The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1900-11-03
WHAT BRYANISM MEANS.

. NE Hletnod ny Wiieh VIC may
accurately determine the pros
pective effects of the kind Of
legislation which Mr.. Bryan
and his party promise is found in the
well-known fact that whenever, on ac-
count of inflated currency, or for other
reasons, prices go up, they go up earlier
and relatively much higher than wages,
invariably resulting in decrease of the
purchasing power of days labor.
The celebrated "Aldrich Report of
Wages and Prices" which has been long
accepted as a reliable picture of the
labor conditions in the United States
since 1910, shows clearly that an intla-
ton of the currency with cheaper money
results in advancing prices of commodi-
ties more rapidly than it advances wages,
and that, therefore, the purchasing
power of labor is reduced by legislation
of the kind Mr.. Bryan and his party
promise. That report shows that dur
ing the five year PERIOD IS6o-6S, and the
initiation of the currency with paper
money less valuable than gold, the aver
age price of ninety principal commodi;,
ties required for ordinary home use rose
ISL per cent, while the average wages
Of fifty occupations rose but 43 per cent,
bringing the purchasing power of days
labor 43 per cent. lower than that of
1860, before the initiation or change in
the money system. The effect is again
shown in the five year period under the
Bland-Allison act, in which the large adj
ditionS of silver to the currency of the
country were followed by greater in
crease in prices of commodities than in
the price Of wages, and a consequent
decrease In the purchasing power OF
days labor.
The evidence OF these official figures
that under initiation, and especially an
initiation with unsound currency, the
purchasing power Of days labor is
materially and permanently reduced is
of itself reliable basis upon which to
predict the disadvantages to labor that
would come from the election of Mr..
Bryan and the adoption Of his proposed
money system, Add to the horrors of
1S93-96 that which must come with such
an initiation of the currency as that shown
by the figures for IS6o-65, and there are
few working men who will want to COM
bine the experiences OF these two occas-
ions by the election of Mr.. Bryan in 1900.
One other change disadvantageous to
labor which would be quickly felt as the
effect of Mr.. Bryan's proposed policy,
relates to our export trade and the en-
ployment which it is now giving to the
laboring men. Four hundred millions
Of dollars worth of manufactured goods
made by the hands Of American work.
men went out of the United States last
year under the policy of "protection to
home industries and expansion of for
eign markets." which came in with the
administration OF President Mckinley,
but which would go out with the inaugu-
ration of Mr.. Bryan, who proposes to
admit free of duty the manufactures Of
the whole outside world, stitle home in
dustries by cutting off the home market,
and check the rapidly growing export
trade by closing the door which PreS-
dent McKinley's administration has
opened. The market offered by Cuba,
Porto Rico, the Hawaiian, Philippine
and Samoan islands alone amounts to
500 200, 900 per annum, nearly all of
which should be retained for American
workingmen and producers, while the
market of the Orient to which the Philip
pines, if retained, will prove an open
door, amounts to $Ioo,ooo 900 a month.
or 81, zoo, 600, 900 annually.
Judging from the record OF the Demo
cratic party in Hawaii and the promise
of Mr.. Bryan that he will Immediately
call Congress together and undo what
has been done in the Philippines, it is
not unreasonable to predict that the
effect upon the workingman of the pro-
posed foreign policy Of Mr.. Bryan would
also be disastrous.
To sum up it may be said that basing
our conclusions upon former expert
ences, the effect upon workingmen Of
Bryan's election would be:
Ist. A repetition in an intensified form