The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1884-08-07
How the Wage-Workers Feel
[chicago Inter-ocean. July 2s.]

HOW GuG w aSG- w OThGTS E0e1s
[Chicago Inter- Ocean. July Isl
The Democratic Irishmen and working
men Of the trades unions. also the .mem-
bers of the Amalgamated Association of
Iron and Steel Workers and Stone-cutters
of Joliet and vicinity met in all imposing
demonstration of from five to six thousand
voters Oh Monday evening, and were ad-
dressed by ex-Mayor Mclaughlin. of
Braidwood, and A. F. Carpenter, exVice
President of the Amalgamated Associa-
tion of Iron and Steel Workers. Mr.. Car.
penter is an effective speaker. He has
heretofore worked with the Democratic
party. His Remuneration of Cleveland was
based upon ten different grounds, which
still left untouched Cleveand's private
character and political inexperience.
These grounds We're:
l. That, although the people of the State
of New Y ork had by a popular majority of
900 adopted q constitutional amend
ment concerning convict labor, which had
been urged by the labor associations of the
State. Cleveland had thrown the weight of
his influence as Governor against the IS
sage of the statutory measures essential to
give effect to the constitutional provision
and so had nullified the expressed will of
1.-THE people.
2. That the pretense that the Scent
fare bill is unconstitutional is one that, if
true, should have been decided by the
courts, who are the proper judges of the
constltutiOnality of laws. AS it is Cleve-
land S veto Of the bill prevents the ques-
ton from getting into the courts, and if
every Governor should do the like the
people could never get into the courts at all
with the question OF constitutionality,
even III a case in which the courts would,
| 10 at fn hn
3. He vetoed the bill abolishing contract
child labor in the charitable institutions Of
the State. 1t certainly could not be con-
stitutional for q Legislature to decide
whether the orphan children of tender
years consigned to charitable institutions
should be let out to be worked in gangs,
like convicts, under the contract system.
The man who would veto such bill IS
too inhuman to be President Of the United
States.
4. The bill to reduce pilotage fees. is a
bill wholly in British interests, as large
portion OF the vessels which now leave
/ New York are foreign. This being bill
4 to Cypress labor in the interest of foreign
1 corporations met the full approval of
Cleveland. though had it been bill to les
sen the gross earnings of capital he would
have thought it unconstitutional.
5. The bill to lay tax of 81 a year on
working engineers for the purpose of pro-
viding a pension fund for an already we'll
paid class OF public servants, being a bill
to tax labor. received his friendly sigma
ture. Had it been bill to tax lawyers IS
each per year, in order to provide a pen
sion for railroad engineers he would have
vetoed it as unconstitutional
| 6. He signed the civil service bill be-
cause it incapacitateS q working man,
| however competent, from holding office,
and reserves the Offices, after the English
system, for the school and college taught
younger sons of the American aristocracy
ITS constitutionality is considered most
doubtful in the minds of the best lawyers.
for the reason that it trenches upon the
just rights of the appointing power by
setting up an examining board to govern
the Governor, and at the same time re-
stricts the just rights of the people by
prescribing conditions upon which they
shall hold office, which are not found in any
constitution or statute, but only in the
changing caprice of an examining board.
| Z. He appointed chief of the Bureau of
Labor Statistics political henchman of
his own, who was unfavorable to all the
objects for which the bureau vas formed,
and was favorable only to the personal in
terests Of Cleveland.
| s. Although the Democratic National
| Convention in it's platform pledges itselfto
reduce the hours of labor to eight hours a
| day, they have placed on that platform the
same Cleveland who vetoed and act re-
DUNG the labor of car drivers and con-
ductors only to twelve hours day, on the
| ground that it is unconstitutional. If it
| is unconstitutional to reduce the hours Of
one class of workers down tOtwelve hours,
how can we expect the man who holds it
to be so to aid in reducing the hours of all
classes of workers, including car drivers,
down to eight hours a day. Either the
platform or the candidate must be dis
honest on this issue, and we hold that it is
the candidate. 81
g.. Cleveland vetoed the mechanic S lien
law, which would have made the wages
of mechanics and laborers a first lien on
they worked. The speaker was one of the
5000 laborers at the Bridgeport Rolling
Mill. At that sudden faiInre the Sheriff |
came and carried off everything out of |
which they could get their wages. The |
agents Of the great corporation told the |
men they had not dollar left. It was the |
dead of winter. There was no lien law to I
protect them. More than a month s wages
were due. There would have been great |
suffering. But Judge Blodgett, of the
United States District Court, determined /
make the wages of the working men
prior lien and preferred claim by his own
arbitrary power, and he did it, and many
were thereby saved from great suffering. |
But the kind of law that Blodgett asserts
by arbitrary power in the interests of
humanity, Cleveland vetoes even when the
Legislature have passed it.
10. Finally Cleveland defeated the OBJ
jects of the act providing for Railroad
Commission IN New Y ork by appointing
in board, whose only function was to de-
fend the people against the encroachments
OF the railways, three of the very men
whom the railways themselves had re-
tanned to back them in their policies.
The clan who came to Chicago to nomi-
nate Cleveland were told before the n0mi-
nation how deep-seated and widespread
were the objections to him. But their job
was to nominate him whether the people
showed him under or not In Grover
Cleveland the workingmen have nothing
to hope for. In Mr.. Blaine, on the con-
trary. we have nothing to fear. His in
stincts are American, and with the people.
MI. Carpenters arraignment of Cleve-
land was greeted with immense enthusi-
asm, and was one of the most stirring and
pungent that has been made in any quar-
ter.
The above presents its pith and SUBJ