Terre Haute Weekly Gazette, Terre Haute, Vigo County, 8 July 1886 — Page 1

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THE FOURTH.

Pall Text of a Gieat Speech by Sepator Voorhees. .V'

The Exercises at the Grounds, Awards of Prizes, Etc.

Incidents of the Day.

From Tuesday's daily

The

GAZETTE

yesterday contained a

report of the parade, but the exercises at the Fair Grounds did not commence until too late to get an aocount of them in that issue. The exercises were carried out as printed. Senator Voorhees' address was the feature of the day and evoked the greatest admiration from all who were so fortunate as to hear it. Mr. H. 0. Navitt also made an excellent address. Mr. Voorhees said:

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GkntXiEMBN:—Of all the vast multitudes who join from year to year, and from generation to generation, in celebrating the 4th of July, no class of people can ever do so with as much propriety as the laboring men and women of the world. The sword of the American Revolution was drawn against the oppression of labor. The inspiration of the Declaration of Independence came from resistance to unjust taxation. The tax upon the tea whioh was thrown into Boston Harbor was not so much in itself* but it represented in all its hideous proportions the principle of absolute despotism "v

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It represented the principle on which

MONAROHS AND MONOPOLIES 'f

have, in all the ages of the past, torn from the laboring masses the fruits of their toil without deigning to listen to their arguments or protests, and on which now, in these later years of the nineteenth Century, the same oppressive and odious practices, in various forms, and on stupendous scales, are still at work in the midst of the Amerioan people. Political independence as one of the nations of the earth was achieved the principles of personal freedom were established and an absolute equality in Jhe enjoyment of the natural, inaliena5?irights of man was guaranteed by the 4 ha

IT IS FOB YOU TO SHE

to it that the fruits of the Revolution are not taken from yon that your right to the blessings and protection of good government be not destroyed by open assault, or by the insidious sapping and mining of certain tendencies of the timtes. I have come home today in order to talk briefly but plainly in regard to some of the duties, as well as some cfthe dangers, whioh belong to the present hour. I am invited here by the Knights of Labor, and I salute and ad dress you in that capacity.

The question of labor organization has a deep hold on the public mind at this time. It has been extensively dis cussed and has called forth a wide variety of opinion and expression. Those who toil not themselves, but who live in splendid, idle luxury on the toil of others, cannot understand that an organization of workmgmen has any other than evil and unlawful designs.

THE SELFISHNESS AND GREED OF HUMAN NATUBE

have in every period of the world's his tory prompted the desire and the effort on the part of the favored and fortunate few not only to possess the earth, but also to own the labor of mankind on their own terms. In fact, the source and the character of the opposition which labor organizations have always encountered prove the duty and necessity of such organisations more fully perhaps, than any othei one thine, Those who denounoe working people for associating themselves together are to be found mainly engaged in manag ing the greatest corporations of concentrated wealth that ever overshadowed the globe, and in gathering profits earned for them by men like you, Nearly all the vast interests which enter into and control the prosperity and happiness of the fanner, the mechanic and the wage laborer are embraced and protected in their wide spread special privileges, by acts of legislative incorporation, &nd also by supplemental, voluntary associations, more valuable, extensive, aad powerful than any ever before known in the annals of the world, there is nothing of merely temporal concern more important to a people than the quality and the quantity of money by which labor and the products of labor are measured and purchased, and by which all the details of business are transacted. To you working men who are here today listening, and into whose faces I am now looking, There is no question more vital than this on the snores of time, and yet how distant it seems from your control, how far beyond the reach of your influence! The currency of the country which represents the bread and clothing of your wives and children, has been committed to corporations in whose councils your voices are never heard. These financial corporations as a still further means of power,have formed an association among themselves, knoprn as the National Bankers .Association, designed to make and declare financial law and policy not only for the people, but for Congress, for

Secretaries of the Treasury, and for Presidents. It is claimed by the members of this mighty association, and with truth, that the Banks can at their pleasure expand or contract the circulating medium, make money plentiful, or scarce in the hands of the people, cause a panic, or give business prosperity, make wages

deprive labor of employment and reduce millions of men and women to idleness and suffering. This gigantic'power over the welfare of the people arises from organization among the banks whereby in tne space of three days at the outside limit of time, they can act together from New York to San Francisco in making stringency and distress, or the reverse in the money markets. This fact was fully demonstrated a short time ago when the banks openly combined to prevent the approval by Mr. Hayes of an act of Congress whioh reduced the rate of interest on Government bonds. Their avowed method of procedure was to create busine£B distress, withdraw the currency of the country from circulation, and thus paralyze every branch of trade commeroe and industry as certainly as the withdrawal of arterial blood from the heart will produce death. They were successful. Their instruments of torture, applied with skill and without mercy, produced cries and groans in every quarter, and the bill for the benefit of the tax payer failed to become a law.

This organization of bankB holds its annual meeting at some conspicuous place for luxury and entertainment as regularly and as certainly as Congress oonvenes once a year at Washington. The gravest measures of polioy are there introduced, debated and decided upon, The printeii proaeedings of this syndicate of finanoial pretension and arrogance are then forwarded to each Senator and member in Congress for his instruction and adoption.

The influence of this organization of money, bonds and aggregated wealth in the hands of intelligent, active, strong, selfish men cannot but be enormous on the legislation of the oountry. It asserts its past power every where, from the lowest to the highest point in our form of government. Its natural desire is to be represented in both branches of Congress by those who believe in its policy and are devoted to its interests. Its influence is to be found in he ward oauous selecting delegates, as Veil as in oounty and congressional conventions, and in Btate legislatures where United States Senators are ahoeen. Nor is t.ftis at all to be wondered at, for "where a man's heart is there will his treasure be, also," and for the safety and the increase of that treasure,

These observations on thfe dangerous powers of ouf financial system are not made at this time with a view to entering upon a full discussion, but simply for the purpose of saying here, as I have said in my place in the Senate, that while the capital of the world combines, co-operates and organizes for still further gains and aggrandizement,

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SO SHOULD LABOR ORGANIZE

here, and in every land beneath the sun, for its dignity, for its safety, for its improvement, and for its just and honest remuneration. The workingmen of the United States are far deeply interested in the financial legislation of the country than even the banks, and all the syndicates and associations of banks, for on the one hand it is a matter of daily bread, while on the other it is a matter of additional luxuries palaces, diamonds, and other worldly splendors. While the influence of incorporated wealth is everywhere found our public affairs,it is the duty of the toiling millions to make their power felt. Organization is strength individuality is weakness. You can bring your power to bear for just and lawful ends, and for the enactment of wholesome laws by unity of purpose and harmony of action, and in that way alone. You need to learn and thoroughly understand this great lesson, for never before in American history were the

TENDENCIES TOWARD CHEAPENING A^D DEGRADING LABOR

so strong and so apparent as at this time, and for the last twenty-five years. The most prosperous nation is that in which the people all own something, and in which the few are not enabled by law to own everything. The best governed country is that in which the laws give every man, whatever his birth or fortune, an equal chance for a portion of its wealth and honors, and in which there is no 'legislation designed and enacted in order that certain persons, and classes of persons, then present acd in view, shall take advantage of the special and exclusive privileges granted. I assert in your hearing, and in the hearing of the oountry as far su my humble words will go, that the mo.'rt dangerous, sinister, and ill-omened feature of American history is to be found in that species of legislation whereby the comparatively few. both individuals and corporations, have possessed themselves of wealth more colossal than the greatest patrician estates of Borne in the days of Roman splendor, and more extensive and powerful than the fortunes of the European aristocracy and of the crowned heads of the world today. There are individuals and corporations now in this country whose incomes are greater than the revenues of some of the very considerable and respectable governments of the world. During the reign of Philip, IL, and at his death, Spain was reckoned by far the strongest and the wealthiest

ESTABLISHED 1869. TERRE HAUTE, IND.fTHURSDAY, JULY 8 1886.-TWO PARTS,-PART FIRST. $1.50 PER YEAR

nation of the earth, and yet the historian says the personal property of the people of the entire kingdom was estimated at sixty millions of dollars, and the whole revenue of the state at sixteen or seventeen millions a year. The Vanderbilts, Jay Gould, the Pacific railroad companies, and many others, including perhaps some gentlemen in CongreSB, could organize each a government with better property and revenues, than the foremost kingdom of nearly three oenturies ago, and on a more certain financial basis than many now existing' governments in South America, Europe, Asia and Africa.

LET NO ONE MISUNDERSTAND THE MEANING AND PURPOSE OF MY REMARKS

in this connection. I tfould deprive no man of a dollar he has acquired by law, but I would correct the laws so that such gigantic evils should cease in the future. I scorn to notice the charge of communism against the labor organizations of the United States. Communism! The meaning attached to that word is a division of property and an ownership in common. You want no man's property or money except as you earn it, but you are opposed to the legislation which increases fortunes already too great and diminishes your opportunities for your employment at fair wages, which makes the rich richer, and the poor poorer which giveth to him that hath, and taketh from him' that hath not.

It is estimated by the most experienced writers on the labor problem that from

ONE MILLION TO THREE MILLIONS OF LA­

BORERS ARE OUT OF EMPLOYMENT

in the United States at the present time. It is safe to assume the. middle ground between these two extremes and place the number of unemployed at two millions. I speak of such as belong to agriculture, trade and. transportation, mechanics and mining, and the manufacturing industries. The census of 1880 show that. these branches of labor engaged 18,317,861 persons. Thus it appears that fifteen per cent of the various working classes who would be fully employed in prosperous times are condition of enforced idleness, and consequent dangers of many kinds. Two millions of people out of employment and rendering miserable four or five times that number who are dependent on them, is a speotaole of dreadful import. Asftle from its bearing on peace, and soO»al order, it "means a loss to the consumptive power of the country of at least two

"irfpyten i^^'^Hli^^a^rasmess of overaix hundred millions a year." The laborer is paid at the minitnumrate when his average wage is a dollar a day, but even at this moderate estimate the idle laboring people of the oountry at this time could, if employed, earn for themselves and also add to the productions of the farm, the shop, the mines, the factories, and the business of trade and transportation, an annual amount almost double the revenues and expenses of the entire government In the meantime homes are darkened and desolated, women wail and suffer,

CHILDREN GROW UP IN WANT

and ignorance, and finally in vice, while men become discouraged, desperate, and sometimes criminal. This is an ugly and an awful responsibility on this subject, and it rests heavily upon those who make the laws and shape the policies of this government.

Investigation in order to ascertain the direct and specific causes whioh have led to the depression of labor at the present time depression oiiaoor at tne present tame ana in former years, has been extensive and protracted. Writers of eminent ability have given the subject their talents and their time committees of both Houses of Congress have spent many months in the last few years taking testimony, listening to the opinions of all sorts of people, delving into the methods and mysteries of trade, and in reporting and printing the facts they found, and the conclusions they reaohed. It is very curious and interesting to note the widely different reasons given as productive of the same results.

BANKERS AND MONEY CHANGERS,

and the owners of large sums of money at interest, will say that times would be better if our financial system rested on the gold basis alone that silver ought not to be coined at all, that greenback money is dishonest, and should be retired. »The manufacturer who is disposed to be unjust to his working forces and to reduce wages below a fair, living point, mil allege that

((labor

agitation,

the demands of workingmen, overproduction, and various features of the in dustrial system," are the causes of all the trouble. The working people themselves, however, when examined before investigating committees, and elsewhere, come nearer a true solution of this question than the people of any other class, They speak of the scarcity of money in circulation, of the

/iABGE PROPORTION OF OUR CURRENCY

WITHDRAWN

fro/n active business, of the combinations' of capital to enhance the value of money* aad to obtain labor cheap, of low wages, long hours of labor, and of the attempts here and there to scale down the inward for their work to the pauper prices of Europe.

I am not he're today to invade the precincts of pffrty politics. The lines of thought I am pursuing have friends and enemies in botb the political parties

of the country, but they are the lines on which I have traveled thus far as your representative, and on which I will travel to the end. I have no new doctrines to declare to yon on the finances. I hold now, as I have ever held, that

A SCANT AND CONTRACTED CURRENCY

is the harvest of the capitalist, and the famine and ruin of the laborer, whether on the farm, or in any of the other branohes of industry. By express authority of constitution it is made the duty of Congress to coin the money of the American people, and the Supreme court of the United States has decided, and it is now the law, that the power thus given authorizes Congress to create apapfcr currency with the legaltender, debti&aying quality of the present greenback. You have to look to Congress foMhe coinage of your gold and of your i|lver, and for the creation and issuanej^of all your paper money in circulation Not a dollar of any kind or desoriptioff can exist for a single moment, or rea^h your handB in payment of a day's work, *toxcept by a direct and specific act of Congress, and yet men are found in both public and private life who sneeringly assume that money can always tie had by those willing to work, whether Congress has made a sufficient provision or not. If Congress foiled or refitted to declare and make the money 4 the oountry you would be as penniless as tile naked Fejees when first found oBttheir islands, It follows, therefore, twit the amount, as well as the quality, of the money furnished for the business and trade of the Amerioan people falls within the province and duty of Congress, and can be decided by no other body or tribunal. Will any one contend in the light of Amerioan history that there is at this time a sufficient volume of currency in this oountry to ensure business activity, ready markets for produce and steady, remunerative employment for labor? In 1870 the population of the United States was 38,568,871. Estimating our population no# according to the growth shown by the census from 1870 to 1880, it amounts to 57,355,783 nearly twenty millions greater than it was sixteen years ago. Such an enormous increase in the number of people, swarming into, and orowding all the channels of trade and industry, necessarily, and by every principle of political economy, \as well as of common sense, called for a proportionate inopase in the ourrency, on which alonf bnsiness can be transacted. Instead, h|*ever, of this wise policy the rever^f-has been pursued, the amount .of laopey ha# been diminished, itt- Cfocttlii^^^traoted, until the whole land a snort time ago was filled with the

WRECKS OF BROKEN FORTUNES AND

RUINED LIVES. Vp'-"

Under the horrible and inhuman policy of contraction, the business and labor interests of this country were blasted, withered, consumed, as if fierce, devouring flames had swept ov°r them, and they have not even to this day fully reoovered. In faot the evidences are about us on all hands that such scenes as we have witnessed are dangerously near again, and may return in an evil hour to smite and soourge the people. At this time there is not more than one half the money in circulation in the daily affairs of the country, in upholding the markets, and in employing labor that there was from 1866 to 1870. The results are declaring themselves. In the last four years of 1882, 1883,1884 and 1885, the unpaid liabilities of bankruptcies in the business circles of the United States have reached the enormous sum of $624,985,484. There is not now in actual circulation amongst the people enough money to pay these liabilities, nor to pay one years, wages lost to American laborers by the want of employment,

But it is not merely the lack of a sufficient volume of currency, authorized by Congress, and permitted by the bankers' association, of which the laboring masses have to complain. Under a vicious system of legislation a vast portion of the capital of the oountry is absorbed by the great corporations and monopolies, and is wholly withdrawn from the channels of daily trade, production, manufacture, and traffic wherein all your interests are' embraced. The capital concentrated in banking and discounting centers, swallowing the smaller interests of the world, as they are called, in the larger ones, contributes nothing to our material development, nor to the prosperity of the labor on which alone that development depends. It is often spoken of as dead capital, but this is not an entirely correct description. For all useful purposes itis dead, but as a curse it is endowed with unending vitality. It is idle in all the arts and ways of production, but it is active in feeding bountifully upon your daily toil. It does no work and gives employment to no one, but with incessant and vigilant voracity it eats. In all the open hours of the day, and in the silent, hidden watches of the night, with ah insatiate appetite, it eats interest,

)URS TAXES, AND NEVER CEASES TO CRY FOR MORE.

But few things can be more injurious to the cause of labor and the prosperity of business than the great, solid blocks of oapital now put on an interest-eating basis, rendering no assistance to trade or commeroe, and locked up in the safes and strong boxes of the United States, and of Europe. Nor is a surplus revenue in the United States Treasury, dormant and useless, a pleasant spectacle for workingmen whose interest it is for.

every possible dollar of our currency of all kinds, gold, silver, and paper, to remain in active circulation. No government can be justified in collecting more revenue than simply sufficient to meet its

NECESSARY EXPENSES WHEN ECONOMICAL

jjs liY ADMINISTERED.

AH taxation should be limited to the requirements of economical government, and wbere accumulation^ haVe been made in the Treasury in excess of this requirement they should be restored to activity and usefulness as speedily as possible. It is the active, busy dollar, passing from hand to hand, and performing the numerous and vital functions of trade, whioh brings a blessing to you and your households. This principle has guided me at every step of my public life, and because I have acted upon it I have always been assailed by certain interests, and a certain class of minds. I have voted liberal pensions to those who offered to die, and to the descendants of those who did die, for the Union I have voted to erect monuments in honor of the heroic dead I have sanctioned the policy of public buildings here and there in the various states for the transaction of government business I have sometimes voted for large appropriations to be expended in improving and keeping in navigable order the rivers and harbors of the oountry, thus maintaining the only lines of cheap transportation which can successfully compete with the freight pools and syndicates of the railroads. It needs no argument to show that every lodge of the Knights of Labor, every trades union, and every association of workingmen by whatever name known, would aside from every other consideration, be benefited by the success of the policy which has governed my aotion. I shall shrink from no conflict though I seek none, and if there are those who think they can profit themselves by assaulting me for my course on these and kindred questions, I shall not ask them to stay their hands. I have thus far been able to answer for myself directly to the people, and when I can do so no longer I hope to be laid down to rest forever here in your midst, and by the side of so many friends beloved who have go»e before.

Bnt there remains yet another great question whioh calls for mention in a meeting of laboring men, and which I have no desire to avoid. Taxation is as old as government on the earth, and it will never cease to be a cause of difference, diseussion, and complaint among men. Ifc has assumed many forms in the history of nations- It is time the government of the United States resorts to but two methods of taxation, and relies on them for revenues with which to meet its current expenses, and to pay pensions, and interest on the public debt, and such portion of the public debt itself as from time to tune fall due. With the operations of the internal revenue System you are not specially interested, but the principals and the workings of the tariff are of overwhelming importance to every branch of American industry. The great body of the commerce of the world, the articles of use which constitute the mighty exchanges of mankind and mark the progress of civilization, the means by which the charter of nations is carried on, all depend for their existence and for their value on the labor of human hands. Exports and imports traversing the high seas, passing the custom houses, and penetrating the boundaries of the various governments of the earth are all composed of objects and elements of nature which labor and skill alone have rendered desirable and valuable to the human family. Commerce id merchandise is simply commerce in the prints of labor. If there is competition in the markets of the world, the man who can undersell the other, is he who has paid the lowest wages for the production 6f his goods and wares. The price paid for work settles at once the price at which production can be sold. Without restrictions on trade, without duties on imports, without tariffs of any kind, the rivalries cf traffic would be between the various and widely different labor systems of the world."^On a basis of free trade the Amerioairlaborer mfist put his productions into the same market alongside, the productions of the scantily paid and half starved working people of Europe, of the coolies of Asia, and of the slaves of Cuba, and of South Amerioa, and aooept the same prices, or get no sale.

By a system of legislation as old as the first act of Congress under the Federal Constitution, this government, for the purpose of revenue, and with a view to the prosperity of American labor, has charged duties and levied taxes on goods manufactured or produced in foreign countries aud brought here for sale*, barter and exchange. The fair and judicious adjustment and

REVISION OF THIS SYSTEM OF TAXATION

have engaged the highest efforts of the best intellect of the Republic from its organization to the present time. I am in favor of a reduction of the revenues of this government they are greater than necessary for its economical administration. I quote, however, from a documentof great historical importance, and to which I, in common with a majority of the American people, am solemnly and distinctly committed, when I say: "But in making a reduction of taxes, it is not proposed to injure any domestic industries, but rather promote their healthy growth.

From the foundation of this government, taxes collected at the custom house have been the chief Bource of Federal revenue. Such they must continue to be. Moreover,

many industries have come to rely upon islation for successful continuance, so that any change of law must be at every step reol or the labor and capital thas involved. The process of reform must be subject in execution to this plain dictate of justice.^ All taxation should be limited to the requireihents of economical government The necessary rtduction in taxation can and must be effected without depriving American labor of

the ability to compete successfully .with foreign labor, and without imposing lower rates of duty than wiH be ample to cover any increased cost of prodnction which may exist in consequence of the higher rate of wages prevailing in this country."

It is here brcadly declared, as a fundamenta^%roposition among others^ Chat the rates of duty on

imports shall always be ample to oover the difference between the cheap labor. and consequently the cheap productions of foreign countries and the higher wages paid to the Amerioan laborer. This pledge, fairly and faithfully carried out in all the details of labor production is the protection, and all the protection, growing out of the tariff, needed by the working men of the United States.

It seems difficult for a certain class of mindsto comprehend how completely the entire production, trade, commeroe. and business of the world is a labor problem. I am tempted to illustrate. Let us take some near and familiar objeot. Look at that wagon. The owner paid for it, perhaps, $100. How much or that sum went to pay the work of men's hands, and how much to pay for original raw material before labor had given it any value? The wagon is aimply a combination of wood and iron, nothing more, except a small quantity of paint That wood once stood in the tree, and there it would have continued to stand, had not toil and skill taken ife in charge. The labor that out it down, sawed it into logs of proper length, split it into pieces of the desired shape and size,- or hauled it to a saw mill where it was-made into lumber, first re-1 deemed it from its useless and comparatively worthless condition. The iron you see in the wagon was originally^ g: found imbedded in the earth utterly.?.^ without value until touched by the hand of industry. From the time it was I dug out with pick and shovel, until itg became finished iron it represented!',/ nothing more nor less than the value o£' the labor bestowed upon it. And when the iron and wood were thus made ready to be wrought into a wagon, skilled! mechanics were called to frame and join and link and bolt them together.^As it stands there now finished ard|" complete, it contains perhaps $5 worth? of raw material, if it is possible to es— timate such a value, and $95 wortn of human labor.

If you analyze the clothing you wear you will reach substantially the same w., result. Labor takes the wool from the sheep's back and carries it through every process until it becomes an article of value and of.n^ceseity^ ., J^he,f^tton plant is the

OFFSPRING OF HUMAN TOIL

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OUF

JggtV "r-."

from the very beginning^ and when Its. wonderful andjj^ beautiful production matures, busy: fingers pick it from its boll and start itPt^ on its long and interesting journey* towards usefulness. We may watch/ the process of ginning, carding, reeling^ and winding, spinning, spooling andTf' weaving and at every step we simply find an additional value given to the raw material by additional toil. When you buy a suit of clothes, therefore, at least nine tenths of what you pay is the price of labor employed from first to last in its manufacture.

Other illustrations almost without limit could be added, but they will suggest themselves to every thinking mind, and it will be readily perceived why the great labor interests of all countries are so sensitive to every movement in business circles, and to every measure of legislation affecting prices in the mar-", kets of the world.

Another point, however, arises in this connection which is of deep and vital interest to the laboring and producing, classes of the United States at this time.

WE HEAR OF OVER-PRODUCTION

as one of the prominent reasons for the stagnation and depression in trade which we witness now on all hands. Over-production does not mean that you work too much for your own good, but it means that you, or those who employ you, cannot sell all you produce. Mar-' kets, markets at home and abroad, are-. the great and crying need of American: labor at the present juncture of affairs. That policy of government which will most successfully establish markets at home, and also open up channels of trade with foreign nations,thus furnishing markets abroad for the sale of American productions, will be justly hailed as the result of a wise and comprehensive statesmanship. In my judgment every opportunity should be embraced

TO ENLARGE OUR COMMERCE

and more especially with neighboring nations on the American continent. There is a trade in South America, the West Indies, and Mexico, which can be obtained for our great industries by but small effort and the exercise of the plainest principles of political economy

The report of the South American Commission, sent to find a key to the problem, bears evidence on every page that the markets in that portion of the Western Hemisphere are waiting and anxious to receive all that we can send them, provided only the means are furnished to reach them. In reading that report I find the merchants of South Amerioan countries almost unanimous

Continued on Eighth Page,