Hutchinson gazette. [volume] (Hutchinson, Kan.) 1895-1902, 1895-05-02

Business Men: You are all feeling
the hard times. You know by ex-
perience the difficulties to be overcome
in your efforts to do business in these
times. The rent bills come around
regularly. The clerks are to be paid
every week. Yet the trade is slow The
income keeps dropping lower, collec-
lions more tardy. Goods If not turned
promptly become shop worn and each
new order is bought for less money,
thus indicating heavy declines in value
and corresponding losses in stock.
If these conditions continue COM
mercial disaster must inevitably fol-
low.
Is it not time for everyday business
men to look into the causes Of these
conditions and study carefully for a
remedy?
Politicians have had the chief say so
in these matters. Party has been, with
them, above country. Their own sell
fish personal interests have dominated
their action to the sacrifice of every in
terest of the people.
Corporations, creatures of the law,
have been built up and fostered until
they action of our congress,
legislatures, courts and juries
They great trusts manipulate
trade to their advantage and
the peoples injury. The Stand
ard Oil company recently broke down
and absorbed its lastcompetitor and we
see coal oil go up SO per cent in one day.
Scarcely corporation exists to-day
which has not forfeited their charters
by violations Of the laws under which
they are created. Is 1t not time for the
people to assume their sovereign power
and curtail some Of the assumed pow
ers Of these wards of the state? Many
of their charters are for long terms,
but the power that made them can con-
troll them If it will, and it can forfeit
their charters if they deviate from
strict observance Of their charter re-
strictions.
The active energetic business men
are being pushed to the wall by these
conditions. Bright business men, by
tens Of thousands, are being driven
from business each year and forced to
seek employment from others. They,
together with their former en-
ployes, make up large portion Of the
great army Of unemployed that now
rove over the land unable to find work.
The people with means are compelled
10 feed them and their families. How
shortsighted is the policy that causes
this enforced idleness! Then too how
enormous are the losses to the country
ON this account? Just take a pencil
and calculate, say three million men
idle who could earn on an average even
the small amout of one dollar per day,
idle for two years of 300 working days
each or 600 days. This makes total
loss to the country that is lost forever
of $1,SOO,00O, 100000. This does not in
clude the loss of labor of those who are
working on short time; nor the loss
from the waste incident to idleness, nor
the depreciation in values Of all prop
erty. The census showed our wealth to
be seventy-one billions. This has de-
preciated at least twenty-five per cent.
In many cases twice that, in the past
two years. This makes loss in itself
of over twenty billions of dollars.
These values, however, may be re-
stored in a great measure, by an i'm
provement of conditions, but the two
or two and one-half billions lost from
idle laborers is lost forever. Great
Heavens! What a record this is to look
back upon
What has caused all this? Some say
1t is due to over productions that we
have made too many goods, have all
our railroads and cities built and there
Is nothing to do. Can there be over
production of products or goods so long
as there are hungry and naked or half
clothed people in the country? Is there
not plenty of undeVeloped country both
agricultural or mineral, to engage the
energies of the laborers who have fur
nished their work on the railroads in
the cities? Let us rather call it under
consumption" caused by inability to
buy and consume products.
Why this inability to buy? An an
swer to thisquestion solves the problem.
These people who are unable to buy
are, in the main, laborers. All wealth
is produced by labor. These laborers
produce some of this wealth. But
they have none now. They have
been robbed of it by our sys-
tenn Of distribution. Our system Of dis
tributlon is the transportation and ex-
change medium, or money.
When it COSTS more to transport
goods to the market than the producer
gets for them the producer or con-
sumner is being robbed. In either event
1t comes out Of labor. But our money
system is the most subtitle and least
understood agency for transferring the
results of labor to the drones who pro-
duce nothing. Scarce money produces
the use Of credit in business, and these
credits bear interest. The interest ac-
crues day and nights, Sundays, holt