The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1891-11-22
ON THE VERGE OF DISTRACTION.

Few people are aware that the Republic
of the United States OF North America is on
the verge of destruction. The impression is
prevalent that when our condition is COM
pared with the conditions of other peoples
we are found to be way on the sunny side.
An address adopted by the Indianapolis
Alliance Convention has discovered that the
country is on the verge of destruction. The
tWoO,d parties. the address says, will combine
in 1892 to push it over the precipice. Talk of
this kind is of doubtful good. That there
are influences at work to retard the harmo-
NOUS development of the country that all
can see possibly will not be denied The
association OF capital tn the extent TO which
1t has been permitted is one of these influ-
ences. The money power has been allowed
too much influence in our national councils.
The Doodle method of controlling elections
and enacting laws is an evil that must be
stamped out. But the stamping out process
cannot be hurried by abandoning principles
which experience has shown to be essential
20 the preservation of the industrial cOndi-
tons that have raised the American laborer
above his fellows in any part of the civilized
world. The class Of reformerS who would sac
ritice everything that has been secured and
may be firmly held, for sweeping change,
produced existing evils will cease to operate
in the future, are not safe counselors. They
are theorists rather than practical statesmen.
They are also much given to the disparage-
ment of the good they possess in desire
for the highest good attainable.
The principle Of the Republican party
which the classes of men composing the
Farmers Alliance ought TO hold in the
highest consideration is that of protection
to American labor. What stands between
the American laborer and the working
masses of the Old World except the law
which imposes tax on all foreign competing
products that enter the country? Repeal
this law and the American laborer would be
forced 10 accept the rates of wages eStab-
lIshed in Old World markets. and all other
interests go with labor. Cheap and rapid
transportation has almost annihilated the
measure of protection that distance has af-
forded. The cost of bringing the product
of the European labOrer's work to the Amer
lean consumer is so incOnsiderable that the
American and European may be said to
work side by side And yet the American
gets third more for his work than the
European does for his. But the Farmers
Alliance may say that their work cannot be
done in Europe. American soil must be
titled by American labor. This is true, but
it is also true that the wages Of American
laborers are determined by the law Of de-
mand and supply. Reduce the rates of
wages in the mills and factories and an
army of unemployed will flock to the fields
in fierce competition with those who now
complain that they cannot get good living
there. 1t is POSSIBLY in the power of the
Farmers Alliance to preserve the protective
policy or to overthrow it. The two national
parties are so nearly evenly divided that
the Alliance in close States may determine
the result of the next Presidential election.
Ii free trade should be established through
the action of the Alliance they will soon
have much more cause to think the country
on the verge of destruction than they now
hava