The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-09-10

are allowed to be employed from keeping
them at work more than eight hours day.
Gray.
The platform had promised to prohibit the
employment of children under the age of
fourteen years.
An act providing the means for securing the
health and safety Of persons employed IN coal
mines.-Gray.
It failed and refused to pass bill to restrain
the manufacture and use of dynamite for the
purpose of destroying life and property.
An act securing the payment Of laboring
men and mechanics and making them first
creditors until they are paid in full.-Gray.
1t failed to amend the extravagant fee and
salary bill, whereby such as are elected to
Office enjoy salaries ten, twenty and fifty
times as large as any laboring man or mechanic
earns.
An act reducing telephone charges and pro-
hibiting discrimination between patrons.
Gray.
The result of this act has been that every
patron of the telephone companies has been
vastly Inconvenience, while the cost of serv-
ice is larger than ever, the service itself being
worse than before.
An act compelling companies, corporations
and associations doing business in this State
to pay their employees monthly.-Gray.
1t failed to prohibit the watering Of stocks,
whereby corporations are enabled to inordi-
nately increase their gains while appearing to
enjoy only moderate profits on their invest
ments.
An act giving laborers and material men
engaged in the construction of railroads lien.
On the same. Gray.
It failed to investigate the acts of the Dem
ocratic State Treasurer after it was proved
and admitted that largo sums of money had
been lost, and that he used the moneys of the
State and received interest thereon.
An act guaranteeing and enforcing the civil
rights of all persons.-Gray.
Tt failed to comply with the just demands
of the colored citizens for equal rights, and
bill to secure such rights, introduced by
representative of the negro race, was defeated
OppOSlllOu
An act to provide for the education of pau
per children in all the counties of the State.
Gray.
1t consigned the benevolent institutions to
corrupt and partisan boards; it surrendered
the management of feeble minded children,
and the orphans of Union soldiers, to trustees
and care-t takers, by whom they were de-
bauched, outraged, hadcuffed, confined in
dungeons, and maltreated under circumstances
of unspeakable barbarity.
An act providing for the enrolment of all
the soldiers of the State.-Gray.
It failed to obey the imperative mandate of
the Constitution to enact a law providing for
the registration of voters in the interest of
free and fair elections.
An act to prohibit forced contributions of
money or property from employees by corpora
tons or their officers. Gray.
At the same time it failed and refused to
pass any act looking to the lifting of State
officers out of the mire, and to fall in with
the idea of civil-service reform, now desired
by the people, as reality and not as catch
word to influence voters.
The Democratic party is to-day, as it ever
has been, the friend of the laboring classes,
and every law in the statutes of the Republic,
and every law in the statutes of Indiana,
passed in the interest of labor, is of Demo
cratic origin.-Gray.
A broad, unqualified misstatement such as
this is, needs no denial. 1t will defeat itself.
1t remains, however, that the Democratic
party while protesting to do so much for the
cause of labor and Of the people, failed to do
its duty as shown above, and not in those
points only but in innumerable others. 1t
left the Reporter of the Supreme Court N the
enjoyment of emoluments amounting to prob
ably not less than 200 year, so that at
the end of this term of four years he will be
worth not less than 800, 900, for which he
has worked" after a fashion, not more than
six hours day. This, too, after refusing and
failing to reduce the hours of work on public
contracts to eight hours a day. It is not here
to recount in how many things the last Dem
ocratic Legislature was derelict in its duty
and false in its promises to the people Of In
diana. It's browning infamy was in the act
that deliberately disfranchised the majority