The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1902-10-21

Democrat, my grandfather was Demo-
crat, and what seven or eight years ago
did / know but to also be a Democratg'
You were then twenty-three years old
about the same age as Thomas Jeffer-
son when he wrote the Declaration of
Independence, and about the age of John
Jay when he was one sof the foremost
minds in the country. At twenty-one
years of age the ordinary American is
presumed to have judgment enough to
show him his political pathway. You
have not told us when you arrived at the
political age of discretion except by your
remark, quoted in the same paper: MY
political adversaries say that was once
a Democrat. 1 am now, however, per-
fectly satisfied with the platform upon
which / stand, and why need l make
defence?" / fear you are yet, so far as
discerning the issues of the campaign are
concerned, in the same frame of mind
politically that you were in at the tender
age of twenty-three, when you were un-
able to choose a party for yourself.
COST OF LIVING.
You are serious candidate for a very
high, important and honorable office,
asking the suffrages of an unusually in
telligent community. You ought to be
fair and frank with the people of this
district. / asked you to talk over with
me from the platform the issues now
before our countrymen. Do you mean
to say that you do not know what these
issues are and that you can only discuss
something 1 choose to call an issue? Do
you know that while you and your party
have cried prosperity, prosperity, pros
perity," the wages of the men on whose
toll the country's prosperity depends
have increased only ten per cent, while
the cost of living has increased 40 per
cent, thus giving workingmen who
earned 500 a month FIVE years ago, 500
now and compelling them to pay out the
whole $50 for living, which five years
ago they could have had for $39.30,
and do you know that the capitalist
who few years ago enjoyed an income
of thousands year now receives many
times as much? Are you aware that
labor does not receive its fair share of
the profits of the joint efforts of labor
and capital? Are you aware that labor
is receiving a continually decreasing and
capital a continually increasing percent
age of the value of the product of labor?
Do you know that thousands of boys
from eight to twelve years old are EN-
ployed in the coal breakers and thous-
f+l,o Al Init
ting and other factories of the fennsyl
yania coal mining district. at from 80
cents to 80 cents per day-most of them
at 45 and so cents-with schooling prac-
tically unknown to them. as it was to
their fathers and mothers. and do you
not know that these conditions, if con-
tinued for another generation, will pro-
duce an awful crop of degenerate Ameri-
can citizens; that these conditions not
only cheat children out of an education
which is theirs by right of birth in, or
entrance to, our country, but also do
many men out of employment. who,
otherwise, might be doing this work at
mems wages? Do you know these things?
Do think, you ask, if some phase
Of the labor question is involved in this
campaign? My friend, we passed that
stage years ago. Every man knows that
the whole labor question, including the
right to work, the right and duty of
workmen to organize, to have property,
to receive fair wages, to be treated by
their employers" ike men" and not
by their masters" as Servants is in
volved directly in this election. l be-
came labor man" at about twelve
years of age, when i lighted the street
lamps of Bayonne on moonlight sched-
uleeach night at different hour-at
$40 per month. and later became more
strongly attached to the labor cause when
worked for SO a month as a telephone
Continued on second page.)