Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1898-11-04

| MS articls tells Absolutely nothing ~
| to our general conditions. without i
certain activity ii some industries We
would be in bad way, indeed, but to
| tell Of this activity alone and to leave
all the est-the other side of the
picture, the dark side. QUITS not at
all fair presentation of the industrial
or commercial situation as it really
exists and as every business man
knows it exists.
| Our hypocritical contemporary, for
example, omits entirely to mention the
all-important fact in his alleged sum-
mary that. the past two years of which
he speaks have witnessed MORE BUSI-
NESS FAILURES IN WHEELING
THAN EVER BEFORE IN THE HIS
/ TORY OF THE CITY.
These are not pleasant facts, but
there is no use in trying to conceal
them. 1t is foolish to try to blind our
selves, while it is cruel to attempt to
deceive the ignorant as our dishonest
neighbor does, and to trick the sup
against his own and his neighbours and
his employers best interests for base
and wholly selfish partisan political
purposes.
Not only have there been more bust
ness failures in the past two years
than ever before in our history in that
time, but there have been more strikes,
lockouts and wage reductions, and
labor, speaking generally and taking
industrial conditions as a whole, is
earning less and is in a worse cCndi-
ton than two years ago. Working
men know this better than anyone
can tell them and it is an affront to
their intelligence to attempt to make
them believe anything else.
And workingmen know that for these
conditions the trust policy favored by
the Republican party, whose leaders
are elected by trust money and repre-
sent the trusts in Congress, is chiefly
responsible. And so long as the trusts
are allowed to grow and flourish just
SO long will labor continue to be de-
trauded of it's just share of production,
just so long will legitimate industry
be throttled, and just SO long will even
the federal courts. such as that at
Cleveland, continue to protect the
trusts, such as the steel trust of tha'
city, by lawless injunctions depriving
labor of it's constitutional rights. This
system, for which the Republican par
ty, as represented by it's present lead
ers, really stands, is again beginning
to get in it's pernicious work and we
are promised in the future even worse
conditions than have prevailed in the
past two years of untramelled Republi
can sway in and out of Congress. And
these conditions, mind you, exist in the
very face of the fact that Messrs. Nc
Kinley and Hanna in the last Presl-
Dental campaign repeatedly and
yehemently promised all sorts of pros
perity if the people would vote for Nc
Kinley and Republican Congress.
Unwisely the people voted for both,
and now they are confronted with
present conditions with worse prom
ised for the future. The prediction by
Mark Hanna'S head man of the greatest
coal strike in our history next spring
already begun in Illinois, where miners
have been shot down in their tracks
touches but one industry. The others
must naturally follow in its wake
some of them are now leading the way
until we have a recurrence of the
periodical panic that is bound to come
so long as the vicious Republican sys-
tenn of class and monopoly legislation
prevails.
While these conditions cannot be
changed in day by magic, they can
be ameliorated and the way paved for
a new order of things in which labor
shall receive its just rewards and leGlti-
mate industry be given a fair chance
to exist; and to this end we should
work and vote for the election Of a
Congress actuated by the principles OF
Jefferson and Jackson and not those OF
Mark Hanna.
Ex-senator Hill. of New York, adj