Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 21, Number 95, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 August 1900 — LEVEL-HEADED MECHANIC [ARTICLE]

LEVEL-HEADED MECHANIC

Experience and Profit Teach Him the Benefits of Republican Control. A level-headed mechanic and Democrat, for whose genuineness that most trustworthy authority vouches, sends to the New York Sun this unanswerable argument in justification of his conversion to Republicanism: “I am a Democrat and cast my first vote for Grover (’leveland and tariff reform in 1892. At that time I was receiving .$2 a day and working three days a week, but in 1893 my wages were reduced and I was thown out of employment for nearly a year and a half. In the face of this fact I voted for Bryan in 1890, and continued voting the Democratic ticket iu hopes of a for the better. In 1898 my wages were increased to $2.75 per day and I have been kept busy constantly, often working over time to help out a rush in the factory. Now, Mr. Editor, with a wife and family to support,* I have come to the conclusion that to vote for Bryan is but to go back to the condition existing in IS9G, therefore I shall - vote the entire Republican ticket. I know 15 Democratic neighbors who think as I do and will place the cross next election day in the circle under the Republican emblem. A dangerous malady requires a drastic remedy.” That in essence embodies the whole matter in contention. It is a choice between Democratic calamity and Republican prosperity, idleness and industry, work at living wages or no work and no wages. Not all the demagogic clap-trap about imperialism will drown the hum of busy wheels, not all the shouting of buncombe will silence the eloquence of employment or controvert the logic of labor. Under Democratic administration of national affairs there is nothing doing and nothing for workingmen to do, and when workingmen have nothing to do their families have nothing to eat. Under Republican administration of government manufacture thrives, commerce is created and plenty abounds for all el Asses. Consumption is enlarged and production rushes to meet legitimate demand. Work for the workingman makes market for the . farmer ami thrift takes the place of stagnation, abundance supplants starvation. The common sense of self-preservation is superior to sophistry.