The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1896-07-11


|fng power since 1867: csc important
allega tionsS cont aim sever little dlssrgp:
anc.es that th e auth see INST z. have over
looked in the cut p0driing sof his Shood q
wall street oraIory I1e that stils
prOdl elton Of food tuns has; enormously
Isncreased, that the cost of production has
been materially lesssned by labor saving
machinery, that.Wagas have been greatly
Enhanced, and yet that 6 The chief caused
lower prices is that the people have been
eating less and poore { food !" Nowhere IN
his entire outpouring of eloquence does
Mr. McCleary explain the extraordinary
self denial OF men who deliberately .eal
goorer food and less of it when good food
Els more ab.t,adant, prices lower, and
wages. higher. It IS, to say the least, a
most remarkable phenomenon, q ease
of voluntary partial starvat tomas Tit were
for reasons not given by the propounder
of the doctrine. That reasons can be
given is, however, not hard to prove. q
On page 80 OF his supreme o,t, Con-
gresham NTcCleary goes to the trouble
OF constructing a table to show that: the
per diem wages OF the individual have
Wah." This table is a neat piece Of de-
anything whatever Of economics, that
his figures arc intended to support a
silly and fimsy falfacy. He must know,
if he is fit to represent Intelligent men
in congress, that the only method OF
determining the truth concerning wages
is to get at the average; to find out how
many men are getting So per day, how
many $50, and how many are unable
to find employment at all To produce
such an estimate would manifest]y ex-
pose the falsity of the Minnesota moral
lists reasoning, and blow his oobweb
table away and so it is left out. But he
himself testifes that with wages higher,
and food chea per men eat less and poorer
yictuals, and Why For the simple, rea-
son that there are thousands unable to
get any work at all, unable, to earn the
gilt-edge wages for want of opportunity
and SO unable to buy and eat This, ac-
cording to the congressional solon, is be-
cause Of over production. The United
States produces more wholesome food, at
less COST and the result of this blessing
is worse than if there were famine.
Strange that men masquerading as
educators have not the wit and the hon
esry to assign effects to their palpable
causes. Why not say right out and be
done with it, that the trouble is with the
distribution, not with the production Of
the fruits of the earth? Is 1t a law OF
nature that honest industry results in
squalOr, and bountiful crops in starya-
ton? If the production OF the blessings
OF the field and the mine in vast quanti-
ties in what the great Minnesota econo-
mist maintains it to be, then what the
United States most needs is a general
famine, the destruction of machinery, i'm
providence and sloth. IT progress, the
lessening of the burden OF labor on man
by the use Of machinery, is really the
cause OF the hardships which humanity
has to bear, the sooner improved ma
chinery is wiped out of existence the bet
ter, for men. can stand manual labor a
great deal better than starvation by rea-
son of enforced idleness.
But Mr.. McCleary also commits him
self to the theory that the things which
have fallen in price since the demoneti-
cation OF silver in 1873 are things that
ought to have fallen, while those things
that have increased are things that ought
by right to be raised. He does this as
mime thing on page II Of his speech,
and in answer to a question propounded
by a man who is very we'll known in the
city of Peor;a-Congressn Hopkins,
of Illinois Alfred Rothschild, Of the
bank of England, from whom he bor-
rowed the idea, did the same thing at the
international monetary conference in
Brussels in December, 1892. In conjunc-
ton with this suicidal declaration, the
'enlightener of congress boasts on page
40, and elsewhere, that he is a protec-
Zionist and Republican. He might as
we'll say that he is black and white in
skin at one and the same time.
What, pray, are the things in which
Americans, the great body Of the people
are interested, that have fallen, and
what are the things that have risen in
price? Wages, to begin with, have fal-
len. The congressman's table is a delu-
sion and q myth. Wages have fallen be-
cause there are proportio nately more
men unable to obtain work at any price,
more men living from hand to mouth,
ekjng out wretched existence in squat
or ard rags, than ever there were be-
fore. The increase in this class Of be-
ings is numbered by the. thousands, and
their condition in great cities may be
s,lrmised from the fact that many Of
them snbsist like animals on the refuse
from stock yards, swill barrels and ash
heaps. Wages have fallen, the average
being reduced by the system of which
Mr. McCIeary is so fabulous an adyo-
cate Then his own inflated figures show
that silver has fallen, and with it wheat,
cotton, iron and vast number Of minor
articles.
AS protectionists, perhaps, the boil
sterer of Wall street finance can explain
how the United States is to gain by a
fall in the prices of the things which
she has to sell and a rise in gold, the
commodity she has to buy. Appeal to
the sentiments of the advocate Of pro-
lection for gold and free: trade, for sill
yer fails TO plug up the holes In his logic
for: it is there stated that increased pro-
.duction OF silver has lowered its value
while enormous increase in the produc-
ton of gold has raised its value to such
an. extent that it takes twice as much
EsiIyer and the products Of labor gener-
ally to buy a given quantity Of the vel
low metal. Here is a parodox Of one OF
many such in this prize package essay
Its author proposes on page 40 to rely
chiefly onaa home market.
si .,,4 Concluded next week.
| JUNE EVERYDAY HINTS.