Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 October 1900 — HARD TIMES ITEMS NEEDED BY BRYAN. [ARTICLE]

HARD TIMES ITEMS NEEDED BY BRYAN.

Adversity of Others Will Be Welcome News to Democrats. “Wanted —Hard times items” is a “Help Wanted” ad Bryan ought to put in the newspapers to aid him in his laborious search for instances of industrial and commercial distress. Probably nothing would more please him just now than to bear of workingmen in the country whose dinner pails are not full. In his speech in Milwaukee he gloated over the fact that a dock man in New Haven had discharged some employes, that pig iron production is less now than at the high point of last year, and that Massachusetts cotton mill men are said to be thinking of reducing wages. After exploiting on these items, he said exultingly: “Even the prosperity that the Republican party has boasted of has not reached all the people, and even that which we have is on the decline.” The reason Bryan ia to anxious to know of misfortunes befalling workingmen is because he fears that they will perversely consider the maintenance of their present prosperity to tye the “paramount" issue with them instead of "imperialism.” If some great calamity could only happen to the workingmen, between now and election time it would perhaps make it really aound plausible to say that “there ia n» prosperity now; therefore maintenance of prosperity is not the issue, so you can vote for me and Aguinaldo.”