Arizona republican., 1895-08-03
suggested to the workers that it would not increase their earnings.

| suggested IO the WOTkels tHdt IG Woulu not increase their earnings.
 It is true that wages, as whole, barring, of course, the depression of the past two years, have been higher than at any previous time. They have been higher than during the greenback era, while the prices of the ordinary articles of consumption are far lower than they were then. The statistics on these points are surprising. So far as the facts of wages and prices are con- cerned, the opponents of bimetallism are, right in their statements, and there is very grave danger that pre- sentation of these facts may weaken the silver cause in the ranks of labor unless the subject be so thoroughly ex- plotted that workingmen will see that the1r interests lie on the silver side of the question.
 1 The exclamation of the advance in wages during the past 25 years is to be found in the fact that labor organiza- tons have been perfected during that period. The advance is due mainly to the efforts of the organizations of work CTS. Wages have been gradually work ed up, and at the same time people have been accustomed to higher rates. There is disposition among the great CT portion of employers to treat men well, and, as wages have been advanced this feeling among so many employers has aided the organizations of work ingmen in preventing any permanent backward movement. But, without the organizations, the advance could never have been secured nor maintain ed, for the reason that there are always some ready to make the hardest bar gains that they can. Excepting in times of the most phenomenal activity, it would be possible, if there were no cooperation among operatives, for any manufacturer to fill his works at rates far lower than those prevailing. A cut in one place would necessitate cuts in others; and in this way the general scale would long ago have been run down to or below the figures prevailing when the war broke out.
 Nor can the monometallists properly claim that the workers as whole are really better off than they would have bean under a continuation of the bi- metallic system. While wages have been good, the cities have long been filled with idle men. The attraction of high wages has drawn multitudes into the industrial centers who should have remained in the country, but the im- pairment of the purchasing power of the people through the depression of the prices of products has prevented vast multitudes from securing steady employment. Farm wages went up be. cause the workers were lured into the cities, and the lot of those who re- mained on the soil has been, generally speaking, far better than the condition of those adding themselves to the urban population. Again, in vast num- bers of instances, the condition of those remaining on the farms has been preferable to that of the owners of the farms the former have had good wages while the latter, after paying the wages have little left for themselves from the constantly shrinking returns from their crops.
 The conditions that have been estab- llshed are abnormal; and little refec tion will convince any ordinary man that there must be break unless equi. librium be esta blished. Wages cannot continue to go up, nor can they be maintained upon their present plane, under a system that depresses the prices of products. If silver be not re- stored and the pendulum of prices swung back toward where it was when demonetization was brought about, wages must break and follow values of the products of labor down into the abyss.