The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1904-06-18
ERA OF REAL PROSPERITY.
Democratic Calamity Howlers VIII
Try In Vain to Falsify His
tory and Statistics.

Washington correspondents state that
the democratic campaign handbook,
which will be issued Immediately after
the st. Louis convention, will be devoted
in large part to an effort to show that
the prosperity which republicans claim
exists Is not real; that wages are lower
and prices higher. This conclusion Is
reached by manipulating some statis-
tics issued by the bureau Of labor regard
ing wholesale prices. 1t is said, how
ever, that other statistics soon to be is
sued by Commissioner of Labor Carroll
d. Wright give the actual cost of living
from retail prices and showing the rate
of wages from 1890 down to the close of
1903. It is said these statistics will show
the past four years. they are now fall
ing. Wages, on the other hand 1t will
be shown, were higher in 1903 than they
were in 1892. the highest mark recorded
in the history of the country before the
depression of 1S93-1S94 There is said
to be tendency in wages to decline
slightly with falling prices of commodi-
ties, but the wage standard is still much
higher than it was even before the
period OF business depression.
The Indianapolis Journal thinks that
1t Is quite in keeping with the record of
a party that has never done anything by
Legislation to promote the prosperity
of the country, and whose success has al
ways been followed by the alarm of cap
ital and business stagnation, to attempt
to prove that the prosperity of the last
eight years is myth. 1t is about as If
they should assert that the Mississippi
river is Pigment of the imagination or
mirage. The truth is that during that
period no other fact in the current his
tory of the world has stood out as bold
ly and been so universally acknowledged
and widely commented on as the ex-
traordinary prosperity of the United
States. 1t has been shown by official re-
ports Of our foreign and domestic trade,
by statements of our constantly increas-
ing production, by the activity of our
factories. mills and mines. by the gen.
eral employment of labor at good wages,
and in many other ways.
The country has never enjoyed as long
a period of exceptional and uninterrupt-
ed prosperity as that which has pre-
vailed since 1896. He must have short
memory who does not remember the
business boom that followed the cleo
ton of Mckinley. Within 4S hours after
the result was known the papers were
filled with announcements of the open
ing Of closed mills. the starting of new
enterprises, the increase of working
forces and the pouring in of orders.
The prosperity that began then has con-
tinued almost without interruption. 1t
is true that owing to overproduction and
repeated increases of wages manufac-
turers have begun to take in sail some
what and railroads are reducing the
number and wages of their employees,
but these precautionary movements
have not as yet affected the general pros
perity in the slightest degree. What
ever reduction of wages may have taken
place in few lines the average is still
higher than at any time since the high
tide year Of 1892.
The democratic attempt to prove that
the country is not prosperous will labor
under the disadvantage Of having no
democratic period Of prosperity with
which to compare the present. II 1t
wants to find period Of greater pros
perity, It must be under republican rule.
The only argument 1t could possibly
make would be that because the country
10 not as prosperous now as It was un-