Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 October 1900 — WHAT BRYAN’S ELECTION MEANS TO LABOR. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WHAT BRYAN’S ELECTION MEANS TO LABOR.

Only Question Is Whether Wage* Earners Want Hard Times. Dcaiocratic Policies Drove Thousands to •the Streets Before and Will Do So Again if Bryan Is Successful.

In the eddying fight, amid.din and roar es the fallen guns of imperialism and militarism, there is danger the people of this country may lose sight of the fact that the election of Mr. Bryan means the overthrow of the protective tariff system and the introduction of a free-trade program into the policy of the government. Our people have short memories and they sometimes forget and need to be reminded. Mr. Bryan was a member of the Fiftysecond and Fifty-third Congresses and took a very active part at once upon taking his seat. In the Fifty-tnird Congress, of which I was a member, the Wilson bill was under consideration. It was the passage of that bill which plunged this country into ruin. It does not make any difference what people say about the origin of hard times, the intelligent laboring man of this country knows very well that he ceased to earn a living for himself and family because of the demoralization of business caused by the repeal of the McKinley law and the passage of the Wilson act. It was that which precipitated wages to the lowest ebb that they have been for many a year. It was that which sent marching columns of hungry men over the country demanding food. It was the passage of that bill that made it possible for any intelligent man to listen for a moment to the speeches of such men as Bryan in 189* i. On the floor of the House in the debates on the Wilson bill Bryan took the extreme free-trade ground. His speeches are on record and the laboring men of the country can find them and read them. He especially announced himself as in favor of absolute free-trade upon many of the leading products of the farm, notably wool, which he insisted should be put upon the free list of the Wilson bill. When that bill was passed by the concurrence of the House in the six hundred amendments of the Senate it was Bryan and Hon. Jos. Bailey, a. representative 'from the State of Texas, who in their eestasy seized the champion, who was the putative father of the law, the Hon. W. L. Wilson, of West Virginia, and carried him on their shoulders in a triumphal procession through the House of Representatives into the cloak-room und a saturnalia of joy resounded from those premises. It Bryan who favored the introduction of foreign material into this country free of charge. It was Bryan who demanded that all raw material such as wool, coal, iron, and everything which entered into the manufacture of goods, should be imported free, and it was his influence, more than any other man’s, that brought about the terrible result with which we are so familiar. It was Bryan's earnest demand that put wool on the free list, and in that debate he declared that he did not care whether it benefited or hurt the wool grower. It was Bryan who drove the tariff on coal down to such an extent as to flood the Eastern markets with coal and stimulate the growth of the development of coal in the British possessions in the northeast, and practically drove us out of the seaboard markets with the softcoal of Central States. It was Bryan who advocated the low tariff on agricultural products and utterly refused to discriminate or allow discrimination in favor of the products of the West and Middle West. The laboring men of the country and .the farmers of the country, before they plunge themselves into the vortex that is being held out, should get Bryan’s record and read it. It is a very interesting chapter in the personal politics of that gentleman. The platform made at Kansas City is very adroit in laying the foundation for an enactment in Congress, should Bryan be elected, satisfactory to his history and record. Not daring to as- ( sail protection directly he came at it in the platform which he personally conducted as follows: “Tariff laws should be amended by putting the products of trusts upon the free list. • * * We condemn the Dingley tariff law as a trust breeding measure, skillfully devised, etc.’’ That is the platform of the party denominated the Democratic party and whose nomination Mr. Bryan accepted. The original Populist party, whose candidate Mr. Bryan now is. I refer to the Sioux Falls nomination, also places itself on record in a similar attitude. So Mr. Bryan, without any apology for the past, stands upon a series of platforms all squinting in the direction of free trade, and in the event of his election, with a Congress subservient to his dictation," as was the convention at Kansas City, we may look for just such legislation as precipitated this country into the condition with which we are all familiar. It is therefore very unwise for the people of the country to be led away from the two great propositions of Mr. Bryan’s life, the two propositions for which he stands the two propositions which make np Bryanism, to wit, free and unlimited coinage of silver, and free trade, and follow off after the illusion and deluaion of imperialism. If the intelligent agriculturist will take the prices of his products in 1896 and compare them with the present prices of the commodities, and then take the Dingley tariff law, he will at once discover to what he Is indebted for the advance in prices. If the laboring man will take first the price of bis labor in 1896 and then the ■ price of bis labor in 1900 and then take the table of imports of foreign manufactured goods In 1896 and back of that time and then take the imports of foreign »• * hown b y tbe • tatiHtlc * of f. i. -.'.-.W: :xr.'

the Treasury Department, he will at once discover that the present advantage which is accruing to him comes absolutely direetl.v from the tariff law now on the statute books of the United States. And, then, if he desires old_ times, with old prices and old short days of employment, be bad better vote for William Jennings Bryan. ButTf the laboring man wants a continuation of the present prosperity of the United States, he certainly cannot, without inconsistency, vote for Bryan. Another view of it. Let the laboring man take the present price of his labor and take the present prices of all the things be buys upon which his family is subsisted and supported and educated, and then take the price of his labor of 1896 and the prices existing then, he will discover, without any hesitation of intellect, that present conditions are far better than old conditions, that, waiving the little increase of cost of living., the balance sheet shows favorably to him. No man can deny that and there is no man in the United States who has done more to break down the interests of labor by promoting and cultivating unfair and unjust competition than has William ,1. Brynn, of Nebraska. C. H. GROSVEXOR. Athens. Ohio, Sept. 17, 1900. Prosperity for Wheat Growers When the Democrats were experimenting with free trade in the United States the consumption of wheat was 3.41 bushels per capita. That was in 1894. Tn 1899, under the McKinley administration, the consumption - was 5.95 bushels per capita. This is ample demonstration to the farmer as to how prosperous manufacturing interests bring prosperity to the wheat grower.

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