Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1908-04-28
Relieving Distress.


every industrial community there are
many unemployed, and the total must
mount up in the millions, though il
hardly seems Credible that there are
nearly 100000 workers involuntarily
idle.
The industrial depression has
brought in its train great zeal of
suffering. AT Chicago Wednesday a
mob OF 300 Hungarians marched to
the city hall and protested that they
were starving. They were dispersed
by the police. At Hammond, Ind,
where it is reported there are 1000
idle men, a relief station has been
opened and SO great was the distress
that many when obtaining supplies
actually devoured raw the potatoes and
meat given to them
The Hammond incident has moved
The Chicago Inter Ocean to sarcastic
criticism of President Roosevelt
Strangely enough" it says, mo one,
so far as we have learned, is present
ing the case to the 10000 idle and
hungry husbands and fathers as it was
frequently presented elsewhere short
time ago, and as one may hear it pre-
sented elsewhere even yet, though not
with such frequency" No one in q
word appears to be assuring the idle,
our Chicago contemporary sneeringly
says, that
Ny good men, the Industrial situation
was never healthier than it is today
OF course, there is little doing, but the
little that is doing is being done on
higher, nobler principles You are
beautiful it is to be hungry in a righte-
Gus cause
Or:
My friends, it is possible that you are
suffering from empty pockets and emp
ty stomachs. But we nave got rid of
the smoke nuisance. The air is clearer.
What do money and food amount to
Have we not plunged the knife into the
cancer
Or:
Dear brothers, while hunger is gnaw-
ing at your vitals you should be COM
torted with the thought that you are
contributing to the overthrow of the
mammon of uprighteousness. Every
day you suffer tainted money is pre-
vented from flowing, through the pay
rolls, out of the Golfers of the criminal
rich. Bear up bravely, and in a few
years we shall have compelled the
strong, cunning men who fatten on in
dustrial corruption to sell out their pol
luted holdings and retire to the golf
links, like Rockefeller and Carnegie.
Orr
Fellow toilers, we were living too
high and too fast. Big wages and
steady work were not good for us. This
thing of earning S. and Sc day was
demoralizing Many of us had become
giddy. We needed to be brought to our
senses.
Now we have time to think Let us
forget that the cupboards at home are
bare and that we are hungry ourselves
Let US think only how much better off
we are than the gamblers of Wall street,
the powerful wrongdoers, the manipu-
lators of great wealth, who will have
no place to go to this s4ynmer but the
seaside, the mountain or Europe. hor
this was, as you know, fellow toilers,
first and last, a rich mans panic.
While we are suffering the wealthy
recent unhealthy seeming prosperity.
Therefore, let us be thankful in our
hearts that the bosses in the shops no
longer can domineer over us with swol-
len pride.
And curiously enough, there is no
disposition to remind the idle workers
that they are protected and assured
American wages and the American
standard of living by Republican
tariff. No one is reading to them ex-
tracts from the last Republican nation
al platform setting forth that under
Republican administration, labor is
fully employed and that disemploy-
ment and distress are incidents only of
Democratic administration. There is
no reference to the "full dinner pail"
Even the "soup house" has ceased to
be a menace.
Why, then, sheer at Roosevelt? He
may have been over optimistic in his
assurance to the American people that
the panic was passing furry to be
quieted by an issuance of bonds and
the relief of the New York banks, but
has he not stood manfully by the
Dingley act? The tariff still stands
and the Republican party, which Gre
ated prosperity" is in possession of
the federal offices. Surely, then, MIR.
Roosevelt had every reason to believe
that conditions were not analogous to
the conditions of 1898 and that with the
restoration of confidence, following
the relief measures provided for Wall
street and despite the malefactors of
great wealth, the industries of the
country would feel no i'll effects from
the disturbance. For it was not true
that "hard times" could come only, as
a result of Democratic administration
that Democratic free trade" alone
could close the factories, throw the
workingman out of employment and
bid him to subslst upon the soup of |
ohar;fvS M;lxuauEoa Namc