The Somerset reporter. [volume] (Skowhegan, Me.) 1868-1909, 1893-09-07

Thus you may atone, in some measure,
for the free trade votes you have given
and the free-trade speeches you have
made and the misclievous planks In
your national platform.
We told you last summer and autumn
that to break down the walls of protec.
ton to American industries and let in
to our market the cheap-labor products
of all mankind, would either reduce
the wages of labor, or stop our indus
tries and turn our workingmen into idle
ness aud consequent poverty and dis
tress. But you would not heed us.
You went on in the way of free trade
and wildcat banks, and the results are
what we predicted. Now have you) the
magnamity to rise out of your political
prejudices aud help us to administer the
only balm which can heal the wound
which you have made: That is the Sc
rious question of the hour.
One good at least has grown out of
the terrible business depression. 1t is
that capital aud lator, the banks, the
manufacturers, the merchants. the fla!
mers, and the working men. all found
themselves in the same boat together.
Their interests are mutual and not an
tagonistic, and no injury can be inflic-
ted upon one class without causing suf-
fering in some degree to all the others.
The gold bug and the silver bug are
subject to the same fortune in common.
The financial blow which prostrates one
can not fail to shake, if indeed it does
not shatter the other. And it is only
the humbug who attemps to make them
believe that they are natural enemies.
1t has also demonstrated, what every
intelligent, unprecedented man should
know, that all sections of our country
are parts of one body, which can be hurt
in no one part without bringing paiu
or injury to every part.
What ! most fear is that the one para
mount result of the crisis will be the
reduction of the price of labor. That
must certainly occur if the Democracy
shall go on, after we shall have settled
the currency question, to strike down
protection to our industries by the
vicious tariff legislation with which it
threatens the country. Our factories
and furnaces will not always be idle.
Even if free trade shall inundate them
with flood of foreign cheap-labOr
products, they will eventually emerge
from the deluge, but only by employing
our idle and impovished wOrklng-men
at European and Asiatic cheap wages.
Gentlemen of the Democratic party,
you are in command. You have the
Senate, the House, and the President.
You alone have the pow err to enact laws.
The great army of American workers
and voters are looking to you for some
legislation which shall relieve them from
the situation in which your unfortunate
policy has placed them. You have done
nothing yet to give them even one note
of encouragement. All is as uncertain
and more distressing than when the
President called Congress together.
How long shall,a suffering people wait
to catch some ray of hope from you :
win you not lift the gloom from those
who are so courageously facing the
storm and fighting away despair?
Is there no commanding soul, no guild
ing spirit among you, to inspire you
with patriotic determination and lead
you to wise and unseltish effort? Will
you repeal the purchasing clause of the
Sherman silver law, empower the ma
tional banks to issue bills equal to the
full value of their deposits of Govern
ment bonds, aud pass an assuring reso-
Luton upon the tariff aud wildcat bank
Questions: Unless you do these things.
the wind which swept you into power
last November will become the tornado
that shall hurl you from political
ascehdancy forever. If in this dire
emergency you fail to fulfil your trust
no one will be found to trust you again.