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billion dollars. To be exact, the sales amount
ed to $3,764,000,000.
Now, if we admit the right of the persons en
gaged in agricultural work to the same wages
paid in manufacturing industries (about $478,
on tlie average to each laborer), then we have,
the astonishing result that the farmer .fell
short by hundreds of millions of dollars, of
clearing enough to give themselves good
wages!
Does The Business Magazine consider these
conditions healthy or just? Is it right for the
Government to use its irresistible power so
much to the advantage of some, so much to
the disadvantage of others?
Nobody objects to the earning of legitimate
profits by manufacturers, railroads and banks,
but who can defend so glaring a wrong as
these official reports uncover?
There are twice as many laborers employed
in agricultural pursuits as we find engaged in
manufacturing. There are five million farms,
and but half a million factories; yet here we
have one manufacturing combine clearing
net earnings of $39,000,000, in three months,
when the five million farms, and the ten mil
lion farm workers, cannot earn enough to give
themselves good wages.
How does The Business Magazine manage
to extract comfort and satisfaction out of this
state of things?
Well, for one thing, it says that wage-earn
ers in the iron and steel works will get $6,000,-
000 more in wages in 1907 than in 1906.
God help us all! Here it is again—the old,
old fable that the Capitalist makes laws in his
own favor, in order that he may pay big wages
to Labor!
In the first place, that increase of wages—
six millions of dollars —must be divided
around among nearly three hundred thousand,
employes. This pitiable sum of about twenty
dollars apiece is barely enough to cover the
increased cost of living which has crept up on
all of us. Therefore, while Protection ap
peared to be giving an advance in wages of
twenty dollars to each employe, it took the
money away from him, by advancing the price
of those things which he was necessarily com
pelled to buy.
But again, it is a frightfully unjust thing to
say that the million agricultural laborers must
work rive million farms for less than good
wages in order that five million fellow’ crea
tures, working in factories, shall not only keep
the good wages they were already earning but
get an advance of twenty dollars each.
And again, what shall we say of a legisla
tive policy which, by granting a monopoly
to the iron and steel Capitalists, gave Carne
gie, Frick, Schwab, Morgan, Phipps and Corey
the leverage which enabled them to float ficti
tious capitalization to the amount of five hun
dred million dollars?
The Common Stock had absolutely no real
value at all when the Steel Trust was formed,
rt represented no actual investment of dollars.
“Steel Common” was just ink and paper and
the Privilege to tax the unprivileged.
Now, however, the breath of life has been
breathed into it. The Common Stock is valua
ble—and will continue to be valuable, and may
soon be going at its full face value, if the man
aging clique of the Trust wants it to do so.
In other words, the Steel Trust, owing to its
advantages under the law, can put full value
into five hundred million dollars’ of mere pa
per.
But the farmers, living on the firm earth,
and producing such crops as were never seen
before, cannot make wages!
The Business Magazine asks, “How has
ihe Steel -Trust hurt the farmer?” Answer
ing its own question, it says that the farmer is
not hurt, for the reason that he can buy the
Oliver Chilled Plow at the same price that it
sold for before the Trust was formed.
Suppose that The Business Magazine con’d
demonstrate that the Steel Trust was net
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
gouging the people worse than they were be
ing gouged by the separate iron and steel
plants of which the rust is composed—what
good would such a demonstration do? How
would it answer Mr. Watson’s proposition that
Protection enables the Manufacturers to rob
the farmer?
One large leech may not suck more blood
from the body than a dozen small leeches were
drawing—but what relief is that to the man
who loses the blood?
What Mr. Watson contends for is that the
Principle of the thing is all wrong. One in
dustry should not be built up into such enor
mous profits at the expense of another which
is allowed no profits at all. If the Steel Trust
and the Cotton manufacturers can afford to
compete with “the Pauper labor of Europe,”
in Europe, why can’t they compete with it on
this side of the Big Water? We never hear
the last of this mythical “Pauper labor of Eu
rope” with which our manufacturers cannot
be expected to compete, yet The Business
Magazine has to acknowledge the corn and
confess that our manufacturers invade the
markets of Europe and undersell the man who
hires “the Pauper Labor of Europe.”
Now tell us how that is done! Our manu
facturers cither lose or make on goods sold
abroad —which is it ?
If they make on the goods sold abroad, then
we home-folks are entitled to just as good
prices as are given to the foreigners.
If they lose on the goods sold abroad, who
makes good the loss?
Our manufacturers are nobody’s fools. They
would not continue to sell goods abroad at a
loss.
1 he I’ouest truth is, that they can undersell
the foreigner in his own market and still have
a profit—hut a smaller one than in the Ameri
can m.uk.'t, where the Protective System, giv
ing him a monopoly, enables him to rob his
own flesh and blood.
n h n
The President and Pldrion "Butler.
The town of Cordele, Ga., is an up-to-date
little city but, like several other little South
ern cities, it lias a daily paper edited bv a man
compared to whom Rip Van Winkle was a
get-there hustler.
Just wade through this extract from The
Cordele Daily Pest:
“Populist Rally to Republicans.
“Washington, D. C. May 7. —From all ac
counts the Democrats are not to have the sup
port of the Populists at the next presidential
election. President Roosevelt has captured
that crowd, lock, stock and barrel. The deal
was made through the Chairman of the Popu
list National Committee, Marion Butler, of
North Carolina. Butler, by the grace of a
combination of Populists and Republicans,
represented North Carolina in the Senate of
the United States for six years. The Pres
ident has commissioned Butler his ambassa
dor extraordinary, minister plenipotentiary to
the South to gather in delegates favorable to
him in the next convention of the Republican
party. He has entire charge of the Southern
situation, and all Republicans, Populists and
Socialists visiting Washington for the purpose
of pledging loyalty to Roosevelt are referred
to Butler, who receives their manifestations
of loyalty, records their pledges and measures
their strength, all of which is carefully noted
and laid before the “doer of all things great,”
in his most seclusive chamber at regular in
tervals.
There is little surprise in Washington polit
ical circles over the action of Butler in turn
ing the Populist organization over to the Pres
ident, as it has been known for many months
that Mr. Roosevelt’s extreme Populistic and
Socialistic policies have outstripped the fond
est desire of the veterans in the cause of ca
lamity.”
All things considered, The Jeffersonian con
siders the above one of the most delicious mor
sels, in the way of journalistic creation, that
it ever tasted.
In the first place, Marion Butler is not chair
man of the National Committee of the Peo
ple’s Party.
In the second place, Marion Butler is not a
member of the Populist National Commit
tee.
In the third place, Marion Butler is not a
member of any sort of Populist Committee.
In the fourth place, Marion Butler is not a
member of the People’s Party.
Tn the fifth place, Marion Butler is an jput
and out Republican, and has been so for sev
eral years.
In the sixth place at the time Marion Butler
was Chairman of the Populist National Com
mittee—in 1896—he sold out to the Demo
crats, and not to the Republicans.
In the seventh place, Marion Butler, when a
Populist, made deals with the Republicans
in state politics, in North Carolina. Ready
at all times to sell himself and to betray anv
friend, he nevertheless did business upon the
idea of selling to the Democrats in national
affairs and to the Republicans in local affairs.
He played the game so well that he rose from
the honorable poverty of a country editor into
the tainted wealth of a national political pros
titute—his riches being augmented occasion
ally by impartially swindling the Government
and the Indians in lobbying mysterious clauses
into appropriation bills.
There isn’t a Populist in the South who does
not loathe the very name of Marion Butler.
He could no more “deliver” the Populist vote
to Roosevelt, or Taft, or any one else, than he
could change his nature and become an honest
man.
As to the statement that Populists and So
cialists are hurrying to Washington to pledge
their support to Roosevelt, The Jeffersonian
can only gasp and ask somebody for a fan.
The assertion makes us have that lainty feel
ing—don’t you know. The idea of the fol
lowers of Debs and Moyer and Haywood and
Pettibone “visiting Washington for the pur
pose of pledging loyalty to Roosevelt,” whose
characterization of “our brothers,” Debs and
Moyer and Haywood, as “undesirable citi
zens” has caused every Socialist in the Unit
ed States to get up on his hind legs and howl —
strikes us as being a climax in journalism that
can only be described as dee-licious.
What a luxury it must be to the good peo
ple of Cordele to have a daily paper equal to
stunts of that kind! What a privilege it must
be to see the editor walk the streets daily and
to feel that while he might have settled in a
bigger place, he chose to consecrate his intel-
Ictual powers to the illumination of Cordele.
Chew on that last line, again:
“Mr. Roosevelt’s extreme Populistic and So
cialistic policies have outstripped the fond
est desire of the veterans in the cause 01 ca
lamity.”
Assuming, as it is but fair to do, that Mr.
Roosevelt reads the Cordele papers regularly,
we think it is up to him to write a card which
will pacify and soothe our unhappy journalis
tic brother and, at the same time, allay the
apprehensions of those who might otherwise
honestly believe that he has become an ex
treme Populist, and has become an extreme
Socialist, and has outstripped the fondest de
sires of the veterans in the cause of calamity.
r, R H
Editorial Note.
The marshalling of the lobbyists for the
railway and other interests in Atlanta in July
and August will be a sight to seeL Those
who cannot go to Jimtown to see Ihe expo
sition can find entertainment and many sur
prises by watching the cannibals and pvthons
do their bloody stunts in the side tents near
the Georgia legislature,
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