Baraboo weekly news. [volume] (Baraboo, Wis.) 1912-197?, 1919-12-18
the two groups.

The people I'D the OFFICES anu a.
the desks and in the classrooms and
in the pulpits and on the platforms.
the people who are drawing salaries
FATHERS than wages, the people who
are living on interest and inherit
ances and rent rather than on the
toll Of manual toll are saying.
what do we care whether you take
away from us our positions of lei
sure, of influence, of distinction, by
overturning our government, or by
taxing our incomes, confiscating our
inheritances and so increasing wages
and thereby increasing the cost OF
living SO that our rents. interest and
increments leave us less than labor
or makes by his hands?"
And this voice over the world is
universal. We in America think 1t
is a peculiar situation in this coun-
try. But In every civilized country in
the world the working class is seeing
things with unrest; it has tasted
during the war most OF the middle
class comforts and some Of the mid
die class Injuries and the taste has
been acquired as habit The work
ing man cannot "Take it or leave it
alone" He is going to take it.
And beside the working man we
find the farmer also lifting up his
voice in complaint and his heart in
aspiration. So we are substituting the
farmer All over the world govern
ments are trying to keep up farm
production upon an artificial basis.
In America we are setting the price
Of wheat, and regulating the pack
ers.
| The government is lending the
American farmer money at better
terms than anyone else gets money.
and we give farmers special privi-
leges in matters of marketing organ
izations which we deny to others.
In England the farmer Is to receive
a guaranteed price for all his prod
ucts from the state, and that price
Is to continue for some time.
| In England they are subsidizing
-four and the tenant farmer In Eng
land is to receive from the land
owner long term guarantee OF
tenure and the so-called "corn pro
| auctions act is to be pronlonged in
peace. All Of these things take taxes
from the middle class property own
1 er who lives on rent or interest or
fixed salary and pays this mans
taxes to the farmer. So we see high
taxes the universal result of the war
affecting the middle class man on
one side, and high wages increasing
the cost Of living affecting him on
the other side.
Ell is in the devils own fix. Yet
he is suffering in not any one
country. but in all countries. It is
| the one net result of the war, this
universal smashing Of the middle
class man. It would seem as if he
had been the one upon whom the
t war was declared for he is the only
man who really lost the war. Labor
has won, capital still is able to de-
fend itself, though capital is some.
what groggy on its feet.
The middle class man who lives on
1
rent, interest or fixed salary, Is the
man upon whom more than anyone
else in the world the kaiser seems
to have turned his guns in July, 1914
The Germans as q people do not
seem to have lost the war much more
than the other suffering people in the
world, nor have the Allies won it.
But the man who lost the war is the
meek little man sitting at a desk With
nothing but a princely salary between
him and the poorhouse.
Emporia Gazette.