The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-12-30
GoMPERS REPLIES TO GAGE.
LABOR LEADER TELLS WHY HE. OPP
POSES THE GOLD STANDARD.

Currency Plan Is Inconsistent
With One of the Statements in His
own Lettcr-Gage's Plan Also ScOr-
ed As Giving the Banks Too Much
Power.
Washington. Dec 29.-Samuel Gompers.
president of the American Federation of
Labor, has replied in an open letter to
Secretary Cages recent letter taking ex-
ceptions to the resolutions passed by the
federation with reference to Mr.. Cages
financial bill. Mr. Gompers says, in part;
You take exception both TO the posi-
ton which our organization has taken
upon your bill well as the language en-
ployed. Even if you are justified in the
one. you certainly misapprehend the other.
/ submit that you will seek in vain for
single denunciatory word, either in regard
to your motives, or your plan or your bill
We realize that denunciation is not argu-
ment, but to declare our position and the
statement of a fact in regard to a most
important and far-reaching measure af-
fecting and changing the financial system
of our country can be by no means con-
strued as denunciation.
''Those resolutions declare against plan
for more thoroughly committing our coun-
try to the gold standard, a plan for de-
stroying our greenback currency and SUBJ
shutting bank notes, in plan in fact for
weakening the control of the national gov
eminent over that most important of all
measures. the measure of values, Snd
strengthening the banks, a plan aiming
ar xVb IA all
which we call bank monopoly.
THAT you should take offenSe at these
resolutions l regret, for the right to eX-
press disapproval of the acts of their SER
wants is one of the rights held sacred by
the American people, and one you will free
ly accord.
1--WE do not charge you with ignorance,
relative or absolute or aliege any eVh
purpose or a perversity of motive on
your part as implied in your letter, nor,
upon re-examining thu resolutions will
you find them either condemnatory or de-
mandatory, as you say they are.
The resolutions are declaratory of the
views of the American Federation of La
Dor and are entirely impersonal, for, of all
men in public life, we have the greatest
respect for your probity and integrity.
1.-The wage-earners of America repre-
scented in the American Federation OF La
Dor believe the position you have taken IN
regard to the retirement OF our greenDack
currency is antagonistic TO their interests,
and they are opposed to your plan for
more thoroughly committing this country
to the gold standard.
''You ask what evils have resulted from
our adherence to the gold standard.
81 answer that the evils are those that
have grown and ever must grow from a
dishonest measure of values measure OF
values that interferes with the just dis
tribution of wealth, that deprives some.
men of a part of their earnings that is
rightly theirs and confers 1t upon others
who have earned it not. Any measure OF
values that thus forces an unjust distri-
button of the products of labor, that de-
prives the producers of the fruits of their
toll cuts down wages and profits, there
by destroys the incentive to enterprise,
leads to Industrial stagnation, enforced
idIeness. distress and public suffering.
"The products of labor DIRE divided into
three general shares. One shares goes as
interests and rents to the money lender
and landlord, TO capitalists who do not
productivity use their own capital, VINO
seek to avoid the risks of production. A
second share goes as profits to employers;
a third share goes as wages to wage
earners The interest charges and rents
are to a great extent fixed as profits and
wages are subjects TO great fluctuations.
This being So it is clear that anything
products of labor must increase the share
of the money lender and creditor, though
nominally fixed, and decrease the share TO
be divided among theemployes and wage
earners.
ut is equally clear that to increase the
value of money must be TO decrease the
value of the products of labor and, there
fore, enrich the creditor at the expense OF
the debtor.
Now if our adherence to the gold stan
dard has caused money to grow dearer,
you must admit that the gold standard
must do injury to your people through dis
tress of the wage-earners and employees
and discourage enterprise. Our adherence
be divided mong the employees and wage
grow in value, and, of course. forced the
things measured in money to fall in price
However, 1t is not alone to the cheap
ening of the labor cost of production and
also to the act of the appreciation OF gold
that the fall in prices since 1872 has been,
in a great part, due. This appreciation
has grown out of the decentralization of
silver, which has increased the demands
for gold
'sThis is a question that every producer
can answer. Has the fall in prices cur
tailed my earnings? If the fall in prices
has been due only to general improved
methods of production iessening in the
true cost of production, he has suffered no
loss from Sucn ran. moreover, tue Ian ht
prices since 1893. common TO all gold using
countries, a fall in prices of 20 per cent,
has not grown out of improvement in ma
chinery exclusively; the labor cost of pro-
duction has not been increased by one
fifth in these past four years and, there
fore. the cause of this fall in prices must
lie in what, if not in dearer money, and
was due primarily 10 an appreciation in
gold
Changes in the value of money have
largely influenced the movements Of prices
during the last half century and We're
great factors in the price movements dur
ing that long period During the quarter
of century following the gold discov-
cries in California there was much pros
gress in the lines of invention. much in
PRODUCTION OF labor-saving machinery,
much cheapening in the labor cost of pro-
auction. This on your theory should have
caused steadily falling prices What hap
pened? The outpouring of gold cheapened
gold to a greater degree than the commo-
dities were cheapened, and the result that
prices we're increased 30 per cent. more at
the end of this period than when 1t be-
gan.
"What happened when along with other
countries we closed our mints to silver?
eve increased the demand for gold with
tha ,.aeult that gold went uD in value and