The Dalles times-mountaineer. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1882-1904, 1894-02-10
SHARING PROFITS AND POVERTY

SHARING PROFITS AND POVERTY
1t is now some twenty-five years
since Mr.. Dodge, of Dolgeville, N. Y,
pnt his large felt factory on profit
sharing basis. At that time he made
only piano covers. but later he devol-
eped a still larger shoe business. He
has maintained the system ever since
and been abe, besides paying good
wages and getting the legal rate of in
terest on the capital invested, to divide
among the employees handsome profits.
But this year has been one of disaster
There are no profits to divide, and there
is a great deal of enforced idleness, due
to the lack of orders. The explanation
of this condition of affairs given to the
men by Mr.. Dodge, while special In de-
sign, is really as broad as the country
in its application.
A majority of the workmen in that
establishment voted for Cleveland and
change, but every last one of them pro-
tests that he is sorry, ard pledges him
self to support in the future an Amer
lean policy and uphold American in
stitutions. They have all had enough
of free trade. The problem is very
simple. The felt made there comes in
competition with German products, ex
cept as the tariff interposes protection,
and under the Wilson bill Mr.. Dodge
will have to take his machinery over
to Germany and abandon the present
factory, or his employees will have to
take much less wages. They under
stand it perfectly well. They may not
be able to fathom all the depths of po
litical economy, but they can easily see
the practical side of that science, if
it be, in its relations to their particu-
lar branch of industry. As Mr.. Dodge
said to them the other day In explain
ing Why there were no profits to share:
"It is true that you must accept
lower wages, and you have foretaste
now of the steady employment which
you will enjoy when Europe dumps all
its surplus products upon our market.
What have we to expect now? you may
ask. No cne can tell. The Wilson
bill means retrogressien, because the
purchasing power of the masses will be
curtailed and therefore the production
o. articles of use, comfort, and even the
necessities of life must be curtailed.
Values will be destroyed; rents become
lower, because the Impoverished work.
ingmen or clerks cannot afford to live
in comfortable homes any longer and
must seek cheaper quarters. With
the falling of rents real-estate values
will shrink, and many poor man who
saved few hundred dollars from his
wages to buy home will lose his
equity and be driven from his home"
There is no country IN the world in
which the same opportunities are pre-
sented of the working classes heing
masters of the situation and owning
their own homes as in the United
States. Nearly every man, If frugal
and industrious may accumulate enough
to enjoy even the luxuries of life; but,
from the effects of free trade, already
the foreclosure predicted by Mr.. Dodge
is beginning to take place, and this
penalty of foreign competition in pro-
ducts threatens to be peculiarly dis
tressing.
Dark as is the outlook, it is master
of cengratulation that the people rule
The mistakes Of one election may be
rectiied at the next. The laborin2
men were the victims of gigantic
confidence game in 1892, but they will
hardly be bunkoed econd time.