Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1880-10-08
Aa1tcaster f,ltelllgerlrer.
FRIDAY EVENING. OCTOBER 9, 1880.
The Business Interests.

The Business Interests.
Our Republican contemporaries simu
late great indignation over what they
allege to be our attempt to deny to bust.
ness men the right to express their polit.
icsl opinions. If they can find anybody
SO stupid as to believe that we have
sought to do any such thing they are
heartily welcome to that mans vote
We should think it vain labor to seek to
make Democrat out of such senseless
log. The truth, as these organs know il
to be, is that they have undertaken to
create the impression that the business
men Of the country demand Garfield s
election; and to that end have unfairly
styled meetings Of " Republican business
men " as meetings of "business men, -
Obviously there is vast difference be-
tween the two, and we adopted a simple
expedient to show it by publishing list
of the forty men who assembled to Or
ganize the first " business mems" meet
ing in Lancaster. That list exploded the
pretension that the business men of Lam
caster had come together, and showed
that it was only the Republican part of
them who were in the movement. This
showing removed all its significance of
course. Republican business men will
give their sympathy and their aid to
their party as they have a perfect right
to do; but their action cannot tend to
show that the business men of the coun-
try are for Garfield, or that its business
interests demand him; which is the
idea the Republican orators seek to in
culcate.
The title Of business men is an OBJ
jectionable one for any particular class
Of the community to seek to appropriate ;
for in this country every man labors and
SO every man is business man. The
business interests of the country occupy
every citizen, whether lle is an employer
or an employee: and every citizen is
equally entitled to make up his mind as
to what these interests require. The
Republican notion in starting these
=" business mems" meetings is that the
Republican employers shall meet together
and signify their political bias; and they
expect the employees, who hold the
political power of the country by reason
Of their numerical superiority, to accept
the decision Of their employers and vote
accordingly. Some employers go SO far
as to say that their employees must vote
with them or he discharged: alleging
that they will not support men who vote
against the party that they believe sup
ports them.
The fallacy in this apparently plausi-
bic position is exposed in the fact that
the Judgment of the employer is as liable
to be wrong as is that of his employee.
He may not he more intelligent or less
prejudiced than his workman. His
money does not give him political sense.
Ii we agree that the employing class is
the best class tG govern the country,
then we should give them the votes and
take them from the employed; for it is
manifestly senseless to give the latter
votes only that they may record the
judgment Of the men who give them
work. five would follow out this idea
to its logical consequence, we would
enact that every employer should cast
the ballots for his employees, and thus
save the latter from troubling them
selves at all about political matters.
The idea of these Republican business
mems meetings carried to this logical
sequence would certainly bring lis to this
absurd and anti-democratic result. The
demagOgues who manipulate them. of
course, pretend otherwise, and even have
had the audacity to falsely charge us, in
exposing their game, with the very thing
they were seeking to do. They were trying
to intimidate business mems employees,
and they accuse us of seeking to
bulldoze the employers themselves,
when we published their names,
exposed their pretensiOns, and de-
clared that when they sought to put
the @ business men" of the country in
array upon the Republican side. they at
once created al opposition between DEM
Ocratic and Republican business men and
invited the voters of each party to stand
by the business men of each with their
material assistance. The Democratic
voter surely could not be expected to
stand calmly by while Democratic busi-
ness men were thus sought to he dragooned
into the Republican camp nor while
the Democratic workman was thus
plainly charged with sacrificing the i'll
terests of the business men and his own.
That is the great issue before the coun-
try which it is now discussing-what do
its interests demand ? And OH that
question every voter is required to cast
his intelligent and free ballot. He will
vote as he makes up his mind, not as any
other man makes it up, if he is free
man. If the employer says to the en-
ployed, "Vote thus, because in my judg-
ment my interest requires it, he says
what the law forbids him to say and
what the manhood of the employed for
bids him to obey against his judgment.
1t is his part to reply that his interests
are the same as his employers but his
judgment Of the way that they will be
best served is different, if it is different.
He would be poor slave to do other
wise when the law protects him fully in
his suffrage.