Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1884-10-08

blown-out iron furnaces, and the TO-
900 operatives from the cotton mills
of Rhode Island and Massachusetts,.
These unemployed workingmen re-
present, through their families, 150,-
900 people who are breadless. Can a
country be called prosperous with
such a curse as this upon it ? Its mil
lionaires may roll in wealth, but its
ill-paid working people are becoming
paupers.
In addition to these, as will be seen
by our dispatches, the President of
the Trades Assembly at Cincinnati
declares that in that city alone nearly
5000 members of the Union are idle.
OF /, 400 painters $50 are unemploy-
ed. OF 1900 cigarmakers 1920 are
idle. OF 5000 carriage makers 5000
cannot obtain employment. Of 1900
varnishers 750 are idle. A large pro-
portion of printers, cabinet makers,
shoemakers and tanners are also vain
ly seeking for work, and so on to the
end of the list of skilled trades. This
for Union men. More non-Union
men are idle in proportion to their
number than Union men. A Pitts
burg special also says that the indus
trial outlook in that city is most dis
couraging, nearly all the river miners
are on a strike, and the railroad miners
threaten to join them unless wages are
raised. Nearly all the glass workers
are idle or are only employed part of
the time. The iron trade is stagnant,
and some of the largest works propose
shutting down in a week or two in
Pittsburg formerly occupied by labor
ers. 1t is anticipated that thousands
will be added to the army of idlers.
The number of applications for assist
ance for the poor is greater than at
any time since the panic of 1873. All
this is a striking, remarkable and
most skillful refutation of Mr.. Blaine's
audacious claim of the prosperity of
the country under Republican rule.
The workingmen always feel the eff
feet of hard times first and most keen
ly. A change in the administration
Of affairs is imperatively and abso-
lutely necessary. That it will come
at the November election in the shape
of an overwhelming Democratic vic
tory we have no doubt.-San Francis
co Examiner.
During the past three months cot
ton mills with 107 900 looms in them
have been shut down. Fall River
alone has $4,000 idle looms. What
about idle men and women and child
rem who go hungry? In the wool
en- trade there are at least $4,000
idle looms with over 5000 sets of
cards. The hosiery and knit goods
mills are apt to close. Iron mills and
foundries are only partially employed;
there are 1872 stacks with capacity
of nearly 100000 tons now idle, and
eighty more having a producing ca
pacity Of 100000 tons, all to be
shut down. The building trades of
our great cities seem to be the only
ones that continue fully employ
ed. Must that fact be taken as
indication that capital, shrewdly alive
to the impinging future, is banking
its surplus in real estate and brick
and mortar? At the Minneapolis
mills during the last week in August
they turned out 900 less barrels of
flour than the week before, and the
millers propose to reduce production
still more. That is, less food produc-
ed and higher prices for what is in
the market, and less pay for labor and
larger outlay for food. The lumber
men of the Northwest were at Chica-
go in convention recently, trying to
agree to shut down their mills, huge
COMMANDERS of our forests and con-
sequent creators of terrene desolation
and increasing aridity. All these
things are bad, and don't help the
Republican claim to support Of the
industrial masses on the ground of
gratitude for blessings conferred
through Republican legislation
Graphic.
Mr.. Blaine finds that every town
which his train whizzes through is
the most prosperous and intelligent
he has ever seen, and every county is
the finest and richest in the State.
When he was in Pittsburg covered
with clouds of dust and smoke he said:
81 like this smoke, this coal dust, this
SCOT. 1t tells me of your booming
enterprise, your industry, your pros
perity. l like it, l glory with you in
it." "There are fifteen or twenty
thousand of us out of employment"
shouted a workman in the crowd
Free Press.
PITTsBURG, Pa, Oct. "A strike
will be the probable outcome of no.
tice posted in the spike mills of Dill
worth, Porter q Co., ordering a 10
per cent, reduction of wages to take
effect next Monday, There is gen.
eral dissatisfaction among the work.
men, and they assert they will not
submit. The firm claims that OH &C.
count of the depression of trade and
competition the reduction is necessary.
PHILADELPHIA, October ga dis
patch to the Press from Connellsville,
Pa, says: The ten per cent. reduc-
ton of wages by the Columbia Iron
Company extended to the Morrill, q
Wheeler Coke Works operated by
them in this region. The miners and
coke workers, 400 men, laid down
their tools.
SPRINGFIELD, MASS, Oct. 3.-The