Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1898-01-05
REPLIES TO GAGE.
Says the Labor Federation
Was Right
The Right to Express DisapprOvnI of
Acts Of Public Servants EfeId Sacred
by the American People.


plies in an open letter to r, cent state
ments of Secretary Gage with refer
ence to the resoluti n of the fedora
ton concerning the Secretary's finan
cial bill. Mr.. Gompers says in part:
You take exception to the position
which our orga anization has taken upor
your bill as we'll as the language EN-
ployed. Even if you are justified in
the one, you certainly pprehend
the other. submit that you will seek
IN vain for single denunciatory word
either in regard to your motives, your
plan or your bill. We realize that de.
nunciation is not argument. but to
declare our position and the statement
of fact in regard to a most impor.
tant and far reaching measure, affe t.
ing the changing of the financial sys-
tenn OF our country, can by no means
be construed as denunciation.
"Those resolutions declare against
your plan for more thoroughly COM
mitting our country to the gold stand
ard, plan for destroying our green
back currency and substituting bank
notes, plan, in fact, for weakening
the control of the national government
over that most important of all meas
ures, the measure of values, and
strengthening the banks, a plan aim
ing at what you call currency reform, ,
and which we call bank monopoly.
Il.
these resolutions regret, for the right
to express disapprova1 of the act of
their servants is one of the rights
held sacred by the American people
and one you will freely accord. We
do not charge you with ignorance,
relative or absolute or allege any
evil purpose or a perversity of
motives on your part, as implied in
your letter, nor upon re-reading the
resolutions will find them either con-
demnatory or denunciatory, as you
say they are. The resolutions are de-
claratory of the views of the Ameri-
can Federation of Labor and are en-
tirely impersona1, for of all men in
public life we have the greatest
respect for your integrity.
"The wage earners of America,
represented in the American Fedora.
ton of Labor, believe that the position
taken in regard to the retirement of
the grecnback currency is antagon-
istic to their intere SITS and are opposed
to your plan for more thoroughly COM
hitting this country of ours to the
gold standard.
"You ask what evils have resulted
from our adherence to the gold stand
ard. / answer that the evils are
those that have grown and ever must
grow from a dishonest measure of
values, measure of values that inter-
feres with the just distribution of
wealth, that deprives some men of
part of their earnings that is rightly
theirs and confers it upon others who
have earned it not. Any measure of
values that thus forces an unjust dis
tribution of the products of labor, that
deprives the producer of the fruits of
toll, cuts down wages and profits,
thereby destroys the incentive to en-
terprise, leads to industrial stagnation,
enforced idleness. distress and public
suffering.
"The products of labor are divided
into three general shares. One share
goes as interest and rents to the
money lender and the landlord and
capitalist who do not make productive
use of their own capital, but who seeks
to avoid the risks of production. A
second share goes as profits to en-
pl1yers, third share goes as wages
to wage earners. The interest charges
and rents are in great degree fixed,
and products and wages are subject to
great fluctuations. This being so it
is clear that anything that reduces the
total money value of the products of
labor must increase the share of the
money lender and creditor, though
nomina1ly fixed, and decrease the
share to be divided Smong employers
and wage earners. 1t is equally clear
that to increase the value of money
must decrease the value of the pro-
ducts of labor and therefore enrich
the creditor at the expense of the
debtor.
"Now, if our adherence to the gold
standard has caused money to grow
dearer, you must admit that the gold
standard has done injury to our peo-
pie, brought distress to wage earners,
and employers, and discouraged en-
terprise. Our adherence to the go d
standard has caused money to grow in
value and of course, forced the things
measured in money to fall in price.
''However, it is not alone to the
cheapening of the labor costs of pro-
duction, but also to an actual aPpre-
citation of gold that the fall in prices
since 1872 has been in great part due.
And this appreciation has grown out
of the demonitization of silver, which
has increased the demand for gold.
This il question that every producer
can answer. Has the fall in prices
cnrtailed my earnings3 If the fall IN