The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1895-10-30
INSIDE HISTORY.
Stoughton and INSTRUMENTATION
the Campaign of 1894 was
Butchered in An Attempt to
Destroy The Represen.
tatiye.
INSTRUCTIVE LESSONS FOR
THE FUTURE.

Some of our friends write us and say
TO us that The REPRESENTATIVE
should not waste it's time answering
the attacks Of such men as Eckford,
Stoughton, and the like; that it is like
hunting bed-bugs with a Maxim gun
and brass band. But this paper is in
peculiar position. 1t was tablish-
ed by the State Farmers Alliance, at
their annual meeting, January 1893;
and it is due to them that they should
know the inside history of the enter
prize, and should understand the mani
fold difficulties it has had to encoun-
ter.
was president of the Farmers A Ill
ance at that time and hence had
charge Of the paper. Upon the recon-
mendation Of Mr.. Eckford one A. L.
Stoughton, stranger to me, was
made editor Of the paper. The title
of editor was one Of compliment, for |
cannot recall that he ever wrote any
thing for the paper. He may have
done so, but if he did it was SO dish
slipped my memory. Then as now the
burden Of the editorial work fell upon
myself-some of my articles being
, signed II. d." while others of more
temporary or local nature, bore no
signature.
Our first agreement with Stoughton
was that he should have SIG per week
and set type, make up the forms, etc.
The sum Of $l6 is that fixed by the the
Typographical Union for a printer;
while $l8 is the pay for foreman;
but in SO small an establishment as
ours foreman was not needed. Aft
er time Stoughton thought he
ought to have more pay, and the mat
ter was brought before a meeting Of
the Executive Committee Of the State
Farmers Alliance, consisting at that
time Of r. j. Hall. A. L. Stromberg,
II. p. Bjorge, G. N. Perkins, J. 1. Yer
milya. r. Eckford and myself. The
REPRESENTATIVE at that time had
but six COLUMNS to the page instead of
seven, and the columns were much
shorter than now. l open the bound
file, of the paper hap-hazard, at the
issue of August Is, 1893. find on
page one that all the articles were
written by me; the second page is
made up Of letters and quoted arti-
cles; the fourth page consists of other
letters; the fifth page is plate matter;
the sixth ditto, the seventh standing
n after and advertisements, and the
eighth plate matter. There are just
fourteen columns Of composition
which were set up in our office: and to
produce this we had Stoughton, a boy
and a young lady. Every compositor
knows that one good printer could
have set up the whole of those II
short columns; and with a boy to help
he would have time to make up the
forms. Eckford had charge of the
book accounts and business matters
We therefore told the committee that
Stoughton and the boy were ample to
do all the work, and we saw no neces-
sity for employing the lady assistant.
We reminded them that the times
were dreadfully hard. This was the
year Of the great crash-the banks
went down like row of bricks
money was very scarce-wOrkmen
were starving. The rules of the typo
graphical society, adopted in good
times, gave printers SIG per week, or
$2.66 per day: but the committee de-
sired to be liberal with Stoughton,
and so they said to him that if he and
the boy "a young man, in fact, to
whom we paid So week., got out the
paper between them, without help
from anyone else, his compensation
should be $40 per week; but if the
young lady or any one else had to be
employed, he was to have the regular
printers wage,-$l6 per week.
Stoughton was present at the meeting
of the Executive Committee and
aged to all this; as, think, all the
committee will testify. But Slough
ton never got out single issue of the
paper in accordance with these terms;
but we had bill to pay every week
to the young lady. Hence his wages
were to be but $40 per week.
But the clouds grew blacker and the
times harder. We all remember that
fateful year. The Northern Pacific
went to the wall, with a deficit of
$972,067; the bankers of St. Paul met
and conceding the inadequacy of mon
ey to move the crops proposed to
use clearing house-cert Utica ties; Carter
Harrison declared that 100000 people
in Chicago were out of work and hum
CRY; a New York firm offered prem
ium Of $3.50 per thousand for silver
dollars: Congress was convened in
special session to save the imperilled
country: the Michigan miners were
starving; firms, companies, individ
uals were failing everywhere; in one
day in St. Paul the depositors drew
hundreds of thousands of dollars out
of the banks and $4,000 of it were
used to buy postal orders on Mime