The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1904-07-07

mend study of it in that light, and in
connection with the bill before con-
gress, to Mtnnesota's members and to
the Republican voters of the state; and
we would especially call upon Senator
Clapp, member of the committee
having the bill in charge, for an in
depreciation of the words in doubt.
The demand upon congress is that
private plants the eight hour day shall
be enforced. That is to say, no firm
can bid on government contract or a
part of a government contract, no firm
can do any government work at all
unless its employees are under the
eight-hour rule. This means, of course,
the exclusion of nine-tenths of the
firms now bidding for government bus
mess from the contest. We can men
ton one concern in the city of st. Paul,
for instance, which has national rep
utation on account of the splendid
government work 1t has done, which
would be so greatly nampered that it
would probably cease to compete.
These outside plants do not have the
eight-heur day. They cannot estab-
Hsh it and carry on their business ex-
cept at loss. They cannot make the
government work an exception, be-
cause for economical mana gement men
must be employed part of the time,
and even part of the day, on public
work and part on private. Therefore,
If the eight-hour rule is made ap-
plicable to them, they must cease to do
public business altogether. For this
reason the protest of employers was
made against a bill which, while pre-
tending to regulate the hours of work
on public business, actually does in
tend, as it was framed to do, to force
private employers to accept the eight
hour day by public statute. For this
reason a tremendous effort was made
to defeat the bill in congress, and the
employers of st. Paul and Minneapolis
took a very active part in that cam
paign.
Now all that we propose is that the
Republican hypocrites shall be smoked
out. Do they or do they not mean,
when they say ION all works controlled
by public authority" that this shall
apply to private establishments where
government work Is being done? If
they had said work" it would have
been clear. But they said works"
Now an iron foundry would be called
one of the works in the country
where iron manufacturing business is
done. If private plant, it is not con-
trolled by public authority; but if it
has government contract, it is then
doing government work" Is that
work, which is undoubtedly controlled
by public authority, a part of the
works" referred to in the platform?
Here the little joker energies in the full
light of day.
Either the Republican party of Min
nesota intended to favor the bill be-
fore congress, over which there has
been controversy so lively, or it did
not. 1t was too big a coward to- say
either. 1t framed the sentence which
is the subject of this article with in
tent to deceive both sides. It tries to
tell labor that it favors the eight hour
day, and to tell capital that it favors
an application of the eight-heur rule
only to works controlled by the govern
ment. It proposes to leave men who
feel like Congressman Bede free to in
terpret it one way, and men who feel
just the opposite to interpret it the
other. Out upon such double dealing!
The honest voter should have little
patience with the hypoerite. We fancy
that this campaign will not pass with
out compelling the Republican candi-
dates to say where they stand on the
specific eight hour bill now before con-
gress, which is the only open question,
and to abandon the disgraceful straddle
on which their state convention has
mounted them.