The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1891-06-23

charity" If this be true, let us con-
tinue the work with renewed energy,
pledging anew allegiance to our prin-
ciples and grow strong in justice, truth
and right Welcome, thrice welcome,
to Menola Alliance
Mr.. EDITOR Our Alliance people do
not agree with you on the salary ques-
tion. We donot believe any man can,
or ever did, earn even $40, 900 per year,
unless he did it by some great discov-
cry or invention by which mankind
has been benefited.
The men you speak of as getting
$50, 900 to SIS, 900 per year, and saving
so much to their companies, save it by
refusing to pay widows and orphans
of their policy holders on fimsy pre-
lenses, and get compromises, or beat
them entirely.
How can a man earn SIC, 900 per year
when the hard-working farm labOrer
cannot get $3.50 year? At this rate
it would take the labor of 81 men to
pay the salary Of one man at $40, 900.
President Harrison gets $50, 600 salary
and $4,000 in allowances to keep up
appearances in the White House. This
is Rping the royalty of Europe, and is
entirely out of place in our Republic.
The President of the Swiss Republic
gets $1,000 per year, and is always
competent for the position.
thirty years ago our President re-
ceiyed $25, 900, and Congressman So, 900.
Now they receive twice as much. This
enormous salary business is one of the
great evils of our times.
We have over 3, 300 National banks,
which at the moderate average of
salaries of $4,000 per year, makes
$40, 500, 900. The salaries of the insur
ance companies will amount to $10,-
OCQOOO or $15, 900, 900 more. The rail
road, express and telegraph companies,
all of which could be dispensed with
under government ownership as they
should be, will amount to at least $780,
OOO GOO. There are six men in the sugar
trust that get $1OO, 900 each. The
sChdard oil trust and officials of other
trusts all get enormous salaries that
they do not nor cannot earn.
Twenty years ago a New Yorker
said to me: q desire to marry, but
cannot because it takes $4,000 per
year to support a wife in my circle. :"
He was making, he said, $500 per
year, and claimed it was not wrong to
keep a mistress.
All salaries, all expenses OF every
character, comes out of the men who
till the land and work in mine and
factory. The only source Of produc-
tion is in labor, and when labor cannot
pay the debt, it is funded into bonds
and mortgages, and labor pays interest
on them. At the close of our war the
people were out Of debt, and no mort
cages Labor has not produced enough
to pay the debts contracted at the
prices paid for it, and to-day the debts
of the people amount to over so, 00O,-
100000 and of thievish corporations
over $14, 900, 100000 an amount that
our labor never can pay save by taking
the transportation property at what
they can be built for.
It is useless to hide the truth The
only way to pay the enormous interest
on this vast Indebtedness is from the
surplus products Of the farm, mine and
shop, and after the support Of the in
dividual and family is provided for,
there is not enough left to pay even
the interest, hence Indebtedness in
creases every year, and the constant
contraction of the currency causes the
steady fall of labor and it's products.
Our Cleveland talks about "public
extravaganza; yet he gave $4,000 to
the Democratic campaign fund and
now receives $35, 900 per year from the
Erie Railroad, and has $50, 900 invested
in the New York Beer Trust It was
Blaine who said that /" trusts are largely
private affairs"
Men, by their mastery action, may
save their country in times of battle
and peril and confer benefits that can.
not be measured in money. So with
the inventor and discoverer, but when
it comes to salaries, private or public.
no man has ever earned, nor can he
earn $40, 200 per year, while a farm
laborer cannot make over $3.50. There
is entirely too much difference in what
is called brains and Drawn.
High salaries are one of the causes
of the poverty of the people. They