Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1897-10-04

not be brought unless ii can be sup
ported by clear and positive evidence.
But where can such evidence be found :?
Mr.. Storey says that the Republicans
received the control of the govern
ment with express instructions to place
the currency of the country on a sound
foundation; to relieve us from the dan
gers which threatened our whole finan-
cial system alike under President Har-
rison and President Cleveland, and
which may again become apparent Ii a
failure of crops turns the balance Of
trade against u.s.
The currency policy on which the
Republican party appealed to the coun-
try at the last presidential election is
TO be found in the currency plank
adopted by the st. Louis convention.
Here it is:
The Republican party is unreservedly
for sound money. 1t caused the enact
ment Of the law providing for the re-
sumption of specie 3payments in 1879:
since then every dollar has been as
good as gold. We are unalterable op-
posed to every measure calculated to
debase our currency or impair the cred
it of our country. We are. therefore,
opposed to the free coinage of silver
except by international agreement with
the leading commercial nations of the
world. which we pledge ourselves to
promote, and until such agreement can
be obtained the existing gold standard
must be preserved. All our silver and
paper currency must be maintained at
parity with gold. and we favor all
designed to maintain inviol-
ably the obligations of the United
States and all our money. whether coin
or paper. at the present standard. the
standard of the most enlightened ma
tions of the earth.
There is the Republican currency
plank in it's entirety. 1t was on that
plank. so far as it's financial policy
counted, that the party won the pres
idential battle of 1896. Every pledge
in this declaration has. so far, been
carried out in absolute good faith. We
challenge Mr.. Storey to point to sim
gle one of the promises made in this
on the currency which
has been departed from by a hairs
Failure Of the Strike Method.
Chimes Herald.)
When Mr. Debs gives his opinion of
strikes he speakes as one having authority.
Whatever may be Mr.. Debs' deficiencies
in other lines of mental acquisition his
knowledge of strikes is complete. The
strike as a method of adjusting differ
ences between capital and labor has en-
ployed Mr. Debs' activities to the exclu-
sion of all other forms of industry for
number of years. The fact that his ut
terances on economic and industrial prob
lens are not usually taken seriously by
weight that will attach to his conclusions
on the one subject upon which he is thor
Oughly posted.
In addressing the fifty or sixty economic
who attended his great la
Dor convention Mr.. Debs said:
My experience teaches me the more we
strike the worse off We are. All the
strikes of recent years have been fiat fail
ures and have made the condition of
workingmen worse. This talk of other
workingmen supporting strikers doesn't
pan out. The miners strike is the only
one that has had the undivided sympathy
of the people and the labor organizations
and was not even opposed by the capital
istic press. Yet all the contributions to
aid the strikers did not amount to an av-
erage of Z cents per striker. The condi-
TONS of the workingmen will grow worse
and worse until they have sense enough
to go to the ballot box in q body.
Here is confession from the high priest
of the amalgamated order of strikemak-
ers that the strike as a remedy for ad-
verse industrial conditions is failure.
If it is true, as Mr.. Debs declares, that
no longer support their strik-
ing fellow laborers as generously as they
did, what stronger argument of
the decadence of the strike as n panacea
for industrial ills is needed? Working
men long ago conceded the futility of the
strike as method of redressing grew
ances. That it was not entirely aban-
doned by trades unions many years ago
is due to the persistent efforts of such
professional agitators as Debs, who with
out the strike, would be without occupa-
ton or visible means of support. 49,
The future settlement of differences be-
tween employers and employees must be
on the basis of friendly consultation of
mutual interests, without interference
from outside agitators. and must take ac-
count of markets. the condition of trade
and other industrial facts instead of rain
bow theories