The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1897-09-29
FREE sILvER ANp LAeoR.
Vital Interest OF the WorkinEman In
n Gold Standard.

Vital Interest OF the Wor<tngman In 3,
Gold standard.
The Illinois Federation of Labor has
adopted a plank calling for the free
coinage of silver at the ratio of sixteen
to one. But this demand is not nc-
companied by any statement ofthe al
legged benefits to trades unionism. Nor
did any member of the convention say
anything calculated to throw any light
on the subject.
This is singular omission. Those
who adopted that free coinage plank
claim to be friends of labor. 1t is to
be assumed that they would not insert
anything in their platform which they
did not think would benefit organized
labor" But how can that labor be
helped by being paid wages in semi
bogus money. which is worth only 40
or 43 per cent. of its face value?
If the plank had demanded sound
and stable money" no explanation
would have been necessary. For every
body understands that that is the kind
of money which labor needs, and that
workingmen are special sufferers when
the money is not sound and stable.
But request for unsound and unstable
money--professedly for the benefit OF
labor-is so unusual as to demand an
explanation.
1t is impossible to get one, however.
The attention Of the so-called labor
leaders" has been invited to the fact
that the working people have 1000
millions of gold standard money on
deposit in the savings banks Of the
United States, and that change of the
money standard retroactiyely to Accent
dollars would rob the working people
of 1900 millions of their savings.
Those laborites have been asked how
free coinage could be for the benefit of
labor when the effect of its adoption
would cost labor so dear at once. Their
only reply has been some ranting speech
delivered between the whisky and the
tobacco-to the effect that capitalists
must be crushed and plutocrats must be
beggared.
How much is the mind of a man who
can give no more rational reason than
that developed above the mind of jab-
bering idiot? How is the beggaring
of capitalist going to aid labor? II
the owner of mill refuses to advance
wages, do his employees better their con-
dition by burning down that mill? La
Dor demagogues will say "the capitalist
, is harmed, and therefore labor must be
. benefited"
> The walking delegates demand free
coinage. We're it given them working
. men would be paid their wages in de-
, based money of little purchasing power.
), The walking delegates may say that
capitalists-employers-will be injured
if good money is driven out and bad
4 money put in its place. So they will
be. but their employees will be the ones
- who will suffer the most. The capital
: list can protect himself to some extent
4 against the evils of bad currency
The Workman cannot.
q The walking delegates dare not say
= that free coinage will benefit labor, foI
;. they are unable to show any benefit
.r All they can assert is that sixteen tC
,f one" will harm employers. So it will
;s But that is confession that free coin
age will be harmful to the men whC
belong to the trades unions. For what
r. ever harms employers Injuries employees
Labor and capital are so closely alice
is that one suffers when the other does
Chicago Tribune.