Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1915-03-11
RESULT OF FREE TRADE


Hon. w. E. Humphrey in Dwight
Star and Herald says:
Every day mills and factories have
closed.
| Every day men have been driven
into bankruptcy.
Every day business houses have
| failed.
Every day wages have been re-
duced.
Every day the demand for labor
has grown less.
! Every day the number of unem-
ployed has increased.
Every day the wage earners of the
country have lost more than $4,000
1 900.
/ Every day more than five million
dollars has disappeared from the or
binary channels of trade.
/ Every day the nation has gone in
/ debt.
! Every day we have spent more
! than we have received.
Every day we have lost in our for
| eign trade more than a million dol
I lars.
/ Every day more than ten thousand
men have been forced into unwilling
/ idlesness.
Every day the bank clearances of
/ this nation have decreased more
than $25, 100000.
Every hour that the present free
trade law has been upon our statute
/ books the business of this nation has
decreased more than a million dol
lars.
Today steel production, one of the
| great industrial barometers of the
nation, is SO per cent below normal.
Today the entire business of the
| nation is more than so per cent be-
! low what it was on the fourth day of
March, 1918.
Today the sidetracks of the coun-
try are covered with idle rusting
cars.
Today there are two hundred and
| fifty thousand idle miners that in
| Republican times were earning
| 500, 100000 annually.
Today there are five hundred thou
sand idle railroad men that before
more than a million dollars every
| twenty-four hours.
Today there are two hundred
| lult III SulCdSO.
Today there are five hundred and
twenty thousand idle men in the city
of New York.
Today there are more than four
million idle men begging for an OPP
portunity to work that they may live.
Never before have there been so
many business failures as in the
year 1914.
Never before have there been so
many silent mills and factories.
| Never before has the army of un-
employed been so large.
Never before has the pinch Of
hunger been written on so many
faces.
Never before have there been so
many standing in the bread line.
Never before have there been so
many soup houses.
Never before have there been so
many asking for work.
Never before have there been so
many begging for bread.
Never before were so many chill
dren crying for food.
And what is the reply to all this
business depression, panic, poverty,
idleness and want. Our Democratic
friends say it is all psychological"
They assure us that business is look
ing up" True! 1t is fiat on its back,
gazing at the stars, wondering ii ever
1t will be able to stand erect again.
They tell us that business is i'm
proving" They have been saying
that for more than year. That was
the reply they made upon the floor of
Congress. | called the attention to
the fact that there were more than
a million idle men in the steel and
iron industries alone. A short time
before that they were going ito hang
high has Hamann" any man that
dared close his factory, or reduce
wages, or limit his output. II they
had executed that threat the scaffolds
in the country today would have
been almost as plentiful as Demo-
cratic Office seekers