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About The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923 | View Entire Issue (May 24, 1907)
"&$? JWf TW8?m$m$S Pw icwtx'?'? Tm ,- MW?3iSBiw,OTiwrr imw The Commoner. WILLIAM J. BRYAN, EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR " VOL. 7. No. 19. Lincoln, -Nebraska, May 24, 1907. Whole Number 331. CONTENTS ..- LET THE PEOPLE RULE; A PALPABLE HIT. OPPOSING OKLAHOMA STATEHOOD. ADVERTISING CONFIDENCE GAMES. FRIENDS AND FRIENDS. MR. RYAN OF NEW YORK. THE OHIO SITUATION. MR. HARRINGTON ON PUBLIC OWNER- . -SHIP. - LETTERS FROM THE PEOPLE' WASHINGTON LETTER COMMENT ON CURRENT TOPICS HOME DEPARTMENT WHETHER COMMON OR NQT NEWS OF THE WEEK A PALPABLE HIT In an editorial entitled, "Wages Delusion," the Louisville Courier-Journal makes an inter esting answer to a republican newspaper that claimed that the cotton mill operators in North Germany get only $191.04 a year, while in 'Americathoy get fc 3.0 4. 5 7. -WWMTfie Courier-Journal says: -"It looks a lit tleT queer to see arguments for protection made on the ground that it gives our laborers $304.57 a year. There are 313 working days in a year, barring holidays with pay, so that the wage is less than a dollar a day. Now a iarm laborer at $20 a month and board gets $240 in money, and the board would, even at a low rate, bring the total up as high as that of the cotton-mill operator. It is well known that the farm laborer has no protection, and it is hard to see how the cotton-mill operator gets any benefit from it. Laborers in many unprotected employments get more than a dollar a day. Moreover, the owners of cotton mills import laborers free from foreign countries. If the protective tariff makes prices of commodities high and we know it does why .is there not a tariff on imported labor? That is the logic of protection to labor by a tariff, if it is to be done at all, but the fact of it is that it is not intended to vmake labor high. The men who make this argument in order to get labor support are the same men who import foreign labor to keep down the prices they must pay to laborers at home. They are the men who sell to customers in America steel rails for $28 a ton, and sell them abroad at $20 or $2 a, making a big profit on an article which confessedly costs about ?16. The argu ment that protection makes high wages is a ridiculous fallacy. They have always been higher in America than in Europe. But in Europe the highest wages are paid in free-trade England, and the countries where, they are lowest have the most rigid systems of protection." OOOO, . THE MONEY MARKET "" The Pittsburg Dispatch complains of the "tightness of the money market" and offers 3 proof the fact that the cities of Pittsburg and Al legheny offered four per cent bonds aggregating 1 ,800,000 and did not receive a bid. Then it pro ceeds' to Maine the raituonds for this state of af fairs. A day or two before these bonds were offered and no takers in sight, the state of Ne braska went into the open market and bought a big lot of Idaho state bonds in competition with eastern bidders. The state of Nebraska has also bought Massachusetts bonds recently, these In vestments being for the state school fund. Per haps it is- not a "tightness of the money market" that Is responsible for'the failure of the two Penn sylvania cities to get a bid. , , - . -. , ' , . -j' m THE PLEA OF THE PARTISAN "LET THE PEOPLE RULE" Mr. Bryan's Speech at Banquet Give n by People's Lobby at Newark, New Jqrsey, May 1, 1007 Mr."Chafrman, Ladies and Gentlemen: I shall speak until half past one A "Voice As long as you like. Mr. Bry,api I am informed that you have to take the cars over hero at half past one A Voice Or walk home. Mr. Bryan And I do not want to talk after the cars leave. " ', I would thank you for waiting so long, and would appreciate it as-a compliment to me if I did not know that you have been entertained by speeches during this long wait and hav thus been well repaid for the waiting. I am very glad, indeed, to take part in a non-partisan demonstration of this kind. I have so many opportunities to be partisan that I wel come an opportunity to be non-partisan, al though I am not sure that I need to make much change In my speech. I find it very difficult to be partisan now even when I want to-be, for if I make a stralght 'out democratic speech, the first thing I know the president makes one of the same kind and then the subject immediately becomes non partisan. I was at a banquet at Washington two years ago last January where the president was the chief guest. It was a banquet given by the Gridiron clubhand that club, as you know, is made up of newspaper men and they are the brightest men we have in the country. The Gridiron club banquet is, I think, the most de lightful thing of the kind in the world. It is the custom at such banquets to spring jokes upon the guests and at this banquet the news paper men were joking the president about what he was taking from the democratic platform, and when it came my time to speak referred to the matter also. I said that I had not felt so good in Washington for years as I did then, to find that things that I had been advocating and had been called an anarchist for advocating had been made, respectable by being advocated in high places; I enumerated several things that bad been taken from our platform, but assured the banqueters that I did not speak of these things in a complaining way. Our platform was made for use and If we can not get a chance to use it,. wo are glad to have any one use it who will. It rejoices me to see our opponents joining w,ith .us In the support of these reforms. It re joices me so much that if I can not take back what I have said about the republicans I do not feel like saying it again. In fact, I am about In the position of the young fellow who courted his girl for a year before he had the courage to" propose to her; one evening he made bold to fell her that he loved her and to ask her to marry him. She was a very frank sort of a girl and replied: "Why, Jim, I have been loving you for all" these many months and I have just been waiting for you to tell me' so that I could tell you."x Jim was overcome with delight; in the fulness of his joy, he went out and, looking up at the stara, exclaimed: "O Lord, I hain't got nothin' agin nobody." That is the way I am beginning to feel, and it is mighty nice to feel that way after so many exciting campaigns. I am glad to come over into New Jersey and join with these democrats and republicans who are more interested in carrying out an idea than they are in winning a barren victory for any party. I am glad that there is a contest In the 'republican party between the reformer and . the standpatter. It "is a good sign and I can , fti,! H ,,v ?rft Ma hMiummtJm&-nfrMbHj&,