The Owosso times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1897-1926, 1900-08-03
BRYANISM AND WAGES.
Effects Produced by the Right Sort o.
Tariff and the Right Sort
of Money.

Two hundred manufacturers of the
United States who have been asked tc
give comparisons as to the number oil
wage earners employed by them in re-
cent years and the wages paid have
furnished some information which Mr.
Bryan should explain not only to the
wage Garner but to the farmers of the
country. These 200 manufacturers were
employing &c, 4S3 men in 1894, and they
had little use for more until the year
of the Inauguration of President Nc
Kinley, when they employed 100, 900
men. Since that time the number of
men employed by the manufacturers
has steadily increased. For 1899 the
number was 174,645
In 1894 the amount of wages paid by
the manufacturers was $40. 800, 500; in
1897, S54, 412,774; in 1898. S62, 247, $40,
and in 1899, S7s, 1885, 69. In the three
years of 1897, 1893 and 1899 the 200
manufacturers made total wage pay
ments of more than S195, 0CO, 600, or an
average for each year since the defeat
of Mr.. Bryan of 5000, 900 year,
which is an average of $4,000, 600
year more than the wages they were
paying in 1894. In the three years fol-
lowing the defeat of Organism and free
silver these 200 manufacturers paid to
wage earners SIS, 100000 more than
would have been paid if the desperate
conditions of 1894 had continued.
The wage earners who received this
money have had it to devote to more
and better things to eat and wear, to
more comfortable homes and to say
ings for the future. The people of the
United States who have produced food
articles-the wheat raiser, the beef and
mutton raiser, the poultry raiser, the
dairyman, etc.-have had in the last
three years among the employees of
those 200 manufacturers alone an in
creased market of S75,000,000.
An American Tariff, an honest money
standard and prospect of stable busi-
ness and financial conditions have en-.
abled the 200 manufacturers who fur
nished the foregoing information to
pay an average of S25. ZOO, 900 year
more in wages than in 1894. The same
conditions have enabled other manufac-
turers to do the same thing. How many
tens of millions on tens of millions an
nually must this represent all over the
country? Millions on millions of in
creased purchasing power by the wage
earners, so that the man who has an
article to sell has market where there
is money to buy.
Is Mr.. Bryan going to explain to the
wage earners and the farmers and the
merchants of this country how the
free coinage of silver or of anything
else could have done for us what has
been done for us since 1896? Mulhall
estimates that the census just taken
will show the nations wealth to be
more than ninety-one billion dollars.
Of that wealth more than thirteen bill
lions are in manufactures There is
not wage Garner of the densest brain
who does not know in these days that
the employment of wealth and capital
in manufactures means that the very
largest share of the capt. al turned over
in given time goes to wages. WillMr.
Bryan make it clear to the age Garner
and the farmer how the free coinage of
thirty or forty millions of silver a year
could do as much for the people of the
United States as the increase of wage
payments by only those 200 manufac-
turers from $40, 900, 900 year in 1894 to
nearly $4,000. 900 in 1899, If we say
nothing at all about all the other manu-
featuring industries representing a
value of thirteen billionsp And IL he
does not and cannot explain it, will
the wage earners listen to him now
with any more heed than with what
they listened to him four years ago,
when he told them the things which
have happened could not happen with
out the free coinage of silver at 16 to 1?
New York press" /.