White Oaks eagle. (White Oaks, N.M.) 189?-190?, 1900-09-27
Subscription, $3.50 a Year.

The Massachusetts and Penn
sylvania reports for 1899 are not
yet at hand. That they may
show some slight increase in av-
erage wages during that year is
not unlikely. But that they will
show an increase at all commen-
surate with the increased cost of
living is altogether improbable.
The statistics presented, how
ever, seem sufficient to conclus-
ively disprove the claim of
great increase in wages immedi-
ately following the advent of the
present administration.
Compared with the reports of
earlier years according to the
Massachusetts manufacturing re-
turns average annual earnings
decreased from 1892 to 1898
S30.73, and such earnings were
one-third of dollar less in 1898
than in 1894, the year following
the disasterous panic of 1893, a
panic which, though worldwide,
may in a measure at least be at
tributed to legislation for which
the republican party and it's
leaders are responsible.
The reports quoted plainly in
dicate that the measure of pros
perity enjoyed by wage earners
in the protected industries of
Massachusetts and Pennsylvania
since the advent of the present
administration is but an increased
amount of labor at reduced wages.
If there has been any consider
able increase in wages outside of
the protected industries it must
have been in spite of and not be-
cause of protection, for the pro-
tective policy is claimed to affect
such industries only indirectly
through the increased wages
paid in protected industries.
The disasterous effect of this
policy through fostering trusts
and combinations to increase
prices is forcibly illustrated by
the conditions existing in this
city in the building trades. When
wage-earners demanded a slight
increase of wages to meet the
great increase in the cost of living
they were met by lockout,
which has thus far been MAIN
tained since early spring chiefly
= because of existing high prices of
building material. With cheap
building material offering a
profitable investment in buildings
the labor unions could easily have
succeeded in enforcing their de-
mands. The result of policy
fostering trusts and high prices
l has thus been decreased de-
mand for products at home
l through the decreased ability of
4 wage-earners to purchase and a
, growing necessity for foreign
: markets to be obtained even at
5 the expense of bloodshed and an
5 enormous outlay of treasure,
which expense must finally fall
upon the wage-earner.
I. The most reliable statistics in
,, dicate not only fall in wages
! since the panic of 1893, but that
4 there has been an almost continu-
= Gus decline from the high wages
, preceding the panic of 1873, a
panic resulting not only from
r Legislation for which republicans
: are responsible, but occurring
: during period of republican
S rule.
e The data of the Aldrich report
e fairly summarized indicate a de-
: cline in the gold value of wages
c since 1872 and 1873 of not less
than 20 per cent. When during
e the last campaign | called the
) attention of writer of republican
k campaign literature to the falla-
cious character Of the summary
} of the data of the Aldrich report
/ he declared il "a good enough
d Morgan" for that campaign.