, 1896-09-15
HI CRIME OF 1896.

The highest crime against national
prosperity is to strike down wages, and
the most criminal method of reducing
wages, because the most insidious and
far-reaChing, is to debase the standard
money in which wages are paid.
Against actual reductions of money IA
ges by individual employers or cor
porations, laborers can have ecourse
to the ordinary means of economic de-
Tense through organized resistance. but
against the slaughter of wages through
debasing the money laborers receive,
the methods of organized labor are i'm
potent. The evil comes. not in a reduc-
ton of the amount of wages laborers
receive, but in a reduction in the
amount of welfare the wages will buy.
Disbursement of the standard money
steals from the laborer the substance
of his wages without changing the
form. 1t silently increases his poverty
without reducing his income. This
masked assassination of real wages,
like the destroying angel of old. in a
single night smites every laborer's
household. No other industrial scourge
is as universal or as sudden as this. All
other forms of industrial disaster fol-
low the lines of certain industries or
geographical sections, and are more or
less gradual in their coming; but this
weapon of poverty strikes every laborer
in the land at a single stroke.
Behind the movement of 1892, there
was, at least. an abstract economic the
Dry of equitable commercial relations.
The scheme of 90 lacks even this SEEM
ing excuse; it has behind it neither his
tory. economic theory o financial
judgment. 1t is a scheme whose sole
purpose is arbitrarily to strike down
wages in order to double the profits of
a small and special class. In their short
s~ightedness. they fail to see that thus
to strike down wage is to destroy near
ly half the consuming power of over
10000, 600 of people, and with it destroy
the very basis of prosperity in every
form of productive industry.
The farmers who are expecting to
gain by this sacrifice of the laborers
will soon find that the promised profit
is a mere mirage. The chief market for
the products of American farmers is
consumption by the wage and salary
receiving population, employed in the
manufacturing and commercial indus
tries: let this be reduced so per cent and
all hope of improvement for the Ameri-
can farmer is gone. There is no chance
for increasing his sales abroad. India,
Argentine. Russia and Austria can beat
him there. Let American markets be
destroyed and the abyss of agricultural
depression will be at hand, and the Bry-
an millennium with unsold crops, fore
closed mortgages, deserted farms and
agricultural desperation will be real
lied.
Whatever may be the theories of
farmers regarding prices they cannot
dllOru 10 utSlTOS tHe HldThelS lOI lAcii
products. Whatever may be the the
cries of laborers regarding capital, pub
lie ownership of industries or the re-
construction of society. they cannot af-
ford, under any circumstances, to per-
nit a wholesale reduction Of wages.
Any wage or salary receiver who will
vote directly or indirectly for a reduc-
ion Of the purchasing power Of wages
is an enemy Of his class and of his
and will be entitled to no aid or
sympathy when the inevitable conse-
luences of his voting come. The Debs.
Gompers. Maguires and
,ther representatives of organized Ia
or are bound by the history and eco
lomics of their position first and all
he time to resist anything and earn
he condemnation Of their class every
here. There Is no crime against pros
Gritty, against society. against q civil {