Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1903-10-06

The cost of living still continues abb
normally high. The coal trust, the
beef trust and the thousands of other
combines are still doing business with
out let or hindrance. The railroad
mergers are advancing their rates,
claiming that their expenses have in
creased and their revenue must be in
creased proportionately These high
prices for about everything must of
course be borne by the consumers, and
as a great proportion of these earn
wages or salaries that have not been
increased, or If any advance has been
made, not to the extent that the cost
of living has increased their plight, is
a serious one. Some of the thoroughly
organized labor unions have been able
to force their employers to pay higher
wages, but the great mass of laborers
do not belong to labor organizations
and their wages have been raised but
trifie compared to the increased price
of what they purchase.
But it is the citizen with the fixed
income that trust prices press the
most heavily upon, such as clerks and
others whose wages do not raise with
the cost of living The small hotel and
boarding house keepers are having a
hard time to make both ends meet. The
price the coal and beef trusts extort
from those who, with the strictest
economy In normal times, only get
Ifx~f1 l. Of
trust prosperity.
Such good Republican authority as
the Chicago Inter Ocean, Sept. 1G.
makes a terrific arraignment of the
result of the policy of its own party
in which 1t said: "Yet it may be
doubted if one-half the heads of the
American families are in as favorable
a position as they were in 1897" That
is just what the Democrats have been
claiming is the result of the high pro-
lection given the trusts by the Dingley
tariff and that prosperity to the trusts
is disastrous to the great mass of the
people who have to pay trust prices.
Republican voters should ponder on
what this organ or their party ad-
mfts anS Democrats should call their
attentj it and to another paragraph
from same article, which said:
The plain truth is that fully one
half the workers of the United States
the men whose incomes are from 5000
to $4,000 a year, the men who are Meth
er in trusts nor labor unions, have not
been getting their share of the nation
al prosperity They are working foS
the prosperity of capital and organ
lied labor, but no one is working for
them. And under this burden they are
becoming exhausted"
There is no doubt that it is as the
Inter Ocean says, ''the plain truth"
but the Republican leaders will not
listen to it, or, if they do, obstinately
refuse to amend the tariff schedules
that are mainly responsible for trust
monopoly and extortion. They say
Hands off, and Let well enough
alone"
The decreased purchasing power and
forced economy of more than half the
people is having the effect of diminish
ing the trust prosperity.
There are strong indications that
the speculative boom has run its
course and that wages, instead Of be-
ing increased. will probably decline.
The press dispatches of Sept. 16 tell
us that the National Metal Trades AS
ISOLATION has started a movement to
reduce the wages of machinists all
over the country 10 per cent when the
wage agreements with the machinists
expire Jan. /. The cause given is
fierce competition and diminution of
business"
With all this evidence of the neces-
sary legislation TO curb the extortion
of the thousands of trusts, great and
small, the Republican cry is to stand
pat and leave well enough alone.
That is the clamor of the trusts and
not the cry of the people.
President Roosevelt has decided to
call Congress into extraordinary ses
sion on Nov Q. not TO legislate against
the trusts, nor to revise the schedules
of the tariff that gives the trusts their
monopoly, but TO ratify. the treaty of
reciprocity with Cuba. Cuba. for
whom the people of the United States
expended hundreds of millions of dol
lars and sacrificed thousands of their
sons. is of more consequence than
their own people. IL the eyes of the
Republican leaders. When Il IS consid-
cred that the Republicans who favor
reciprocity refuse to take off the diff
ferential duty on refined sugar that
protects the sugar trust and insist that
25 per cent of the duty on raw sugar
shall be deducted from all sugar inn
ported from Cuba. the enormity of
such legislation is apparent. The sugar
trust would naturally be the recipient
of this one-fourth reduction of the tar
if on Cuban sugars under the reciproc-
ity treaty and still be protected by the
differential duty from competition.
That many of the trusts sell abroad
at lower price than they sell the same
article at home, thus persistently rob
bing all of us and adding to the pecu-
mary difficulties OF those with limited
incomes. is another substantial reason
for tariff reform to reduce the cost Of
living
Trusts Control Republicans.
The protective tariff is receiving
some hard knocks by its former
friends and supporters Many manu-
facturers find that their business is
curtailed by the tax on raw materials