Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1896-11-11

| the silver mine owners in the Rocky noun
| tains. The charge would not be true. and If
it was. 1 have only to say that l would a
| thousand times rather cast thousand
| votes for a mine owner in the ROCKY
| mountains who employs labor. and con-
| tributes to the wealth of my country than
| to cast one vote for foreign shylock, who
| conspres to rob the labor of the world.
| We cannot afford to shut off the foun-
| tain of life TO find a grain of sand, nor de-
| stroy a mountain OF good TO ma pep
| BILE of evil. Furthermore the mine own
| ers can have 10 more direct interests than
labor itself Statisticians tell us that for
! every miner who goes to work in silver
| mine nine other working people are de-
| manded in other fields of industry, some
| making tools and machinery, some pro-
ducing food and other supplies for the
miner and his family, and others are en-
| ployed in stamping mills, smelterS, etc.
The labor organizations of Utah, less
| than month ago, reported that in twenty
seven towns in that state where, before the
| repeal of the purchasing clause of the
! Sherman act, there were employed twenty
| five thousand two hundred and siXty-SiX
| persons, there are now employed only eight
! thousand five hundred and twenty-five;
| that wages have reduced 40 per cent. and
| that since 1892 Utah alone has sent east
| thirty-three thousand four hundred and
| lightweight working people to compete
| with their fellow men in the struggle for
! bread in our already over-crowded cities,
| or join the army of enforced iders. What
is true In Utah in this respect is true in
| nearly every other state in the mountain
| districts of the west.
| The Boom in business.
THE spontaneous influx of gold and re-
! sumption of manufacturing since the result
| OF the election known proves conclu-
| sively that the gold barons and the cor
| poratons locked up the money and closed
| the factories of the country to secure the
| victory over the people by arbitrary force.
l no dom Df Is of he for
| eSSarieS of life were no greater after cleo
| ton than before, and except the millions
| laid out by the money power to corrupt
| the voters, the people have no more money
| with which to buy the necessaries of life
| after election than they had before it.
J NO honest cause can be given for the
| unlocking of money and the revival of in
| dustries after the late election that did not
| exist before the election occurred. Such re-
| vival of trade and industry can only be
| temporary at best, and proves that the in
| dustrial masses of this country are at the
l. mercy of an oligarchy of wealth and a
| combine of gold gamblers, who can lock up
| the money of the country, close our indus
| tries and starve the people at will.
| The Knights of Labor is the only labor
| organization commanding the necessary
| machinery to hold up great reform move
| ment during the interim between political
| campaigns Therefore. l appeal to the dele
| gates here assembled to place demand for
| the free coinage of silver at the present
| legal ratio in our preamble and bare our
| ports. and clear decks for action
| against the plutocratic combine arrayed
| on the side of single gold standard.
| 1t is not alone because of the merit con-
| tanned in the question that / make this APP
| peal, but because of the combine opposed
| to it, and the opportunity that it will af-
ford us to reach the public with other
| questions vital to the interests and welfare
| of the working people.
| Reviewing the Year.
THE year past since the Washington SEES
sion of the general assembly has been one
| of low wages and enforced ideness, in con-
sequence of which all labor organizations
| have suffered, and some Of them show a
| marked decline in membership. Your gen.
| eral officers have struggled against many
| embarrassments which the membership a t
| large will never know and had not the
| grand principles on which the order is
| founded and the independence and knowl-
| edge of its members made it a prominent
| factor in great struggle for financial re-
| form would not now command the re-
| spect of the reform forces of this and other
| countries. Let us dispel all fractional diff
| ferences and invite all branches of honor
| able toll to join in a general crusade
| against the plutocratic classes, who. under
| the guise of honest money, have combined
| to rob the working people of the fruits of
their toll. of their homes and of their con-
| Stitutional liberties.
| LAS the chief officer of this order during
| the past three years, L nave received every
| honor every assistance, and every kind
| consideration which loyal and patriotic
| membership could bestow- upon its chief
| executive and 1 beg to express my graft
| tuGe for the generous support and kind
| treatment everywhere received, and l
| pledge to you, to my successor and to the
| great cause of knighthood my most loyal
support and my best endeavors in the
! struggle to alleviate, through the efforts of
this order, the distresses of oppressed hu-
| mainly.
| "Fraternally yours
| -. r. SOVEREIGN,
| General Master Workman"
Sccretnry-Trcasurer Hayes Report.
The annual report of Secretary Treasurer
]. w. Hayes opens with reference to
| what the official named terms attacks of
a most villainous character" upon the gen.
eral officers of the order, by reason of the
just stand taken by them in refusing to
allow a small clique Of men, who are ia
| miliarly known as the New York triangle
of the socialistic labor party, to get control
of the machinery Of the Knights of Labor
for the dissemination of their doctrines
The so-called triangle, according to Mr..
| Hayes consists of Daniel De Leon, Lucien
Sanial and Ernst Rohn.
The report treats also Of the action Of
| the American Fedora ti0n NJ Labor dlroct-