The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1894-02-08
A CHALLENGE FOR PROF. WILSON.

Chairman Wilson, as has Mr.. Bynum and
other Democrats in the House, declared in
one of his speeches that employees are CO.
creed to sign protests against the Wilson
bill, using the following language:
1t is a system of bulldozing that is re-
sorted TO on such occasions. TIL manu-
facturers lock out the employees; and they
can afford to do so because they have accu-
mulated a surplus that needs a market, and
are falsely and b~rutally attempting to make
their men believe that it is done by reason
of the tendency of n new tariff bill. My
mail is filled with private letters from work.
ingmen in different parts OF the country
who are engaged in the protected industries,
telling me how they were drawn up like cat
tie and virtually forced to sign these pro-
tests, and begging me not TO believe that
they really signed the petitions IN earnest.
The assumption that any manufacturer
would lock out employees If he were able
to sell his goods in the market is so passing
stupid that one is surprised that a man of
the intelligence with which Mr.. Wilson is
credited should make it. Everybody in this
vicinity, employees specially. know that en-
ployers would only be too glad TO give them
full employment If they could sell their
goods. Manufacturers are alike the country
over. They are not in business for politics,
but for profit. If business were good, man.
ufacturers would not shut down their fac
tories to please any party, particularly
Democratic manufacturers, of whom there
is a large number. Equally absurd is the
statement that manufacturers nave such
large SURPRISES that they can afford to
close factories. More men nave lost money
in manufacturing during the past twenty
years than have made it. Mr.. Wilson. be-
ing a theorist and a professor. may not
know this, but it is nevertheless true.
There is one man in the House who pro-
poses to bring Professor Wilson to lime
Walker, of Massachusetts, a shoe manu-
facturer. He has called Chairman Wilson's
attention to his statement in a letter. After
pronouncing incorrect all Of the Wilson
statement to the effect that employees were
coerced to sign petitions, Mr.. Walker says:
For the purpose Of this contention and to
develop the proof of your statements above
quoted, / not only pronounce each and
every one untrue, but charge that they were
deliberately a by you to break the force
of and destroy the rightful and legitimate
influence of the petitions OF the wage
workers employed in manufacturing indus
tries then being presented to the United
States House OF Representatives. AS a
representative of thousands of workingmen.
you thus assailed and ttempte to deprive
them of all the value of their right to ap-
peal to this House. / demand of you that
you prove the charges you have made
against the w-age-wOrkerS and manufacture
ers, to which L hereby call your attention,
or withdraw them.
Your that il is your duty to
protect the writers of letters to you, upon
the contents of which you make any such
statement, is wholly unwarranted, being
based, as are the statements complained
of, on wholly untrue assumptions. | call
your attention TO the wholesale rule of all
fair conduct in conducting any quest for
truth, namely, not to base charges upon
facts one is not at liberty to fully disclose.
Such subterfuges argue a weak cause. and
in themselves justify suspicious that do
little credit to the man who resorts to
such virtually anonymous communications
TO sustain his cause.
The foregoing is plain language. II Mr..
| Wilson fails to furnish the evidence called
for in this challenge, his charge will be re-
garded by all f~air-nlinded men as a SLAM
der upon the employees as well as the en-
! ployers, on Democrats as well as Repub-
leans.