Wichita eagle., 1888-07-15
HARRISON AND woRkiNe-MEN.
Himself Poor Man, He Knows How to
Sympathjze with Those Who Toll.

Svmpathjze with Those Who Toll,
One fact that goes far to make the Repub.
Gcan Presidential candidate strong with the
people is his earnest and outspoken cham.
pionship of the interests of working-men.
AS a matter of principle, every broad
minded man must hare this cause at heart,
but not every one has the personal SYM
patty with struggling toilers possessed and
often expressed by General Harrison. The
secret OF this solicitude is not hard to find.
1t is simply a fellow-feeling, growing out OF
his own experience and the poverty with
which be had to contend in his early years.
Never in his life has General Harrison been
a man of leisure For thirty years, from
the time he BEGAN the practice of his pro-
fession until to-day, he has been a hard
worker and much of this work, as all law
yers know, must have been in the nature OF
laborious drudgery. In these thirty years,
says the Indianapolis Journal, he has Sc
cured modest competence; but it is the
result of this patient, persistent industry,
and is less in amount than that gained in
the same time by men in mechanical pur-
suits and who class themselves more es-
peciaIly as working men"
Indeed, the mechanic is likely to win fort
outlay of vitality, other things being equal
It is because the danger threatens that the
other things may not continue equal and
that the laboring man will be oppressed that
brings friends like General Harrison to his
defense The General has suffered priva-
tons and has gone through struggles, but
before him was prospect that success
would finally crown his efforts With the
dangers threatening labor he sees that this
prospect may be taken away from the work
ing-man, and that he will be left in q position
in which he may rot only be unable TO pro-
vide for immediate wants, but will have no
hope of better future. General Harrison's
sentiments on this subject have been indi-
Gated in general way by his utterances on
the tariff question and his earnest advocacy
of protection for home industries The
trend Of all his public speeches, whether on
the subject of the Southern negro's wrongs,
Or the American tariff system which the
Democracy Is attempting to break down,
have all been in the direction of lettering
the industrial situation. His expressions
upon these points have, however, been very
direct. He has repeatedly and specifically
pointed out the danger threatening the
laboring classes. In speech made in this
city last December he said:
81 think our working-men will wake up
to the fact that reduction in their wages,
which every candid advocate of free trade
or revenue reform admits must come with
the adoption of his theories-a reduction
variously estimated at from ten to twenty
five per CENTS poorly compensated by the
cheaper coat he is promised. This bull-in-
the-china-shop sort of work that our Demo-
cratic friends want to make of the tariff
will not do"
In an address made in Chicago in March
of this year he said:
Il am one of those lnin6tructed political
economists that have an impression that
some things may be too cheap; that l can
not find myself in full sympathy with this
demand for cheaper coats, which seem to
me necessarily to involve cheaper man
and woman under the coat. believe it IS
true to-day that we have many things in
this country that are too cheap, because
whenever 1t is proved that the man or
woman who produces any article can not
get decent living out Of it, then it is too
cheap"
What working-man can read these utter
apces and not feel that he has true and
sympathetic friend in the Republican can
didate! They are the words not only Of a
statesman, but of man with soul, and
one who, through life Of hard work and
struggle, feels loyal sympathy with every
worker, whether by hand or brain.