Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 September 1879 — The Notions of Mr. Win. M. Evarts. [ARTICLE]

The Notions of Mr. Win. M. Evarts.

The volume of 428 pages, just published from the State Department, under the title of “The State of Labor in Europe: 1878,” and consisting of letters on the subject received from Hayes’ Consuls, opens with a letter of Mr. Evarts, which covers one-tenth of the report and professes to generalize the facts which it sets forth. The greater part of the Consular letters to be found in the report are brazen illustrations of the stupidity, ignorance and incapacity of the men sent abroad upon official duty by Mr. Wm. M. Evarts; and the spirit that runs through the report, from first to last, is far from being candid or being justified by experience. Tlie toiler is told by these officials, sitting in their easy chairs and drawing large salaries for signing their names, that his condition is of the very worst; that it cannot be bettered, and that the only thing for him to do is to accept it resignedly, and to make the most of the wages he is able to get. Some apology may be made for the Consular correspondence, but there is none possible for Mr. Wm. M. Evarts when he joins in the hue and cry against the working classes of Europe, and actually traces the wrongs and evils under which they suffer to their struggles for industrial and social improvement. Mr. Wm. M. Evarts tells the workingmen of the United States: Under no consideration must we have strikes; under no consideration must our factories lie idle. If our manufacturers cannot run their establishments profitably and pay tho prevailing wages, our working people must help them to make profit by consenting to a reduction of wages. American workingmeg are admonished by Mr. Wm. M. Evarts to prepare for a reduction of wages to the basis of the European mechanic and laborer. Here are his very words: In the near future the workingman of New York cannot expect twice or thrice the wages of his fellow-worker in Europe, while all other things—food, rent, clothing, etc.—are on an equality; nor can the coal miner of Pennsylvania expect twice the wages of the Northumberland miner, while coal from the Northumberland mines can be landed in New York at less than the price of Pennsylvania coal. Again Mr. Wm. M. Evarts says: The first great truth to be learned by the manufacturers and workingmen is that the days of sudden fortunes and double wages are gone. Again Mr. Wm. M. Evarts says: Let the workingman feel, as he should feel, that the man who employs him, who enables him to feed and clothe his wife and children, is his friend as well as his employer, aud that all within and about the workshop are things to be protected, even with life if necessary, instead of being destroyed. Mr. Wm. M. Evarts is said to be an aspirant for the. nomination for Governor of this State, and for the Presidency also. These are his sentiments and opinions concerning the life and labor of the great body of the American people, the men who earn their bread by the sweat of their brow. They are the notions, too, of other Republican leaders. The whole policy of the Republican party is to degrade and impoverish labor; to create aristocratic classes; to ennoble wealth; and to plant deeply in this soil the tastes, habits and institutions of the monarchical system.— New York Sun.