Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 85, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 June 1904 — SHAW ON PRICES [ARTICLE]

SHAW ON PRICES

Keynote Speech at Meeting of Roosevelt Workingmen’s Club. HIGH PRICES DUE TO HIGH WAGES Which Bring Better Food and Better Clothes—Better That All Should Work With High Prices Than That Few Should Labor With Prices Low. At Wilmington, Del., on June Sth Secretary of the Treasury Leslie M. Shaw addressed a meeting of the Roosevelt Workingmen’s Club of Delaware, which marked the opening of the campaign in that stele. Secretary Shaw said in part: "The Republican party is not a party of sympathy, but of encouragement. Instead of posing as a benevolent institution, it represents policies which reduce the occasion for almsgiving to the minimum. Its bounty is opportunity. 4 “The Democratic party, on the contrary, never fails to express sympathy for the over-burdened; but its policies, When put In operation, never' fhil lb produce conditions which Incite sympathy. When the products of labor find ready sale, and labor finds correspondingly ready employment, then our opponents are loudest in their protestations of sympathy for the overtaxed and overburdened people. They never congratulate; they always sympathize. They never rejoice, they always bemoan. They seldom cheer except at the prospect of something worse.

"I am neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I venture the opinion that at least a half of the opposition’s argument during the coming campaign will be directed against alleged unreasonable living expenses. ¥ou will be told that the price of meat is exorbitant ; that the price of bread Is unreasonable; in short, that the price of everything you buy has been unduly advanced, and all because of Republican policies and Republican legislation. An Economic Theory. "I am confident, however, that before the campaign proceeds very far there will be furnished from the highest possible authority in the United States well-authenticated data showing that the average of wages has increased in larger proportion than the average articles of ordinary household consumption. But of this I do not care to speak at this time. My present purpose will be served by showing that universal and constant employment at reasonable wages, even in the face of high-priced living expenses, is preferable to employment for only a portion of our people, though at the same wage and at much reduced living expenses. Catch the thought? Employment for all our people at a given wage, with living expenses high, is preferable to employment for only one half our people with living expenses however cheap.

"This country has never seen, and will see, suffering at a time ready and constant feteCTthe price fails of PWnwt’ver cheap may be Phil Armour’s Wisdom. "I think I demonstrate either one or both of these two propositions, t can show that the happiness of the wage-earner is dependent upon highpriced farm products, and I can also demonstrate that the prosperity of the farmer Is dependent upon the ready and constant employment of the wageearner. In other words, it is easily demonstrated that the prosperity of the artisan and farmer is interdependent.

"Phil Armour once said to me: *1 got rich when comparatively a young man by watching the coal and iron miners. Whenever they were employed I packed every ham I could get my hands on. My partner would say: ‘Phil, you will break us up.’ I would answer: ‘No, they are working, now.’ But when 1 I saw the coal and iron workers quit I sold every ham we had.’ ‘‘The farmers of my .tate understand this fully. It has been taught In every schoolhouse, in tent meetings in all groves, and fronf the platforms of all towns, and as a result more farmers came to our recent Republican state convention than ever before, and every one of them came determined that the American wage-earner should be .m----ployed. In other words, the lowa farmer went to Des Moines on May 18, 1904, to protect his market When wageearners understand this interdependence as thoroughly as th. lowa farmers understand ft, they,too, will go to Republican conventions to protect their market

Market of the Wage-Earner. “An<T~vrtiat Is the market of the American wage-earner? It Is the American consumer—artisan, farmer, freight handler, business man and capitalist. The Republican party Insists that the American producer, to the limit of his ability, shall supply the needs of the American consumer. The Democratic party seems to think It of no consequence who produces that which we consume, provided it is cheap. The Republican party Insists that it is measurably unimportant what prise wo pay so long as wo pay thoprloo to ourselves. "Higher wages moan more and hot. tw food for the wago-caraer, more and bettoo dlothos for Ms family, a better Mos for the hom% and therefore *