Birmingham state herald. (Birmingham, Ala.) 1895-1897, 1896-10-21
THE PARAMOUNT QUESTION.


1t now appears that Mr. Bryan is going
to be elected to the presidency and con-
gress with him favorable to the free and
unlimited coinage of gold and silver at
the ratio of 16 to 1. If that be the result
of the election, then the country will be
given the benefits of true bimetallism,
but Birmingham and this district stands
in need of a reform other than a reform
of the financial system of the govern
ment.
The reform to which we allude is the
absolute necessity of state legislation on
the commissary question. The State Her.
aid does not contend that corporations do
not have the right, both legally and NOR
ally, to operate commissares known as
company stores. Our contention is that
corporations have no right-either legally
or morally-to use their commissaries or
company stores to Cypress the laboring
men, to destroy the general prosperity
which this district should and will enjoy
under reformed financial system in the
absence of the present system of operat-
ing the commissaries. 1t is not the COM
missaries that we are after-it is the
abuses that are being practlced through
them.
The national government may give us
either free coinage or the gold standard,
protection or a tariff for revenue only,
but it matters not which two of these sys-
TENS we get, this district cannot expect
to prosper as it should until our state
legislature takes the necessary steps to
prevent the corporations of the district
from, by an unjust system of oppression,
absorbing everything in sight.
Just SO long as the labama legislature
falls or refuses to enact the necessary
laws to prevent day laborers from the
danger of being absolutely fleeced of their
honest earnings in this district, just that
long will general prosperity remain away
from us.
Laboring men should not be forced to
pay Is cents per pound for bulk pork
when it is only worth ~ cents; 10 cents
per pound for sugar when it is only
worth cents; so cents per gallon for kero-
sene oil or sit in the dark: house rent,
whether they occupy house or not; doc
tors bills, whether they are sick or not;
insurance, whether insured or not; so
cents per package for Arbuckles coffee
or drink water; neither should they be
made aware of the fact that unless they
take up their wages at the company's
store that some other hungry fellow is
ready to take their places.
These are outrages that the law as 1t
now stands does not countepance, but the
absolute necessities of the laboring peo-
pie force them to submit, and just here
we say the Legislature should step in and
protect the weak against the powerful.
We are told that the complaints against
the commissaries are exaggerated Grant
that they are so, yea, rs per cent, and
then ample reason remains for legis-
lative intervention. We are told that
men are sold goods at the commissaries
as cheap or cheaper than they can get
them elsewhere. Then, why not pay the
laborer his money promptly and let him
solve that question. We are told that the
operators of commissaries reap no ad
vantage from them; then why do they OPP
pose every proposition looking to their
regulation. On the other hand, we are
told that to abolish the commissary sys-
tenn would close down the industries of
the district. How do you reconcile that
proposition with the proposition that the
operators of these commissaries reap no
advantage from them? If the laboring
people of the district are being taxed and
ground down by unjust oppression to
keep these enterprises going, is it fair
and just? How is it that commissares
are selling goods just as cheap as other
stores are selling goods and at the same
time are supplying the necessary money
to keep the manufacturing and mining
enterprises going, while the stores that
have no mines or manufactures attached
to them are scarcely earning enough to
keep their owners out of the hands of the
sheriff? The laws Of Alabama should
not tolerate a system which can be used
to rob and Cypress the poor for the benefit
of the more fortunate. When a man has
taken his dinner bucket and left his wife
or little ones, and in some instances both
of them, on a sick bed and gone and put
in days work. and at night, instead of
getting his 81 Is forced to take a check
for 1t at one window and pass to another
window and have 1t discounted by CASH
ing it in for rs cents, which he Is COM
PEELED to have to buy medicine for his
sick ones who have watched all day for it,
some power should step in and say to the
soulless corporation: You shall not long
err press down upon the brow of labor
that cruel crown Of robbery and oppres-
sion.
To the country at large the silver ques-
ton is the paramount issue, but to Bir-
mingham and this district the paramount
issue should be that the man who works a
day shall be paid his money and allowed
to spend it where he chooses, and not re-
quired to pay doctor that never comes
or rent on house in which he never
lived.