The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-01-20
HEARSTS SLOGAN.
Continued from First Page.>
CANAL IS A NECESSITY.

| w Hat dOOuL GdudIlld anu MI. 4AOO7S
velt's recognition of the new repubiicf
For twenty years, In the San Fran
| cisco Examiner and my other news
papers as got them, have been ad-
vocating an isthmian canal. 1t makes
| it difficult for me to take a harsh view
of any effort to supply the great na~
| tional necessity.
II have always been in favor of the
| Nicaragua route. 1 still think it best
| for the people of this country, and the
most feasible. 1t should have been
| built under the Spooner act. Neverthe-
less, if the party in power has positive
| ly determined to build no canal but the
Panama canal, then it would not be-
| come the Democratic party to block
| what may be for the present the only
obtainable solution of the canal prob
lem.
POSITION ON LABOR QUESTION.
In regard to the labor unions, with
whose interests his name has been
! often linked, Mr.. Hearst said:
THE distribution of wealth is just as
| important as its creation Prosperity
/ does not mean excessive wealth for a
few, combined with poverty of the
masses. That is the sort of prosperity
that exists in China and in India, where
rich mandarins and rajas lord it over
| starving populations.
THE labor union, in enforcing a high
scale of wages, brings about the distri-
button of wealth throughout the entire
community.
ne prosperity Oh the merchant de-
ponds upon the purchasing power of
the mass of the people. Upon that pur-
chasing power depend also the manu-
facturer, the farmer, the book pub
Usher, the theater owner and actor
| all of those that have products or
effects to sell.
Poverty stricken people do not eat
beef or mutton; they do not buy wooden
clothes in profusion. They have not
enough for life'S real necessities: Moth
ing at all for the books, the travel, the
pleasures that should accompany gem
uine national prosperity.
wide and equitable distribution OF
wealth is essential to a nations pros
porous growth and intellectual devel-
opment, and that distribution is brought
bout by the labor union more than by
any other agency of our civilization.
THE labor union, with its good prices
for good work, enables the father to
keep his children in school instead of
sending them to the factory. Thus it
adds to the intelligence and health of
the future generation, besides tncreas-
ing prosperity in the present.
And the dignity that comes of the
union mans independence is in har
mOny with our American ideas of life
and government. The Industrial unrest
of recent times has not been due to
the eXtOrtiOnate demands by labOr-al-
though the labor union has been made
the scapegoat of many an incompetent
and many get-rich-quick schemef.
The workman's increased pay has come
about necessarily to meet the added
show that the cost of life's necessities
has increased 16 to 80 per cent. The
price of labor has not increased in pro-
portion to that.
TRUSTS RESPONSIBLE FOR La
Dor TROUBLES.
1.-The trusts are chiefly responsible for
this increase in the cost of living. An
important and able business man of
New England said to me the other day
that it is becoming almost impossible
for legitimate bushes to succeed ow-
ing to the demands of the trusts on
the one hand and labor on the other.
'I replied, what 1 actually believe to
be true, that he was paying tribute to
the trusts in both cases One tribute
he pays directly to tibet trusts through
the increased cost of trust products.
The other he pays to those same trusts
indirectly through the intermediary of
the working man, who simply hands
over his increased pay to the trusts in
payment of the increased cost of food
and other neeessaries
1T is, of course, true that the de-
mands of trades unions are not always
lust or wise. The unions are made up
of human beings with ordinary human
weaknesses. But the unions at least
ask pay for labor which they actually
perform, for services actually rendered.
They don't demand extortionate prices
]
unions are subjected to more harsh
criticism than the trusts. For instance,
in my business, the producing of news
papers, came simultaneously two
| demands.
THE trust demanded an increased
price for paper, and one of the unions
demanded an increase price for labor.
"A number of nay brother newspaper
owners gathered in my office and sug-
gested union of newspapers to pre-
vent an increase in the wages of the
! works. I asked them why it would
! not be better to combine to prevent the
trust from getting it's arbitrary in
crease in the price of paper. But I
could not interest them in that. They
seemed to think it all right for great
| trust to ask for more money arbitrarily
but all wrong for men that work to
ask for more money to meet the con-
stantly increasing cost of living"
TRUSTS ALSO DOMINATE MONEY
QUESTION.
What about the money question,
Mr.. Hearst?''
Here again the trust issue comes to
the front. By increasing the cost of
life's necessities the trusts have de-
creased the purchasing power of every
dollar that the workman earns. The
gold Democrats, therefore, if they are
/ sincere, should be in hearty opposition
to the trust. Their chief objection to
| free silver, you remember, was their
| uI6dQ that II WOulQ the value
of the dollar and decrease constantly
the purchasing power of wages. What
! has become of that tender sOlicitude
| concerning the workers dollars?
1.-The decrease in the purchasing pow
er of wages can be brought about just
! as effectively through increased cost of
living as through the diminished value
Of the dollar.
Personally, I have supported the
Democratic party because 1 am a Dem
ocrat and for other reasons than the free
coinage of silver. But those gentlemen
who bolted the party and who were so
particularly concerned about the vel
fare of the laborer when it was proposed
to make money more plentiful should
| be equally concerned now that they see
as an accomplished fact an increase in
the price of ife's necessities and a de-
crease in the buying strength of the
workers dollar. They should unite