The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1905-08-31

their prosperity.
This brings to view another
class who consume both wheat and
cotton products but produce neith-
er-the great body of wage labor
ers. Can the demands for equit-
able prices be reconciled with the
best interests of this great class so
deserving of the kindly considera-
tion of society, and can they be
marshalled under the same banner,
and held together by the same
ties of self-interest? Certainly.
Nearly all classes of wage earn
ers are already united in compact
unions that give them greater or
less power to enforce their de-
mands for remunerative pay. The
greater the ability of the wage
earners to eat abundantly of
healthful food direct from the
farms, and to crafty their de-
sires and tastes for an abundance
of comfortable and even fashion
, able clothing, the better patrons
are they of the producers of the
material of which these things are
made. This brings into lively ex-
, ercise the self-interest of the wheat
grower and the stock raiser, the
n cotton planter and the wool pro-
ducer, the poultryman and the
fruit raiser. Would not the labor
unions feel that they have power
q full allies in the enforcement of
a their demands could they so rate
q these great productive interests?
o Thus organized that is exactly
what they would be, allies of the
wage earners; self-interest would
make them 80.
: But the matter of greatest inter-
IT, est the wage earners, and that
n which opens up to them the best
y opportunities for savings, without
n resistance to or controversy with
e their employers, and without any
p disturbance of the Industrial pro-
n gress of society, or loss of time on
a their own part, is a reduction of
. the cost of living so they could eat
more and wear more, and yet save
N more, on the same wage.
8. Nearly all the supplies of the
Up wage earners are in the merciless
g, grasp of monopoly. The price
" paid the producer does not meas
IS ure the price charged the consum-
IN er at the point of final distribu-
ps tion. Between the consumer and
Us producer the princely profits of
n monopoly are annually growing
t. into millions. Here is where the
le sweat of the farmer toiler and the
of sweat of the wage laborer mingle
tn and flow In sea of unearned
''s wealth for the benefit of neither,
lis but to oppress both. The produc-
er and consumer, brought thus to-
st gether in equity, stops this fatal
ig drain of life energy, and, dividing
IT. the cruel stream where it now
ut pours its constantly augmenting
an tide into monopoly's Golfers, sends
er one branch of ito increase to an
at equitable price the reward of the
a producer, while the other goes to
er diminish to an equitable charge
an the price taken from the wage
slf earning consumer, thus knitting
,st these great industrial classes to-
IN, gether in the ties of self-interest
M and benefits, stronger than those
of secret pledge or mystic cere-
Die mony. We are not unmindful OF
"a the interests of the smaller pro-
m ducers, of the growers of the mi
rn nor crops, whose rights are just as
sacred, and who are just as much
'p- entitled to, and must have, equity,
'at and whose every interest may be
m even more easily reconciled to and
mt worked out by this common plan,
oh but we have purposely made use
ri of the three great classes of pro
lue duction and consumption, and we
he have brought out the apparently
ed most irreconcilable phases of their
of relations to each other, to show,
in as we think we have done conclu.
is sively, that their interests are in
DO harmony, and that beneath the
ch Egis of the American Society OF
ose Equity their true relation will be
Tor found, and new era ushered In