The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-10-22

We have referred repeatedly to the
campaign lie still going its rounds
which asserts that the laboring2khan is
SO poor thing that he can be coerced
by an employer into voting against his
desires, although there exists no means
of ascertaining whether he does or not
1t is the first, but neither the last nor
the worst of the insults offered to labor
by the men who are playing their last
desperate card in the hope of securing
TIE support of the workingman for the
cause of Mr.. Bryan, free silver, ma
tional reputation, Chinese finance and
mob law A graVer stigma is cast upon
the name of labor in the speech of a
Bryan orator in this city on Tuesday
night, who coupled in consecutive SEN
fences the honest laboring man of this
country VIII the degraded tramp. In
the namS of that honorable industry
which we hold sacred, We for one. re-
ject and denounce this classification
Said the speaker: 1.-THE American
tramp is the spawn of this single gold
standard. He will become a perma-
nent institution. He will not disap-
pear while the gold standard prevails.
The once proud American workingman
has been reduced to the dead line of
degradation" If these words had been
spoken by any we'll known capitalist.
II they had come from the mouth of
any employer of labor, ten thousand
protests would have risen instantly
from the camp of the maligned and in
suited workingman. There are no two
extremes in this country today which
are farther apart than the working
man, whether in or out of employment.
and the tramp. The latter is not "a
spawn of the gold or any other stand
ard, or of this or any other age He
is the human wreckage produced by
idleness and the theory that 1.-THE world
owes every man a living" He belongs
to the world under all forms and svs-
TENS Of government as far back as
history goes. Among the earliest
epochs Of legislative authority we find
laws to suppress vagrancy and vaga-
bondage. The tramp problem was a
serious one before there was any
American system of finance. before
there was any American government.
before America was discovered. IT will
remain problem for centuries to
come, until the universal application
of the labor cure, without discrimina-
ton Or pity, shall have driven the old
tramp out of existence, and DESTROYED
the conditions that might create the
new.
We are not without knowledge of the
constitution and character of tramp
fraternities and tramp armies in this
country. They have been made an OBJ
ject Of careful and scientific study.
Their members are not workinmen.
with the rarest exceptions, and do not
wish to become so. 1t does sometimes
happen that a man who has lost his
job and is actually in search of an
other takes to the road with the hope
is, however so rare that it need not be
taken into calculation The reguIa-
ton tramp. as he is met with on the
highways of this country, is a man
who has learned the fatal lesson that.
II self-respect is surrendered, and
moral principles put aside, it is posi-
bic for human being to exist without
work That has become his study and
his practice; and there is nothing, not
even the city lookup or the county
jail, which he avoids with such shud
dering horror as the opportunity for
steady employment at any wage. There
are great many unemployed work
ingmen in this country today. but thew
are not tramps. They have no quail
ties in common with the tramp To
place them in that evil category is a
foul Islander which, on their behalf.
we would resent. They may be found
in all the great cities and in many of
the smaller towns of the nation They
are the product Of the imperfect adj