Raftsman's journal. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1854-1948, 1858-08-11
THE DEAR PEOPLE AND THEIR MAsrE RS.

Throughout the country men are offering to |
work at less than half the recent wages, and
yet are wholly unemployed. Poor houses are
filed to overfiowing- Taxes rapidly ris-
ing. Furnaces and factories are idle. Ships
are rotting at the wharves. Merchants, una
bic to pay rents, discharge their clerks. Labor
is. therefore. everywhere superabundant.
Unable to sell his labor, the laborer is unable
to purchase his usual supplies of food. The
market for food diminishing, prices fail, and
the former is unable to purchase cloth. Unable
to sell cloth, the manufacturer does not need
to purchase engines. Unable to sell machines,
the machinist does not need to purchase iron.
Unable to sell iron, the furnace master does
not need to purchase coal, and thus is the
miner deprived of the power to purchase food
or clothing. Look where we may, commerce
is nearly dead-the heavy sufferers by her death
being those 'sdear people'' who, like ourselves,
must sell their labor, if they would be enabled
to purchase food.
Such being the case with the people, how is
it with their masters-the men whom they
have placed in the administration of their af-
fairs I? Do they suffer in like manner! Are
their wages reduced On the contrary. they
are largely increased. President, secretaries,
senators, congressman, comptrolers, and all
| others charged with either legislation or ad-
miniStraton, have fixed salaries payable in
money, and the more that money will purchase
the better it must be for them. At fifty cents
day, they can purchase the labor of twice as
many men as they could do when wages were
dollar day. Reduce wages to ten cents u
day, and the Presidents salary becomes equal
to that of eight hundred men. All of these
people desire, of course, that every thing may
be cheap-feeling that their power to crafty
their appetites must increase with every step
in that direction. Free trade having already
done so much for them cheapening land labor,
food and clothing-need we wonder that they
now look anxiously for the arrival of those
happy days Of ssfrce trade and direct taxation, .
when dime shall be considered fair day s
work. Certainly not
That point reached, there will be glorious
times at Washington, if we may judge from
what has already been accomplished, as cxhib-
| tied in the following picture drawn from the
columns of one of our free trade neighbors:
ssThe present cabinet has been more remark
able than any of its predecessors, for a liberal
and hospitable style of living. 1t is true that
most of them are wealthy men, but it does not
always follow that official men live in a man.
ner commensurate with their wealth. For the
year ending with this spring, not one of the
cabinet expended less than fifteen thousand
dollars, and two or three of them expended
each twenty-five thousand. 1t is true that their
entertainments, equipage, ETC., were unusual.
ly frequent and of an expensive kind. Their
example waSfollowed by some wealthy citizens
foreign ministers and senators-particulary
Douglas and Gwin-and thus fashionable and
public life, during the season prior to Lent,
was, in this city, perpetual carnival"
To the peoples masters, a perpetual carni-
val" To the people themselves, perpetual
''Lent.' Such is the prescription of that N od-
ern democracy, of which Mr.. Buchanan is now
| the head-of that hard money democracy,
which seeks TO substitute low wages for that
protection to the American laborer, which was
given by the tariff of 1S42.-Norh american