The record-union., 1896-12-21
ALABOR EXCHANGE STARTED.
II Mas Organized at Federated Trades
Hall Yesterday.
state Organizer j. B. Rigdon Gives
His Novel Views as
FinanCier.

Just thirty-three men assembled at
Federated Trades Hall on Ninth street
yesterday afternoon to listen to }. b.
Rlgdon, State Organizer of the Labor
exchange movement, explain the aims
OF and the benefits to be derived from
branches of the organization through
out the land.
DR.. Wagner was chosen Chairman
Tor the occasion. After having thanked
those assembled for the honor. he
stated that the meeting had been called
to devise ways and means to get out
of the present financial crisis, and IN
order to do this some feasible plan
should be adopted and persisted in.
The State Organizer, he said, was pres
Z ent to explain such plan, and 1t mad
already been tried and found not want
ing.
Labor exchanges, continued the
speaker, are not new departure, by
any means, having been in existence
for six years. In almost every instance
they had proved entirely successful
in procuring labor for all, and salts
factory in keeping up the circulating
medium.
The speaker then went into a long
discussion of the labor question in con-
nection with his ideas of what capital
should or should not do.
Major J. B. Rigdon, the State Organ
izer, was introduced and explained the
object of labor exchanges clearly and
concisely. The question, he said, is
whether labor should grovel in the dirt
while capital remained exalted. PreSi-
dent Lincoln had once said that Labor
was here first and declaimed against
the idea of it being compelled to bow to
the demands of capital.
The speaker contended that the two
great political parties had failed to
give to the laboring man what he most
desired, and that the people them
selves had forgotten the precepts laid
down by the founders Of the Govern
ment. He contended that within the
past few years real estate had de-
creased one-half; the price of labor
fully that much, and the price of the
products of labor even more.
1t had been stated in high places that
the present ruinous prices had been
caused by ver-production. This was
not the case. Cleveland and Harrison
had agreed that the cause of the finan-
cial depression was due to over-pro-
duction, but they were divided on the
matter of the tariff-Harrison wanted
more and Cleveland not so much
James A. Garfield and John A. Logan
however, did not agree with either
Cleveland or Harrison, and contended
that hard times We're due entirely to a
money famine.
]. B. S. Mills once said if you in
crease the currency one-half you in
crease the price of produce one-half
The President of Harvard College took
the same stand with Mr.. Mills, con-
tending that the volume of currency
in actual circulation always had and al
ways would regulate the price of
labor and of the products of the same.
That high tariff could not regulate
prices, the speaker said, was shown by
the panic of 1873, when the tariff was
stffened in order to meet the contrac-
tion of currency caused by the demone-
tization of silver. The high tariff party
had been asked by the people to in
crease the circulating medium, but
after the matter had been debated pro
and con an election was held and the
matter placed in the hands of a few
jackaknapes of lawyers who We're
elected because their fathers had left
them money, and not because they
We're blessed with a good supply of
brains.
The grange movement had started
out all right, but by and by the politi-
clan slipped in, and since that day it
had degenerated into big eat' about
once every six months. The same
might be said of the Farmers Alliance.
Both had proven failures, but those
failures only served to make organizers
of Labor Exchanges spit on their
hands and try it again. They proposed
to evolve victory out of defeat by
forming an organization in which the
politician, the banker and the monopo-
list should have no standing.
At this point the speaker took up the
question of Labor Exchanges, and
dwelt upon the aims and objects of
such organizations. Briefly stated his
explanations were as follows:
First To provide employment for
idle labor by facilitating the inter