The Dupuyer acantha. [volume] (Dupuyer, Mont.) 1894-1904, 1895-06-22
e. E. Trescott, Publisher.
Random Shots.


The invitation which the labor
unions of Chicago gave to Gov.
Mckinley to address them, is one
of the straws that shows which
way the wind blows. The work
ingmen are beginning to awaken to
the fact that protective policy is
not all for the benefit of the "rob-
ber baron" They have ascertained
the truth that it is not the rich
alone who are benefited by pro-
lection. The "bloated" monopo-
list bloats all the more when we
have low wages and his champagne
comes in free of duty. His money
goes farther under free trade than
under a protective tariff because
he pays lower wages. In time of
Industrial depression he is cons
Portable. The man who works for
his daily bread is the one who
suffers. When wages 60 down it
is still the wage Garner who is
hurt.
We are often cited to the opera
tion of free trade In England and
told about it's benefcent results.
The fact is that the only good that
policy has done in that country is
confined to the wealthy classes.
The chasm between the rich and
poor has been constantly widened i.
The laboring man only receives for
his toll bare subsistence. Wages
are very low. Workmen are in
poor demand. It is fact that
labor yields such small income
that with them to be once laborer
is always to be one. He who works
for daily wage can never better
his condition. While free trade
has proved its capability of adding
to fortunes which are already CO.
lossal, it has also demonstrated it's
capacity to grind down the poor.
There seems to be some sort of
fatality which pursues the laboring
man from the dawn of life to it's
close. He is easily deluded. The
crafty free trader seems to under
stand his disposition and deceives
him with readiness and completes
ness that is surprising. He tri-
umphs to the extent that the Wage
Garner walks up to the pills and
deliberately votes to cut his own
throat; to lower his wages; to take
the food from his family and the
shoes from the feet of his innocent
babe.
The most prolific cause of our
present hard times, if not the only
one, is the short advance which we
have made in the directio of free
trade. That advance has cut short
our production, sent our gold to
foreign countries, flooded our
markets with the products of pau
per labor, lowered our wages and
along with it our standard of living
and sowed misery broadcast in the
land.
And yet the workingman delib-
erately voted to bring these things
about. OF course he did not be-
lieve that his vote would produce
the result that it did. He can see
it now. But it serves to show how
he can be deluded. Will he do
better next time? 1t is quite fall
for sheepherders to tumble from
forty to thirty dollars per month.
1t is long step downward for the
sheep shearer to come down to five
cents head, as they have in some
parts of Montana.
Free wool is directly respon sible
for this. Our democratic friends
are breaking their necks in their
wild endeavors to fix the blame
upon something else. But the fact
remains that when our woolgrowers
are brought into direct and unpro.
tected competition with cheap
foreign wool, which is produced by
cheap labor and brought here by
cheap ocean freights. he must cut
wages or be engulfed beneath tho
wave of financial disaster.