The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-09-21

labor may be as we'll off as 1t Is now or rather was under normal business activity wages must be doubled, doubled in name, Such a doubling | would of course represent no real in- crease In some schools the pupils are marked on a scale of 100, in others on a scale of 10 The pupil that gets 80 in one schools gets just the same as the pupil that gets in the other If man | gets $20O day now, he should receive | $4.OO a day under free coinage, for his dollars would only be worth half as | much He should get it. Would he | get It? Could he get it?
 There are two classes of wage-e earn | CTS that I think might possibly get it without much of a fight, Public school teachers and servant girls, Public school teachers because the public on the whole means to deal fairly by such important employees. and servant girls because people have got to have them. They are in demand; the one branch of labor that Is to-day perfectly independent.
 And there would undoubtedly be ef- forts made more or less voluntary by honorable individuals companies and even some soulless corporation to meet their employees fairly. But there is no reason to suppose that in general there would be any escape from the historic law that wages are the last thing to rise, the price of the loaf would double before the laborer's pay would double. General Harrison has brought out the best illustration of this though the wis est as well as the commonest labor agl- tators agree in this that what improve ments in condition labor gets it has to l fight for. General Harrison's illustra- | ton is from war times, when the cur rency was depreciating and goods go | ing up just as they would under free | coinage. For the first period goods ad- vanced IS per cent, wages advanced per cent The second period goods ad- vanced 49 per cent, wages 101s per cent The third period goods advanced 90 per cent. wages 25 per cent. Finally goods had advanced IF per cent and | labor 43 per cent. When this period of imitation ended you see labor was slow ly catching up; the first advance of l goods was six times that of labor, the | last less than three. Under free coin age wages would undoubtedly hitch
 forward after prices and in ten years perhaps might catch them, but what | hard struggle 1t would be and then to be no better off than we are to-day,
 but just have won back our ground.
 But not only has the employer of labor, however good, his intentions
 first to wait until he knows where he
 is himself before he can raise wages but there are cases in which it Is hard
 to see how he ever could raise wages. Extremes meet, the long, bearded popo- crats have taken up the most danger ous questions with girlish gaiety. The peculiarity of MT. Bryan's mind is that
 it arrives before it gets there.
 For example. how could railroads
 raise wages? They would have to
 charge double rates. Their prices must,
 like all others. But they can't raise
 their prices very much, the limit is
 largely fixed by state laws, both for passenger and freight rates. Besides a l large part of thier expenses is the in
 terest on their bonds invariably paya- ble In gold (The bonded debt of rail-
 roads is $5000, 100000 They pay annu-
 ally in wages $4OO, 100000 The interest I on the gold bonds is therefore two- 1 thirds as much as they pay in wages )
 Now fortunes many and great have
 been made out of the railroads, but it
 has been by wrecking them and wa
 tering their stock Very few miles of road are to-day earning enough to en-
 dure having their receipts cut down
 one-half. And you can't squeeze the
 water out of the stock now without
 hurting the widow and the orphan, and
 the small holders as we'll as the mil
 lionaire.
 "No railroad could raise wages. On
 ly very few, if any, could avoid re-
 ducing wages to help pay the interest
 on their gold bearing bonds Many
 a more private, corporation would be, to certain extent, in the same position Of course the laws limiting railroad
 charges could be repealed, but witt
 what struggles and loss of time What
 a glimpse of endless chaos is opened to
 us through this one peek hole.
 Why, the adjustments worked out
 through a hundred years have all to be
 made over again. So wild is the con.
 fusion, such tears and shame and need. 2 less TulE IluSI De D6IOT6 the enQ IS ever
 in sight that though I stick to my DO. sition that the majority of MT. Bryan's
 supporters are kind and honest men , sympathize with those who have charg
 ed them with intending nothing less
 than anarchy and revolution. And the
 worst feature of such a revolution i: not the sufferings of the revolution it self but the disappointment of it. Int :, fact that at the end of it labor's fight
 ing chance would not be so good as it i.
 to-day, and labor will have had to pay the cost too. We all believe labol should have larger share in the wealtl . and larger recognition in the honors O. : the country, but in the name of ou patient Anglo-Saxon blood, my fellow !. laborers, don't let us cloud our mind : with envy, don't forget that what il good for the capitalist is good for us \ I must say it though it be to reviv an old issue, that the majority of vote cast for free trade in 1892 were cas not because the men that voted then saw an opportunity to benefit them selves, but because they hoped to in jure somebody else. I fear to-day know to-day the loudest advocates o free silver are not it's advocates be cause they can tell any way in whicl it will help them, but because it vii l.