The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1895-09-27
PRICES AND WAGES.
4 Significant Fact for American Work.
ingmen to Consider.

4 Significant Fact for American Work.
| ingmen to Consider.
Distinguished democrats returning
from Europe bring with them hopeful
predictions. and presumably hopeful
feeling. No doubt they have been
much impressed by the revival of bust
ness which has occurred during the
last three months, and calculate that
the country must be prospecting so
greatly that democratic legislation
will get the credit. 1t is the natural
away. Men who have been at home
know that the working force, though
better employed, is not fully employed.
and that the wages, though advanced
for several hundred thousand men
about half the decline since Mr.. Cleve-
lands Inauguration, are for the re-
naming ninety-five per cent. of the
working force as low as ever. They
also know that the working voters,
who are nearly the whole number, are
not better satisfied with the demo-
cratic party or its legislation than
they were last November.
This is the danger about which the
democratic party is laboring to cheat
itself as usual BY dint of repeating
untruths designed to deceive repub-
licans the party persuades itself that
everything is as prosperous and labor
as well remunerated in things which
wages will buy as ever. After a time
this will be found costly mistake, for
the men who receive the wages know
the facts, and ar not deceived in the
least. 1t is within their personal
knowledge that prices of the things
they have to buy have not declined as
much as the wages they received.
True, prices of all products. taken as
a whole, have been lower in this same
month of September than at any
previous date in the history Of the
country, but the decline has been al
most wholly in prices of farm products,
and of that decline the workingmen do
not Immediately get the full benefit in
the retail prices.
Farm products, taken as a whole,
were never before so low as in July,
1894, but are now fully per cent.
lower than they were then, the rela-
tive Importance of different articles
being considered. In October, 1892,
the same quantities of products at New
York wholesale prices cost S41.755
which now cost S33. $40, n decline of
1914 per cent. All other products have
declined i'll value about 5 per cent,
farm products suffering most, as is
in, %
from the reduced ability of the people
to consume. But customers do not get
bread cheaper, nor most kinds of meats,
nor are most kinds of vegetables re-
duced to actual consumers as much as
in the wholesale markets. But while
prices of all kinds of products average
- per cent lower than in October,
1892, the greater proportion of the
working force has a relatively larger
reduction in wages. though not as
yet as much reduction in retail prices.
There are many men. of course, who
feel these consequences, though they
do not keep such precise records that
they can tell exactly where their diff
Guilty is. The democratic managers
may be sure that these voters, of whom
there are millions. will vote according
to their individual impressions. There
is something left after the weeks
work, or there is not. Either it is as
much as it used to be or it is not
Blanket sheets filed with figures.
whole volumes of statistics, will not
get these voters away from realiza-
ton of the fact that at the end of the
week or month they are not as well off
as they used to he, even if they have
worked, and worked full time, though
many still have not.
Our democratic friends are making
the old mistake in thinking that the
voters of the country are incompetent
fools who will never know what hurts
them when they are hurt. The voters
do not need to study anything more
elaborate than their own pocketbooks
at the end of each week If the demo-
cratic policy pays for them. giving
them better employment and wages in
proportion to the cost of living than in
1872, they will remember the fact If
it does not, they will remember that
fact also.-N. Y. Tribune.