Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1898-02-17


administration it is mainly due.
The government subsidies brew
cries, railroads, industrial plants,
and aids in every way to build up
the material resources of the coun-
try. Money is used with liberal
hand, and as a consequence there
is activity and great apparent pros
perity. The fact that Mexico is on
a silver basis does not figure; it
can't help being on that kind of a
basis, but | should be sorry to see
the United States resort to any
such policy.
"Ten years of experience in that
country has forever set me against
the adoption of a monetary system
which is not only in disrepute
among the leading nations of the
world, but which is about to be
discarded by countries like Japan,
Brazil, and some of the smaller
Spanish-American governments
that were formerly on silver ba
sis. The masses in Mexico are in
a worse condition than | trust will
ever befall our laboring popula-
ton. This | can explain by refer
ring to matters that have come un-
der my personal observation.
"When the Sherman purchasing
act was in force, some seven years
ago, silver was worth S1.21, and a
United States dollar was worth in
Mexico 100 cents in American mon
ey. The dollars of the two coun-
tries were on a parity. At this
time we employed about 800 men
in our mines, their pay ranging
from 81 to 50. 80 per day. 1t took
approximately $4,000 a month to
meet the payroll. The money to
cancel this expense was shipped
from Omaha, and it was exchanged
for SlO,OO OF Mexican coin. We
operated general merchandise stores
along with our mining concern,
and, at the time | speak Of, sold to
our Mexican employees bacon for
20 cents a pound.
What are the conditions to-
day? We still hire 300 men and
give them exactly the same scale of
wages that obtained prior to the
slump in silver caused by the re-
peal of the purchasing clause of the
Sherman Act. Our payroll still
aggregates $4,000 a month. To
meet this we have shipped us a
like sum of United States money,
and here is where the point of diff
ference comes in. Instead of eX-
changing that amount at our bank
for its nominal equivalent we get
for it not $40, 600, but SD, 900 of
Mexican money. We have here
made q gain of So, 900. Our en-
ployees still render us 100 cents
worth of work, for which they used
to get 100 cents, and does as yctas
far as the name goes, but in reality
they receive less than half of what
should be theirs, seeing that the
Mexican coin in which they are
paid has shrunk to less than half
of its former value.
But there is more still. When
the Mexican miner goes to buy
bacon he finds that in rendering
payment he cannot buy it with de-
preciated money for 20 cents a
pound the price now is 45 cents.
1t would still be so if he could ten
der a dollar as good as that given
him for his labor at the time of the
repeal Of the Sherman law. The
SO, 900 | spoke of simply comes
out of the labor of the country,
and when the toiling class of any
nation is forced to such Il condition
it is stretching point to call the
people prosperous. If the fair and
right thing were done by these
Woodworking miners their wages
would be doubled The man that
now gets 81 day is justly entitl-
ed to 81, but labor will bring only
what price is fixed in market, like
any commodity, and employers are
not yet far enough advanced in
philanthropy to voluntarily give
more than the customary rate.
$50 the talk about theprosperity
of Mexico in so far as it applies to
the vast body of it's citizens--the
common peoples a myth. If