Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 January 1896 — NATIONAL PROSPERITY CREATES HIGH WAGES. [ARTICLE]

NATIONAL PROSPERITY CREATES HIGH WAGES.

* National prosperity, beyond all denial, stimulates industry, which creates employment Hence it al- ' ways has and always will creates a dema^ for labor, which must increase wages of workingmen. Cheaper imported eompetetive commodities must destroy national prosperity amHhe demand for labor must decrease in proportion to the importation, because all competetivd importation supplants

ko me pryqwtwQy ciM»eg' loh n\ lities of thereby fedccing the rate of weges. Of alPmen the wage earner is most jnt&rested in creating a demand lor labor; which be can only secure by having the industry f rom which he obtains the;employment; Protected to an extent that will produce the greatest amount of employment. «• If capital, without which no industry dan exist, is notrnrade secure against the effects of cheaper competitive foreign competition, it will not be employed. Without the medium of' capital there will be no employment for labor. The only capital possessed by the wage earnes is his labor. His capital increases in proportion to the demand created. The greater, the demand for employment the higher will be the rate of wage. This axiom has held good in the past and will bold good for all time.

Jf the American J workingmen desire >o retain their high rate of wages and rec ver their past prosperity, they must create for themselves a denjsp.d for labor. This can only be secured by keeping' out of our country the foreign competetive manufacturers, which for self preservation, should be manufactured at home.

It doek not lie witbiil the brain of mortal man to frame any law that can determine, for the wnole people a fixed rate of wages without destroying personal liberty. The prospeaity of every nation is measured Ipy the prosperity of the masses, which is determined by the rate of wages they receive. Freedom, personal liberty and national prosperity cannot continue when the wage earner is poor and dependent

The Democ ratio party, and their allies, who advocate Free Trade, claim to be the poor man’s friend and partyp- a claim most tintrue, for their policy and methods have always been antagonistic to the welfare of the wage earner and of the nation. The-poor man strikes a self inflicted blow, not only against himself, but against his country, when he casts his vote for a party whose policy is to advance the interests of foreign countries instead of his own. Consequently he surrenders his franchise to scheming demagogues, who‘betray 7 his interests in order to obtain political power dr personal aggrandizement regardless of the welfare of the voter or of the nation.

Much if not most of the opposition to the building of a new court house has arisen from misinformation that has been circulated in regard to the magnitude of the burden it will entail upon the taxpayers. Such misinformation, for instance, as was published last week by a leading resident of Remington; in which it was asserted that a court house in Jasper county would be twice as large a burden, in proportion, as was the war debt on the United States; when, in point of fact, the court house burden, instead of being twice as large, .per capita, as the war debt, woul3 actually be' only one tenth as large; or only one twentieth as large as the Remington gentleman says ■it would be. Now consider this matter from another point of view. Jasper county’s assessed .wealth is about nine million denial's. As everybody knows this {assessment is not more than two thirds of the actual wealth of the county, which is really near 14 millions L than it is ten millions; but call it only ten millions. At that amount of wealth, a 100 thousand dollar court house would be the same for the whole county, as it would for" a man worth SI,OOO to spend $lO for improvements; or for a man worth SIO,OOO to spend $100; or fora man worth a million dollars to spend SIO,OOO.