The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1892-07-29
Lanes Family Medicine Moves the Bowels
Each day. Most people need to use it.
A VERDICT ACCORDING TO THE
FACTS

Like jury that sits to investigate the
facts, not to express the opinions of the
law or to influence proposed changes in
it, Senators Aldrich, Allison, Hiscock.
Jones of Nevada, Harris and Carlisle
went to work 16 months ago to investi-
gate the course of wages and prices fol-
lowing the passage of the Mckinley bill.
Four of them are Republicans and Pro-
tectionists, two of them Democrats and
Free Traders; all of them wanted to
learn the facts without any coloring by
partisan or economic opinions. So they
agreed, from the start, to agree. That
| is, there was to be no minority report
made by this subcommittee of the SEN
ate Finance Committee, for the majority
agreed not to report any fact that was
not so clearly established as a fact as to
be conceded by the minority. No ex-
pressions of opinions were to be made in
! the freport concerning the economic or
political bearings of the facts found. were
to be sought AMI presented. And for
this purpose the committee secured the
cooperation of such leading statisticians
and professional investigators as Labor
Commissioner Carroll D. Wright, ex-
Superintendent of Census Francis A.
Walker, Professor Edmund j. James,
Edward Atkinson, William NJ. Grosve-
nor and DR.. Roland P. Faulkner of the
University of Pennsylvania, who was APP
pointed by the official statistician of the
committee. The result is report of the
utmost value, and one which anybody
can procure by addressing Senator Aid
rich, Senator Hiscock or any other men,
Der of the Senate. The dates of COM
parison chiefly used are June, 1889, and
September, 1891, and the report of this
jury, drawn to sit on the Mckinley law
and render verdict according to the
facts, shows that in 70 cities PA articles,
including all the necessaries, have de-
clined in average retail prices 64-100 of
per cent; that the average wholesale
prices have declined 33-1O0 of per cent.
that agricultural prices advanced 1857
per cent, and that the average of wages
has advanced "a of 1 per cent. Look at
these figures again:
Average decline in prices, 64-100 per
cent. average advance in wages, 75-100
per cent; average rise in farm products,
1857 per cent
That there might be no mistake about
the course of retail prices, they were
again collected on May 1st, 1892, in three
cities far apart and distinctly represent
alive of the manufacturing, the COM
mercial and the agricultural consumers
Fall River, Chicago and Dubuque; and
they showed that 215 articles had de-
clined an average of "a per cent, as
compared with June, July and August,
1889. The articles of which the retail
prices were grouped were classified into
food, clothes and clothing, fuel and
lighting, metals and implements, lumber
and building materials, drugs and chem
icals, house furnishing goods and mis-
cellaneous necessaries. The committee
announces as the result of its computa-
ton 1.-THE higher prices Of farm products
apparently not cutting much figure), that
''the cost of living of family in ordina-
ry circumstances was 4-100 of per cent
less on September LIST, 1891, than on Sep
TENDER 1st, 1885,"
In Is occupations selected by the COM
mittee average wages were found to be
0.3475 per cent. higher on September LIST,
1891, than during June, July and Au-
gust, 1885," The occupations selected
were those of bakers, blacksmiths,
bricklayers, cabinet makers, carpenters,
common laborers, farm laborers, ma
chinists, masons, iron molders, painters,
plumbers, sailors, stonecutters and tin
smiths. Wages in number of other in
dustries were found to be 31-100 of per
cent higher. Care was also taken by
the committee to secure new and relia-
BILE statistics of wages and the cost of
living in Great Britain. 1t was found
that the cost of living in Great Britain
had increased 10 per cent. between
June, 1880, and September, 1891, and
that bakers, blacksmiths, cabinet max
ers, carpenters, laborers, machinists
iron molders, painters and plumbers get,
on an average, n per cent. more wages
here than in Great Britain.
Such are the facts reported by six rep
utable members of the United States
Senate, Democrats uniting with Repub-
licans in efforts to secure their correct
ness, and endorsing them as correct.