Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1897-10-20
LABOR, CAPITAL AND HANNAlsM.

While the Republican party pirates of
protection" to American labor, the
employers of labor in the protected
industries alone get the protection af-
forded by the tariff law, and these same
employers import, tens of thousands,
free of duty, the Invest and cheapest
Of foreigners in order to compel Amer
lean workingmen to accept lower
wages.
Hence we see the supply of labor
greatly increased, while wages go down
and the demand for labor is dimin-
ished through the contraction of the
currency, caused by the demoneti-
cation OF our principal money metal,
which has resulted in falling prices,
the paralysis Of enterprise and the con-
sequent restriction of the labor field.
This condition means fewer workmen
employed at lower wages which, in
turn, means a corresponding reduction
in the consumption of the product of
labor, for the laborer can't spend more
money than he earns.
This, in. as few words as possible,
is the actual situation to-day. What
is to be the outcome? 1t is a great
question. Is organized capita, with
its cheap labor and labor-saying ma
chinery, to monopolize all that man
kind lives for on this earth? Must the
multitude who can get no work, even
at starvation wages, quietly, and with
out creating unseemly disturbance,
starve to death or freeze? What alter
native have they except to become out
laws, which would certainly not ad
vance civilization?
The monopolists who control our in
dustries, the hoggish capitalists who
control our currency, to their own en-
richment, should have sense enough to
see the perilous situation ahead unless
some rational answer is made to these
questions.
One of these capitalists, and cap
tains of monopolized industry, Senator
Elkins, gave his version of the proper
cure by declaring that Wages in
America must come down" But that
trick was done long ago and the star
walton point has already Deen reached
and passed in many lines. How would
it do to curtail the incomes of the
trust managers? Why, even TO men
ton such thing would be to at once
raise the howl of anarchy" Green
backism, or private banknote issues, as
some bankers propose, will not solve
the question nor remedy currency con-
traction, which is the whole seat of
the trouble
There is but one remedy. for the
situation, and that is to return to the
honest money of the Constitution. In
this way, and in this way alone, can
we safely expand the volume of our
currency, give prices healthy upward
tendency and legitimately stimulate
honest trade, industry and enterprise.
Work would be given to hundreds of
thousands at fair wages who are now
compelled to be idle.
The people of Ohio have a chance to
express their verdict on this great and
vital question at the polls next month.
1t is question whose solution will
affect equally and in the same way
the laborer and the great capitalist en-
gagged in legitimate enterprise. All the
people, rich and poor, employe and en-
ployer, are interested in opposing the
rapacity of handful of greedy money
kings in New York and London, who
would enslave all the world if they
could, and will if they are not check
ed. And the chief political represent
alive of this money power in America
to-day is Mark Hanna. If the people
of Ohio will defeat him and his mil
lions at the polls plutocracy will have
been given vital thrust and the people
who are ground down under the heel of
monopoly and the gold devil will every
where take fresh hope for the future.