Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1895-05-08

Business Men: You are. all feeling
the hard times. You know by ex-
perience the difficulties TO be overcome
tn 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-
uons more tardy. Goods II not turned
promptly become shop worn and each
new order is bought for less money,
mus Indicating heavy declines in value
and corresponding losses in stock.
IL these conditions continue COM
mercial disaster must inevitably fol-
low.
is 1t not time for everyday business
men to look into the causes of these
conditions and study carefully for a
remedy?
Pohticians lave had the chief say so
IN these matters. Party has been, with
mem above country. Their own sell
nsh personal interests have dominated
thelr action to the sacrifice of every in
ferest Of the people.
W,
nave been built up and fostered until
Ihey action of our congress,
legislatures, courts and iuries
Ihey great trusts manipulate
trade to their advantage and
me peoples injury. The Stand
ara Oil company recently broke down
ana absorbed its last competitor and we
see coal oil go up 33 per cent in one day.
scarcely a 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 10 assume their sovereign power
ana curtail some OF the assumed pow
crs OF these wards of the state? Many
or their charters are for long terms.
nut the power that made them can con-
trol them IL it will, and it can forfeit
their charters IL they deviate from a
strict observance OF their charter re-
slrlctions.
The active energetic business men
are Delng pushed to the wall by these
conditions. Bright business men, by
tens or thousands. are being driven
Tom business each year and forced to
seek employment from others. They.
together with their former en-
ployes, make up a 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
ana calculate. say three million men
ldle who could earn on an average even
the small amout of one dollar per day
idle for two years of 300 working day.
each or GOO days. This makes a tota
loss to the country that is lost forever
OF $l,SOO,0OO 100000. This does not in.
clude the loss of labor of those who are
working on short time; nor the los!
from the waste incident to idleness, MOI
the depreciation in values of all prop
erty. The census showed our wealth L
be seventy-one billions. This has de
preciated at least twenty-five per cent
In many cases twice that. in the pas
Two years. This makes loss in itsel
OF over twenty billions of dollars.
These values, however, may be re
stored in great measure. by an i'm
provement of conditions, but the tw,
or two and one-half billions lost from
idle laborers is lost forever. Grea
Heavens! What record this is to looI
back upon!
What has caused all this? Some sa,
II Is due to over production; that W.
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our railroads and cities built and ther
is nothing to do. Can there be over
production of products or goods so lonj
as there are hungry and naked or hal
clothed people in the country? Is ther
not plenty of undevelOped country botl
agricultural or mineral, to engage tn
energies of the laborers who have fur
nished their work on the railroads Il
the cities? Let us rather call it under
consumption" caused by inability t
buy and consume products.
Why this inability to buy? An an
swer to this question solves the problem
These people who are unable to bu
are. in the main, laborers. All wealtl
is produced by labor. These laborer
produce some of this wealth. Blu
they have none now. They hav
been robbed of 1t by our sys
TEN of distribution. Our system Of dis
tribution is the transportation and ex
change medium, or money.
when It costs more to transpor
goods to the market than the produce
gets for them the producer or con
sumner is being robbed. In either even
II comes out of labor. But our none
system is the most subtitle and leas
understood agency for transferring tn
results of labor to the drones who pro
duce nothing. Scarce money produce
the use of credit in business, and thes
credits bear interest. The interest ac
crues day and nights, Sundays. holi
days and rainy days. as we'll as during
drought and famine.
This interest accredited to men 70
the use of credit is greater than tn
average in wealth and in time absorb
all the results OF labor. leaving tn
laborer in n worse condition than tn
chattel slave. This is easily seen whei
we look at a few facts.
Our last census shows our indebted
ness of all kinds, national. state. coun
ty. municipal. railroad and individua
to be over $4,000. 900 ,OOO-thirty bill
lions Of dollars. This at per cent pc
annum makes a drain of twenty-on
hundred millions annually. To pa
this large sum. which goes enly to
few people. it will require all ou
wheat, corn. cotton. pork and beef. ant
then leave an unpaid balance of SOM
three hundred million dollars. So yol
see these bondholders have the labo
Of 100000 people on better term
than the Shareholder ever held his blacl
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