Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1904-10-13
THE FARMERS DOLLAR.
What Providence Gave and What
Congress is Taking Away.

What Providence Gave and What
Congress is Taking Away.
The people cannot be fooled all the
rtime.
Facts are stubborn. Whip them
around as you will, mask them, dis
guise them; they will, nevertheless,
come out to bear witness to the truth.
The Republican party seeks to fool
the people. 1t has sought to mask
facts, to disguise them.
The Democratic party seeks to re-
place the facts before the people that
they may bear witness to the truth.
The people want the truth.
The Republican party claims that
the so-called "era of prosperity" is due
to the wisdom of party policy in en-
acting tariff and other legislation.
President Roosevelt has endeavored
to portray prosperity" by stating in
his letter of acceptance that wages
have been increased during the last
few years in greater proportion than
the cost Of living.
Now, the facts refute the Presidents
StuttlilSnts Lucoc luCtS uIe ueTlNeu
from statistics-from records. They
show that the increase in wages is
twelve per cent, the increase in the
cost of living is thirty-seven per cent.
Therefore, before the 'era of prosper
ity" the man who earned $1.59-a day
could buy goods as then valued to the
amount of $1.50; during the "era of
prosperity" the same man received for
the same labor $1.6S, but the same
goods would cost him $2.35; or, putting
it in another way, where one dollars
worth of labor was worth one dollars
worth of merchandise before the era,
Roosevelt's years of prosperity, one
dollars worth of labor was worth
seventy-one and a half cents worth Of
merchandise.
The farmer, the hired man, the
miner, the day laborer, the mechanic in
every department of industry, the
b~ookkeeper, clerk and shop girl to-day
finds that everything is dearer." The
rule admits of no exceptions. Labor
receives its wages in money. At the
counter the value of the dollar when it
is to be exchanged for merchandise has
shrunk in its purchasing power to sew
enty-one and one-half cents.
1t is a fact that conditions favorable
to this Nation became apparent in
1897; conditions which to-day should
have blessed farmer, manufacturer
and merchant, laborer. clerk and me-
chanic. Even a Republican Congress
and a Republican Executive could not
wholly mar the bounty of Providence.
1t is a fact that in 1897, by reason
Of the failures of the wheat crop in
the Argentines and Southern Russia,
the harbors of New York and Boston
were filled with vessels seeking wheat
for Great Britain and Europe. Wheat
leaped to 81 per bushel. Millions in
gold. the purchase money, flowed in to
the country. The farmers bought mer-
chandise of all kinds. This started
''the BOOM" Factories and mills be-
came busy, railroads We're choked with
freight, and the labor markets were
emptied of the unemployed. This was
due to Providence that gave the coun-
try abundant crops when all the earth,
elsewhere, failed TO supply breadstuffs.
But the farmer working in his fields
to produce this wealth little thought
that il Providence had come to his
assistance by providing him high prices
for his wheat that his fellow man
would exact higher prices from him for
the merchandise he required. Yet this
is what a Republican Congress did.
BY its protective tariff it shut the
gates of the Nation to foreign compe-
tition. by its patronage of manufac-
turers it enabled them to combine. and
so prices for manufactured goods were
advanced and imposed on the farmer.
Thus by the tariff and trusts was trib-
ute wrung from the farmer.
Every farmers wife knows what she
paid eight years ago and she knows
what she is forced to pay to-day. Ev-
cry farmer knows what he then paid
and what he now pays. If to-day the
farmer sells his wheat, corn and rye,
his steer, sheep and hogs at a good
price, 1t is no reason for his being
compelled to pay higher prices for his
merchandise. There is no reason, save
that Of the tariff and the trusts. that he
should find his dollar is only exchange
able for se%venty-one and a half cents
of the protected manufactured goods.
or course, a high tariff fills the Treas
ury.
Of course, 1t takes much money to
rebuild and refurnish the White House
and to rebuild and refurnish the Presi-
dents yacht Mayfower-but it comes
pretty hard on the American farmer
to reduce his dollar to seventy-one