Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1884-08-26
Gov. Cleveland's Record.
HIS ATTITUDE TOWARDS LABOR.

An Interview with MIR. ]. A. Camper.
VIEWS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE FED
GRAFTON OF TRADEs-HONEsTY AND IN
DEPENDENCE MANIFEST IN CLEvELAND's
CONDUCT.
lReported for the Baltimore SUM-
Mr.. j. Alex. Camper, who is well known
for his connection with labor movements in
Baltimore for the past sixteen years, was
asked yesterday what is his position cor
corning the candidates now before the coun-
try for President of the United States. Mr..
Camper said: 81 have been identified with
the working people in an earnest endeavor
to ameliorate their condition, and am suffi-
GENTLY understood and known not to be as
sociated with any demagogic or partisan
idea. l do not profess to voice the senti-
ments of the working people of Baltimore
in anything l may say, but being associated
with them in my individual capacity as a
working man, believe am in accord with
large majority of them in my opinions of
Cleveland and in my express intention to
aid in his election"
Gin review of the record of the candi-
dates" Mr.. Campbell said, "there being
no probability of the election of Butler up
on his record, l therefore conceive that the
Upon the records of the two Judge them
Blaine has for 20 years of my personal
knowledge of the politics of this country as
leader failed to recognize the interests of
the industrial classes. Cleveland, in his
two years of public life as Governor of the
State of New York, has not only recog-
nized them, but has fulfilled the promises
made in the democratic labor platform of
1882 upon which he was elected, and in
dorsed the bill establishing the bureau of
labor statistics. Another bill passed in
1888, known as the .tenement-house cigar
bill, which was declared defective in title
and unconstitutional by the courts, was
perfected by the State Trade Assembly and
was signed again by Gov. Cleveland. He
also approved of the hatters' bill, prohibit
ing the manufacture of hats in the prisons,
penitentiaries, and reformatories of the
State of the child; contract labor bill, and
of the bill making laboring men preferred
creditors for wages or salaries in the case of
assignment by an employer. The street.
car conductors and drivers BILL to which
Gov. Cleveland did not give his approval,
was vetoed for substantial reasons, as ex-
pressed in his message. 1t was bill that
would invite litigation, it was ineffective as
a law, and worse than useless as q mere
recommendation upon the statute books,
and calculated in its provisions to re-
duce the wages of the men, which scarcely
afforded bare subsistence under the exist
ing circumstances.
''The convict labor bill, to abolish con-
vict labor in State prisons, was submitted
to the voters of the State, and did not reach
the Governor. Senator Grady, of New
York, moved that a bill already presented
be laid aside, and he introduced bill pro-
viding that the question be submitted to
the voters of the State. This was passed,
and promptly signed by the Governor.
GAS regards Cleveland's veto of the ele
waited railroad five-cent fare bill, / have ex-
amined carefully into the facts. find that
the reduction of the fare was not sought for
by the working people, as the companies
had, previous to the presentation of the bill,
provided for the running of cars for their
accommodation between the hours of 80
and $50 A. M and 4:30 and 7:30 P. NJ,
which cars are run at intervals of 40 sec
onds. Under the agreements with the rail-
road companies it would have been breach
Of public faith because of the contracts ex-
listing between the companies and the city
of New York, which were approved of by
the State prior to Cleveland's accession to
the governorship. I have the highest au-
thority in the State of New York, the pres
ident of that States Trade Assembly Mr..
Walter N. Thayer, who was closely associ-
ated with the Governor in the formulation
and presentation of the bills to the General
Assembly of New York, for stating that
Cleveland is an undoubted friend of the
working people, and as such he commends
him to the working people of the United
States.
"On April 0, 1882, Cleveland delivered
fOrcible address while presiding at a mass
meeting held in Buffalo to protest against
the treatment of American citizens impris-
oned abroad by the American minister to
England. With this address vivid in my
recollection l was more than surprised at
the denunciations hurled at Cleveland by
speakers at a meeting purporting to be held
by an 1rish-American and workingmen's
league in Raine's Hall on last Friday night.
''The democratic national platform voices
the sentiment of the working people from
Maine to California when it enunciates the
principles of Jefferson in the declaration of
independence which makes ours the land Of
liberty and the asylum for the oppressed of
every nation, and does not sanction the i'm
portation of foreign labor or the admission
OF servile races, untitled by habits, training
or kindred for absorption into the great
which our laws confer, such as the Asiatic
races. This platform is compatible with the
enunciations of Henry George and accepta-
BILE to the working people, when it demands
that the public lands ought, as far as possi-
BILE, be kept as homesteads, for actual set
tiers; that all unearned lands heretofore i'm
providently granted to railroad corporations
by the action of the republican party should
be restored to the public domain, and that
no more grants of land should be made to
corporations or be allowed to fall into the
ownarshin of allan ahsentees ,,