall declare ou oath, and the state and a stain 011 the nation. It is not the ignorant Indian that should be hunted down and punished, but the vile, dishonest agent of the government who fails to do his duty as between these unfor tunate and much abused wretches and the theiving, dis honest white man who is per mitted to intrude upon their territory to rob and debauch them. The Indiian war is a fake gotten up by .deputy marshals and pine land thieves. If the government does not give it a thorough investigation and punish the guilty ones it will not do its duty. The time is past when the American workingman will al low his chance to earn his daily bread to be usurped by another without a struggle—and a fierce one at that. If the southern negro is cut ting such a figure in the wage question what will the 10-cent a-day slave of Cuba and Puerto Rico do when he becomes one of us? The Condition to Which Farmers Have Been Brought by Our Bank ing System. Some people have an idea that the farmers throughout- the country are prospering. The very reverse is the fact. A great talk has been made in the past year as to the rapid maimer in which the farmers are discharging their mortgages. That probably is true to some extent. Crops have been abund ant and temporarily prices have been better than usual. But,the recent fail ure of the New England Loan and Trust company of Des Moines, la., for 84,000, 000, owing by farmers, does not indicate that farmers are paying their debts very fast. The times have not been suf ficiently good to enable great numbers of farmers to pay debts or make im provements on their farms. Ride out among the farmers and observe. Go one hundred miles in any direction and S6e if you can discover a newly painted house, a handsomely planted lawn, or a recently built house with modern im provements by a man who gets his living from the soil. Not one. You may go many a day's journey and not see the slightest evidence of any improvement, among farmers. On the contrary you see all the evidences of gradual decay and running behind. We spoke last week of Jones, who found where a farmer could borrow $2,500, and the farmer paid Jones §75 for finding that money at the bank. This expense, with that of abstract and other items, made the cost to the farmer nearly $200. This is only the beginning. Now for the next five years the farmer must pay a 7 per cent, annual interest, or $175 a year. This money, recollect, came from the bank. It cost the banker 1 per cent, per annum, or $25 a year, the gov ernment charge to the national bank on national bank currency. He makes a profit of §150 a year off the farmer. Gage, the banker United States secre tary of the treasury, thinks that the government should l9t the banker have money for nothing when he leaves bonds with the government. In that case the banker could get $175 clear annually from the farmer instead of $150. Now let us see what the farmer has to endure. During the past five years the country has been overrun with tramps. In 1893 during the first eight months 714 banks failed in the United States In the months of June and July of that year 810 factories shut down and turned into idleness in those two months 467, 000 workmen. Great numbers of these men and thousands of others have been wandering through the country and liv ing on the farmer since that time. Sometimes it has been one a day and sometimes ten that the farmer has fed. He did not dare to refuse to feed them. His property is so exposed they might do him immediate injury. So he has fed them, while they have slept under his haystacks and in his barn. Not only prove, to the satisfaction of the court, thiit the applicant has resided in the United States at least five .years, and in the 8tate where said court is at the time held, at least one year. Any alien who, at the time of his arrival in the United States, has not passed his eighteenth birthday, will not be required to present two applications and procure two documents before beine naturalized. As soon as he has reached the age of 21 years, and has resided five years in the United States, he may appear before the court and be admitted as a citizen, without having made any previous declaration of intentions. At the time of his admission, however, he must be accompanied by a witness, and must then, besides taking the oath at allegiance. declare on oath that for two years next preceding, it has been bona fide his inten tion to become a citizen oftheL'nited States. has he fed them at his back door, but they have steadily robbed his cornfield, stolen his melons, eaten his apples, picked his cherries and grapes, some times stolen his horses and lived on him generally, It is safe to say that his tramp expense has oeen $200 a year, while criminal expenses and county poor expenses have added $10 a year to his taxed. Thus we have saddled an annual ex pense of $210 on the farmer, resulting from bank failures. Let us see how Jones is going to survive. Interest per year, $175 tramp expense, $210 taxes, $50 hired man, $16 a month, or $200 a year board of farmer, wife, one boy at home and bired man, $5 a week for the four clothing for three of the family per year, $50. (That may be high. A great deal of the clothing worn by farm ers and their wives on western farms in the past ten years has been sent them by relatives living in the cities. So we will make the expanse of new clothing to all the family per year $30.) Horse shoeing, breakages, etc., $50 seed for planting, $30 newspapers, church sup port, etc., $5 county fair and cost of amusements during the year to the fam ily, $2. We ought to add something to the farmer's expense for railroad travel, but we will not. You would suppose from reports of big attendance at expositions and state fairs that the farmers turned out to them en masse, but we find from investigation that the majority of at tendants at these public places are peo ple from other vocations. Compara tively few tillers of the soil can afford to buy railroad tickets, and therefore they cannot attend if the affaiir is any consid erable distance away. Let us figure up the annual expense of our farmer who owes $2,500: Inter est, $175 tramps, $210 food, $260 taxes, $50 hired man, $200 clothing. $30 seed, $30 church and newspapers, $5 amuse ments, $2. Total, $962. Now let us see what revenue our farmer gets each year. Supposing he owns a 160 acre farm and that be dis tributes his crop as follows on 120 acres of plowed land: Wheat, 20 acres corn, 20 oate, 20 barley, 20 rye, 20. Accord ing to the census report of 1890 the average values of the different grains per acre were as follows: Wheat, $9.25 corn, $9 47 barley, $12.76 oats, $8.16 rye, $8.27. His income from his different fields was therefore as follows: Wheat. $185 corn, $189.40 barley, $255.20 oats, $163 rye, £165 40. Total, $958. We see that after cultivating 120 acres and selling the product at the average value our farmer is $4 behind his neces sary expenses. True, he has yet 40 acres, but on that he must raise food for his animals throughout the year, vegetables, fruits* etc., for the family, besides something to sell to pay insurance and other inciden tals we have not mentioned. Having been burned out once he is insured high enough to make quite a tax on him. Besides, he has some life insurance money to pay each year, as he feels that were he to die with his farm encumbered as it is he would leave his family im poverished. And so he is struggling along and paying something each year in order to provide his family something after death, as there is no prospect of his getting ahead enough to have any thing while he is on^ earth. Perhaps conditions may change, whereby the farmer *nay get enough ahead to pay off his mortgage of $2,500. The probability is, however, that the mortgage will be foreclosed and the farm sold to pay the claim. Perhaps the best way to settle this dispute about the prosperity of the farmer is to let the farmers speak for themselves. The commissioner of the New York bureau of labor statistics sent out thirty one questions to prominent farmer throughout that state, whose names had been furnished by legislators. New York is an old and completely settled state. This will do as a sample state, giving the average condition of farmers throughout the country. Of the replies eighty-one report an exceedingly unsatisfactory condition of agriculture and only eleven persons seemed at all satisfied: The following are extracts from their letters: "The last two years, with poor crops continued low prices, no debt to pay, and after wearing out our old clothes, my wife and I doing most of our own work, we have barely been able to make aur expenses." ••My farm has paid absolutely nothing as an investment. Last two years wor^e than that. Am fearfully behind." "I will say this much, there is uo money in farming." "1 speak advisedly and from personal knowledge when I say that more than 50 per cent, of the farmers of my town are running behind from the fact that it ccsts more to produce the crop than it brings after it is gathered." This last is from one in Chattaraugus county, from whom, with others, we understand that part of the trouble is from drought, army worms and grass hoppers. The very next letter quoted, however, shows that where these condi tions did not prevail there was no pros perity, and the very abundance of a crop becomes a source of loss. "Our income from dairying has been very small. The stock industry (horses and cattle) has also suffered, and those engaged in it have been losers. The sheap industry has likewise been con ducted at a loss. Grape culture is ex tensively followed in this county, but last year's crop, in consequence of its abundance and low prices, did not pay expenses. Our land cost us from $75 to $100 an acre«and probably would not bring over $50, if so much." "If the hard times of the last two years continue, every farmer in debt will go under, sure." "The prices of products have ruled so low that the cast of production and the income received^rom the gathered crops have about balanced. We have good farmhouses standing empty." "There is no money in growing any thing at this time that I can see." '•Fruits? Not much raised in this sec tion for the past ten years until last year, when the crop was enormous and without profit to the fawners." "The value of land has depreciated one-half in this section during the last six years. The fact of the matter is, farmers are fast becoming poor." "I rented last year twenty-seven acres, on which I raised potatoes, oats and beans. I did not realize enongh to pay expenses.' Perhaps you are well aware (as we are in the country) that if a farmer during these times is able to square accounts he is in luck. Genesee has been classed as a fruit growing sec tion, but we have been forced to try something else in order to pay interest and taxes." "Am not running behind financially. Most farmers, however, are not so for tunate as myself and are losing ground. Some have lost their farms and I fear that many others will suffer likewise, for when they are in debt there appears to be no escape." "Farms that cost $60 an acre twenty years ago can now be bought for $20. Many farmers are not making enough to pay taxes. Everything is cheap to those who can purchase, but dear to those who have no money." "Farmers who are in debt are having a hard time of it, and so are men who are working farms on shares. Laboring men, also, with large families to support, are feeling the effects of the hard times. Farms are selling at one-third and one-fourth what they cost ten or fifteen years ago." "I have appraised my property at one half what it cost eight years ago in order to keep in touch with the shrinkage of everything." "Farmers have experienced the hard est times of any class." Always in debt, and keep sinking deeper and deeper in every year. How can a man live with milk at 60 cents for forty quarts and pay $12 per ton for feed* to make it with? Please tell me." "Many men are more hopeful, I be lieve, than they would be if they kept an itemized account and balanced the books at the end of the ynar." "Have run behind $1,000 to $1,200 per year." "Caution the young farmers against buying farms without all the money to pay, as a mortgage of one-fourth of the value will make slaves of them for life and turn them out at last." "Nine-tenths of the farms of Schoharie county are losing money every year and land is depreciating in value." "Unless prices of farm products are higher it is only a question of time when farming on Long Island will play out entirely." "The more a man did the farther he ran behind. There is in ray neighbor hood a family of Scotch people contain ing three grown-up brothers, and very intelligent. They did all their own work or hired but very little, and they failed last year and the year before to make expenses." "Milk brings 1J^ cents, butter 15 cents in trade and eggs 10 cents. There is no demand for anything." "Farmers are discouraged, and more mortgaged farms have been surrendered this year than ever before." "There have been four farms sold on mortgages within a mile of me during during the last three years." "It is too true that there are thou sands of farms today that would be closed out but for the fact that the mortgagees do not know what to do with the farms after foreclosing." In our next we will show what the immediate beneficial effect would be if the government owned and operated all banks. Subscribe for Labor World. To the Laboring flen of Duluth. We have opened up in the Duluth Market building a complete Grocery. The following lines we handle ex clusively such as: Duluth Union Made Cigars. Duluth Candy Co.'s Candy. Duluth RfSade Brooms. Buluth Made Soaps. Duluth Extracts. (Mrs. Foster's.) Duluth Imperial Coffee Co.'s Spices, extracts, Coffee, etc. Duluth Iftipsrial Flour. Why ivt insist on having Duluth made products so far as are manu factured here? Are you not aware that if every citizen of Duluth in sisted on having only the products made by above concerns hundreds of extra men could find employ ment? In addition to above we han dle a full line of Groceries. also making a specialty of preserv ing Fruits of all kinds. Buy your Groceries of us Saturday, your Veg etables of the gardener and have both delivered. Prices and quality of goods right. Open until 10 p. m. Saturdays every other gday in the week until 6 p. m. HOME CONSUMERS' f&DflflgTDV Duluth Market UlfUOCHl) Building.... Send your Work to the GLOBE STEAM GLAUNDRY 524 WEST SUPERIOR ST. Telephone No. 591. Displays the union shop card. FEIR0 & GUILBAULT. R. H. RATH BUN, STAPLE AND FANCY GROCERIES. BEST GOODS. LOWEST PRICES 21 East Superior St., DULUTH Under management of Simon Clark. ^KT=l±ftsa=i=l=i=lrisIjcl±iain=IsBasi3g|=lsraI^j G. E. MEAD CO. Practical Carpet Cleaners And RENOVATORS. Carpets Renovated on Floor j| When Desired jjj leplw no No. 69. j! jj Works: 710 W. Superior St., Duluth. •=T=X=T=l=T=I=T=t=T=i=T^rr=I=T=i=T=l=T=Ja=^ Recently rebuilt^and enlarged. Equipped with Modern conveniences. ST. JAMES HOTEL, 8. C. Lawlor, Prop. $1.00 and $1.50 per day. Special Rates to Permanent Guests. Most Centrally Located Hotel in the City. 213-215lWestfSuperior Street, DULUTH, A\INN Cororoercial Li?f?t ai?d Power Co. Successors to Hartman General Electric Co. Furnish Electric Currents for Light and Power. room?4!C5Eand The Beer 216 W. Superior St pITCER'S BEEf{ OF THE PEOPLE 2 Brewed FOR THE PEOPLE BY THE PEOPLE A. FITGER & GO.,! Brewers and Bottlers. 2