People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 July 1893 — Idle Army of Labor. [ARTICLE]

Idle Army of Labor.

"The reduction of the price of silver to about 70 cents has shutdown 09 per cent, of the silver mines of the country, and the smelters must soon follow their example. There are in Colorado to-day 1&.000 idle miners who know not where to turn if work is not resumed. There will soon be added to this idle army of labor 4.0J0 men from the smelters. The stone quarries are nearly all shut down, the railway companies are laying off train crews by the score, the foundries are nearly all out of orders, the farmers and fruit growers will be barely paid for the cost of saving their crops, the merchants are countermanding their orders, the traveling men for eastern houses seek almost in vain for customers. "This is no exaggeration. The destruction of the silver industry will devastate the country as if swept by a cyclone, reaching from the British possessions to the Mexican border line. This sorrowful picture of Colorado with its mining industry destroyed but represent* the rondition of the other mining states and territories with the same calatnlty upon them. I.ead and Gold Dependent. "If the silver mines ska.' l . vyt-iain closed onehalf of the American output of lead must be lost. The great bulk of the lead product 1* taken from silver-bearing oree. It requires the one metal supplemented by the other to remunerate the lead-silver miner. "Not less than 55 per cent of the gold product of the country depends upon the maintenance of the silver industry. The placer or creek washings, the earliest and most prolific source of our gold supply, are practically exhausted. "Those who contend for the gold single standard willfully mislead you as to the cost of producing silver. We say to you in the most solemn and truthful manner that reliable statistics prove that, including but legitimate item* in the account, the silver of Colorado costs by the time it is on the market not less than fl.St an ounce. Like gold, some silver is produced for much less than its market value, but the average cost of silver is fully the highest prico it ever brought in the market Question of Paying Creditors.

"All of the mining states and territories are a debtor class. Stop and consider, men of the east, how many millions of your money are Invested with us. The funds of estates of widow* and orphans have been loaned on our lands and have built our edifices. Colorado has been » favorite field for such investments. Have the people of any state ever proved more punctilious in prompt repayment? The legislature ha* enacted laws cruel to Its own people, and unrivnlod in liberality to tho creditors that no man might shirk or escape repayment of tho borrowed dollar. There are held throughout the east hundreds of millions of dollars in railroad stocks and bonds, in mumefpal securities, in trusts and mortgages, the payment of the greatest body of which depends upon the prosperity of. the silver mining country. "We of Colorado pride ourselves upon our commercial and financial integrity. No calamity can Induce us to repudiate one dollar of on honest debt All of our assets nre at the will ot our creditors for their reimbursement But if by bad congressional legislation. If through congress you shall wipe out the great industry of the section around which all others cluster for vigor and profit, tho values of our properties will shrink, our business will be destroyed,, our towns and cities will be largely depopulated and the railroads traversing the western half of the continent will be sent into bankruptcy. Certainly in the face of such unmerited infilotion you cannot blame us if we are thus deprived of all ability to meet our obligations. You may, it is true, take the country th payment, but after you get it what will you do with ft? Not Ready to Submit.

"But. though you may do all in your power;, whether in ignorance or through selfish greed, to destroy us, we will not submit to the destihy of poverty without a struggle. We shaH seelc to open up new markets and build up our silver industry along new lines and with new and more sympathetic neighbors. Colorado has aided with her vote to build the tariff wall between this country and Mexico and the silverproducing and using republics of the southern' continent. As Senator Teller, one of the staunchest supporters of this exclusive policy;, declared but two years ago tn the United State* senate, it was not in Colorado's, interest to* vote for such isolation, but Colorado,, thinkingmore of her sinter states than herself, had patriotically sacrificed her own in their interest Special Appeal to ths South. “To the south Colorado appeals with mor* son' felt words. Two years ago you feared withsinking hearts and paling lips the enactment of the law that threatened to deprive you of selfgovernment and to turn your election boothsover to the tender mercy of federal bayonets on election day. To save you from the outrages of the federal force bill Colorado's two senators, republicans, defied the edicts of their partycaucuses and defeated what was to- you ths certain humiliation and the horrors of subjection to the electoral will of your former slaves,. We saved you then. You can save us now.. With us now it is mare of a death struggle then it was then with you. If the schemes of the gold kings are accomplished, if the present silver law shall be unconditionally repealed, the great bulk of us will be made pauperaand ourbeautiful and wonderful state with be set back, tn its march of progress more than- a quarterof a century. Confident of the Result.. “Colorado, great in its resources; proud of it* business record, filled with bra ve men and resolute hearts, makes this its appeal for preservation to the open-hearted and generous people of the country. We are confident that it will not. be in vain. The atrocity of makihg homeless,, through the destruction of the chief industries, of 1,000,000 square miles of Amtrican territory; the 500.000 men, women and children, with; all the attendant scourge of enforced' and hopeless idleness, can never be the- work of an. American congress with our approval. » “Hopeful of speedy delivery from the crushing burdens of a financial system, begotten of the greed of Great Britain’s remorseless moneypower and of the prosperity inseparable from, an American system which includes the freecoinage of gold and silver at the-American ratioof 16 to 1, we submit to the people of the United. States this statement of our cause.”