Los Angeles herald., 1910-02-11
WOULD NOT REVERT TO
DAYS OF GRANDMOTHERS

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 7.-[Editor
Herald: In The Herald e. L. Hutch
ison accuses the wearers of high
priced hats not only of being inhuman
and extravagant, but also for being
largely to blame for the present high
price of commodities. He has evident
/ ly forgotten the claims advanced by
| himself and thousands of other fol-
lowers of w. j. Bryan in the c2mpaign
of 1896. The claim of the advocates
! of free silver at that time was that
should sivler be remonetized, thus
| doubling the circulating medium of
exchange, that the farmers products
would advance in like proportion and
in fact many of them stated the prices
of which these commodities would
advance, thus wheat would bring $l0O
per bushel, corn SO cents per bushel,
beef on the hoof cents per pound,
hogs s cents per pound, and all other
products of field, farm and mine
would advance in like proportion. Now
that this advance has been brought
about these same people are ransack-
ing the universe for the cause and
are accusing everyone from the trust
magnate to the woman that sticks a
feather in her hat for being to blame
for what they foretold fourteen years
ago.
Silver has not been remonetized, but
the increased production of gold at
reduced cost has done what the remon-
etizing of silver would have done.
The advanced price of commodities
is world wide and affects free trade
countries as much as it does coun-
tries where protection prevails All
countries are not affected alike or to
an equal extent in this advance in
price because of the shifting of indus
trial activities from one country to
another or from one center of pro-
duction to another in the same
steel Industries have increased in this
country and Germany MANIFOLD in the
past fourteen years, while it has de-
creased in England, thus helping in
the places where the increase took
place and making hard times in the
other, where the decrease took place
in spite of the increased supply of
money, but on the whole the increase
has been general the world over. The
trusts are held to be responsible Tor
the advanced prices by many, but their
contentious hardly hold good, for the
mont trust goods have advanced more
than have the trust goods, for in
stance, green vegetables have advanced
at least 800 per cent in the past four
teen years while beans, dried peas, rice
and other like products, have advanced
from 100 to 200 per cent in the same
period, so take it all in all we can
hardly hold the trusts accountable for
the advance but we can assuredly hold
them guilty of taking the profit to the
exclusion of thousands of small trad
ers, formerly conducting the business.
Mr. Hutchison would have us re-
vert to good old times of our grand
fathers by having the women taking
up the tasks that burdened their
graundmothers. Would he start the
fires under 10000 ovens in Los Angeles
when one can do the work at a frac-
ton of the cost? How long could a
woman with four needles, knitting one
sock a day, compete with the machine
that turns out 100 dozen pair per day,
and doing better work? The day for
home and hand production has gone
forever and we must look in other di-
rections for solution of present day
ills. We are idle, 10th men and wo-
men, because the machine does the
work and the fellow that owns the
machine don't need us all. Some of
the displaced workers become buns,
others become lawyers, doctors, real
estate agents, insurance agents and
schemers of all sorts. They are not
to blame as they do the best they can
under the conditions surrounding them,
but they are all parasite, that must
be got rid of and be put to work at
some useful occupation.
When the workers get wise enough
they will own the machines that are
necessary for their we'll being and con-
troll the distribution of their products;
then there will be no complaint about
$10O hats with or without feathers and
we won't ask our women to milk cows,
bake, scrub, spin, split kindling, chop
wood or a thousand other hard and
disagreeable tasks. Anyway, | rather
think the women will have something
to say as to how they spend their time
and money when that day comes. for
they will be independent of we lords