The Philipsburg mail. [volume] (Philipsburg, Mont.) 1887-current, 1893-09-21
rs TO PHYKRNHLlSM
Tendency Of the Government
of the United States.
A GENERAL AGITATION IS URGED
Il. v. POWAerly's Interesting Lcttcr
to the Brooklyn Wage Workers
on the Financial Situation and
the Present Hard Times.

General Master Workman Powderly,
of the knights of Labor, in response to
a letter inviting him to address a meet
ing of the wage workers of Brooklyn,
N. Y, on August 81, replied as follows:
SCRANTON, Pa, Aug. 30 John Phil
lips, Esq, Chairman, Brooklyn.]-Dear
Sir: We're it not that the invitation
came too late and the time too short to
make other arrangements, would take
PLEASURE in responding to the call. Since
I cannot u there, will you kindly per-
ri, tt. re- IL of these few lines to the
m, oting?
"''he ,eting has been called to dis
cuss he pr,ent depression to all indus
trial occur lions, it's causes, and the
reme.'y thu 7for."
Such e LIE wording of your letter, ,and
to my mind no meeting ever assembled
IN the city of Brooklyn with greater
field of operations spread out before it
than the one you will call to order on
the evening of the 31st. That the pres
ent depression extends to all occupations
is in itself an object lesson. It teaches
that not one of the arteries Of industry
can be injured or tampered with without
inf1ictlng injury or loss upon the whole
industrial system. No law can be passed
industry, since 1t is labor that gives life
and strength to the whole universe.
Laws may not be aimed directly at labor,
but in the end labor must feel the effect
of the legislation for good or i'll. This is
truism I know, but it is not under
stood by The men who labor as thor
oughly as it should be- I know of no
remedy which will act quick enough for
immediate relief, for the evils upon us
did not begin yesterday last month or
last year. They have been the growth
of a pernicious financial question, which
through the medium of communication
it is neither desirable nor practicable to
detail, and I will not inflict such vista
tion upon you.
You have seen one hundred an twenty
three national banks go down in the
financial crash. YOU have noticed that
the savings Of the workers were as COM
pletely swallowed up in these concerns
as though they were private enterprises.
We all realize that many wOrkingmen
have intrusted their savings to the care
of the national bank under the delusion
that the national government would
stand between the deposits and the dis
honesty and cupidity of the banker, and
we have see4l how sadly they have been
disappointed. There was no deception
practiced though, for the national gov
ernmenG never guaranteed the safety of
deposits; it merely guarantees the safety
of the government and the immunity
from punishment of the banker who
may rob the poor. Of all the thousands
who have been robbed by the present
depression, have you not noticed that no
arrests have been made, no warrants
sworn out, or no attempts at restitu-
ton? Have you not noticed that mill
ions of dollars of the hard earnings of
the poor have been literally stolen by
thieying bank officials, and that all the
time this was going on no one talked OF
calling out the militia, the regular army
or even the Pinkertons to stand between
the robbers and the robbed? [ said rob-
bers, and what I said is true, for those
engaged in the manipulation of money
are the ones directly responsible for the
loss of cofdence which precipated the
crash. They desire a single gold stand
ard; they cried down silver and scared
the laborer. The laborer withdrew his
deposits in some instances, failed to
make deposits IN others, and IL then be-
came the time for the money changer to
get scared, and the scare came when the
run on the bank began.
We have gone far enough into the de-
preston to notice that the same swatch-
full care' that is exercised when the
earnings are being jnggled with, and it
strikes me that the time is ripe for the
introduction of measure which will aim
at the establishment of postal savings
bank an institution in which the small
deposits of the poor may be secured from
the thieving speculations of rascally
money gamblers.
If the single gold standard is estab-
lished, every man who owes debt will
have to pay it in gold. Those who own
gold will then be enabled to charge
higher rate of interest for it, and he
must be fool indeed who cannot see
that this interest will have to come out
of the bone and s1new of industry. That
gold itself will have to be used in trans
actions does not follow, but that debts
will have to be paid according to the
gold standard is true, and as a conse-
quence, those who owe debts, those
whose homes are mortgaged and all who
have money to pay will have to pay with
one-half the money that exlsted-as legal
tender-when the debts were contracted.
You know what that means for the
workers and for those who hold the
mortgages. One will 60 down in the
struggle while the other will grow rich
er.
! When Mr.Gompers went to the mayor
of New York the other day and asked
that public works be thrown open so
that idle men might earn bread he was
ridiculed by the money power, or its or
gans rather-one was told '1hat this is
not paternal government" Mr.. Com
pers knows better than to believe such a
thing as that; he knows, as we all know,
that this is and has been the most pater-
nal of paternal governments-.to those
who do not need paternalism. Who can
look upon the Pacific railroad transac-
! tions and say that this is not a paternal